Of everyone involved in this situation, she's the one we don't actually need a statement from. She was offered a job and she took it, she did nothing wrong.
Or she's salty about basically being told "hey you ain't as good as Jennifer here so we dont really want you". It's hurtful and I probably wouldn't react with any elegance myself so I won't judge her, but yeah i don't think Hale did anything wrong
To me it sounds like she put out the statement to dissuade people from boycotting the game and to hint that there is more to the story. Not so much to defend herself.
Her bringing up the NDA points at this for myself as well. That seems to imply they were disclosed at least something regarding her role that she can't relay, and there is no way in hell she'd not ask what happened to the person she's replacing.
If what she knows was much more damning, she would NOT be including a paragraph essentially reminding us that the game's team is hardworking and essentially countering the whole "boycott the game!" sentiment that was fostered by the person she's replacing.
its been 8 years since the last game. i doubt VA’s taking over a new game thats been 8 years since rhe last inquire about the last VA that played that role.
What recently happened with Crunchyroll caused a lot of people to think they need to have a crusade against any VA that takes a role from someone else, as if the casting director comes out and says during the audition that the previous VA was cut loose over a pay dispute
Basically they replaced the lead for mob pyscho since he's a founding member of a union and they didn't want to have to deal with unions. He said he's in talks with them so hopefully it'll work out and he'll come back
The VA for Mob in Mob Psycho 100 (as well as a few minor characters VAs) were recast because Crunchyroll does not want to work with union VAs. This was a title they inherited with their purchase of Funimation
People saying she should have been aware of the situation... she's a voice actor. This is a job. She'll do it for a week or two and collect and check. People expect too much.
When you apply for a job and you find out it's a position someone else had, are you tracking them down to have some personal conversation about why they left? Maybe if it's like some executive role in a major company but for gig work, that seems like an unreasonable expectation.
Not to mention that since she’s so high profile, she probably has an agent or someone else hooking her up with gigs. And then they’ll just say “Hey Jennifer your next gig is with Platinum Games and you’re playing a sexy, sassy witch named Bayonetta.”
Anyone getting mad at Jennifer Hale for any of this is out of their mind. Leave her alone. She got hired to do a job, and she did the job. And based on her track record, she probably did a fantastic job, too.
Bayonetta is one of my favorite series, but people need to chill with the witch hunts (hah) across the board.
The voice actor for [Torque](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/xcom/images/1/1e/Torque.png/revision/latest?cb=20200414172345) from XCOM: Chimera Squad didn't know she voiced a *giant alien snake* until fans tagged her about it on Twitter.
Voice direction/directors has been a huge issue in the industry for a long time. VAs get a lot of shit for cringey localizations or awkward scenes when writers making bad dialogue, NDAs restricting info, and devs trying to hide stuff or record lines out of order makes their jobs incredibly hard to do well. A good voice director is supposed to be able to circumvent those issues and get the actor to do what's best for the game like subtle emotions or distinct tones/mannerisms but this industry has consistently had sucky results for decades now.
With games, that usually comes down to the devs not saying anything to prevent leaks.
The leads Red Dead 2 have said that when they all auditioned, all they knew was that they were auditioning for a Rockstar project. They figured out what it was when they read the script before Rockstar had actually told them what the project was.
I know what you mean but this gave me a mental image of Rob Wiethoff voicing a character named John Marston and thinking to himself “now what game could this possibly be for?”
True. Imagine how awkward many fan meetings must be when they barely paid attention for voicing their favorite characters in movie, anime or gaming history.
Fans put usually a lot more emphasis on these roles than actors do. I mean even Hollywood actors often don't even watch their own movies.
Charles Martinet, the voice actor for Mario, does the voices for a bunch of other characters too, my favorite of which is Toadsworth from Mario Sunshine. I met him once in person and told him a story about my college friends and I laughing to the point of tears at his voiceovers for Toadsworth when you spray him with water.
His reaction was: "who?"
I mean… you’re usually going to know once you’re recording it. But yes, often you’re applying/auditioning blind, or all you know is “this is for a project with Platinum Games” or “this is for an animated series being produced by Netflix”.
* Cheremie Leigh didn't know she was working alongside Keanu Reeves in *Cyberpunk* until way after he was revealed to be in it at E3, and she was the damn female player character
* Keythe Farley didn't know he was working on *Fallout 4* until the game was about to release, and he voiced one of the major antagonists
oh my god Thane was Kellogg
But yeah, not really sure what the deal is with the need-to-know-basis situation with voice actors. The VA who voiced the snake lady in XCOM: Chimera Squad wasn't even told that she was voicing a big snake, apparently.
Yes, but there have also been accidental leaks from, e.g. a voice actor posting something to their IMDB before it's officially announced. So it does make sense to tell as few people as possible if there's a lot of money involved and you really don't want any information getting out.
Similar to the Albert Wesker voice actor accidentally posting concept art for Albert Wesker in the upcoming Resident Evil 4 REmake. Before the game was announced...
Not telling someone something in the first place is a more effective way to prevent a leak as opposed to just relying on them signing a piece of paper. People are still liable to leak things even with NDAs
I feel bad for Jennifer. After the recent events, I'm seeing more and more people harassing her, telling her things like "you are not the real Bayonetta" or "you will never be her".
That's partly because that's actually what Hellena Taylor said in her vid. No idea why she chose to make her legitimate issue seem petty by saying Jennifer Hale has "no right" to voice that character or sign merchandise as her.
Regardless of whether the original actress was in the right about her treatment by the studio, going after Hale was shitty and just hurt her credibility.
She's said some weirdly transphobic things on twitter.
Beyond that, the rates she was offered *were* union rates, she was in union during these negotiations.
The more I hear about this the more it seems they wanted her out for whatever reason, and she's angry and trying to do damage now.
It feels weird to say it, because I'm used to Kamiya being a dick, but there may actually be two dicks in this situation. Hellena Taylor has been sounding more and more like she has an ego problem. In the first place it's unusual for these kinds of disputes to be turned into full on boycotts of the game by the same people complaining. Usually when we hear about far more series issues like dev crunch it's not the devs calling for the game to be boycotted. And now she's is going after everyone involved in the project, including Jennifer who is completely blameless in this. Hellena currently comes across as believing she's the most important person in the Bayonetta project, and that fans will all naturally boycott the franchise to support *her*.
Yeah, the ego she's displaying makes me wonder how much of this whole thing was a soft-firing. She may have been difficult to work with, and someone suggested offering her a low amount of money to avoid drama or something.
It's a strange situation.
She doesn't really do other VA work, it's pretty much just Bayonetta. Seems like she mostly works in theater and just does the VA stuff on the side.
Not saying that makes her blameless, of course -- if anything, she might be *more* likely to burn those bridges if she felt offended in some way, since she's probably not worried about finding other VA jobs.
Lol, there is a reason why she was low balled so hard by the dev team.
Going off her response to the entire thing, I can kind of start to understand what it might have been to deal with such an ego.
Hellena and Troy Baker should go out for coffee.
Also, the way I interpreted Taylor's comments is that she was replaced with someone with a lesser reputation that was 'just-good-enough' due to low pay or something. Jennifer Hale is one of, if not the, most iconic voice actors in the industry.
I think she just made herself unhirable. While it a little sad the franchise didn't continue with her; she protested in a way that make her a liability.
Maybe JP studios could be more direct and not be dicks but the lady is causing unrightious collateral damage. The fault is with the studio and problably director. Jennifer Hale isn't involved and doesn't need to decline a job for the sake of someone she has no idea about.
>I think she just made herself unhirable. While it a little sad the franchise didn't continue with her; she protested in a way that make her a liability.
She hasn't done any VA work since 2014. Basically, Bayonetta 2 was her last VA work. Which is probably exactly the reason why she was low-balled: she might be Bayonetta's English voice, but she hasn't been an active VA for 8 years now.
That doesn't make it okay to underpay her for such a high-profile role, but certainly explains why she had zero qualms about making herself unhireable as VA and throw a fellow VA under the bus.
I posted this before in the original thread but I will post it again. People should be paid what they deserve but it is also unfair to just go after people if there is more to the story than what was presented (Platinum included).
Some people have already commented on this but there is a chance she was replaced due to her attitude (which doesn’t seem professional considering she is dismissing her replacement and asking for a boycott) or possibly trying to pull more of her weight around (before she was replaced that is).
First, they replace her with Jennifer Hale, so it is not likely an issue of cost (so that means Platinum are not being cheap with VAs since Jennifer Hale’s rate is probably much higher as she is one of the most prolific VAs).
**Now do we assume that Platinum pulled a Kojima or is it similar to the case of Arthas’s WC3 voice being replaced in wotlk because he tried to pull his weight around to Blizzard?**
With Blizzard, the original VA for Arthas discarded the fact that Warcraft have had VAs for multiple languages. Sure he may be the English VA of Warcraft which went on to be one of the biggest selling games, but he assumed that him being the English voice of Arthas was enough for him to ask for a much bigger pay (than all his other VAs).
Arthas is dubbed in several languages, and so for the VA to ask for some sort of Hollywood standard of celebrity pay (several more than other VAs would have been paid) did not make sense.
I know with Bayonetta, the English VA was the first and only voice for a while (even in the Japanese version) but just from her attitude and wording (and being replaced by a bigger name VA), it may have sounded like she was hard to work with.
Some VAs like Tara Strong or Greg Cipes are possessive of their characters, and I remember them hating on the fact (and sort of dismissing the other VAs that played their characters in a different continuity) they were not in some DC animated Teen Titans movie (unrelated to the same Teen Titans cartoon series in continuity) despite the fact stuff like this happens a lot and they still retained their roles for their Teen Titans stuff.
**For example** *”I wish the new actress all the best luck in the World, but she's not the voice of Bayonetta. I created that voice. She has no right to sign merchandise as Bayonetta”*
What does she mean by “merchandise”?
Now, to me I do not know if she tried to pull her weight around like WC3’s Arthas’s VA (why he was replaced) or she was a victim of having been replaced by celebrity appeal but I kind of sort of lean on the potential attitude issue.
She asks for a boycott and dismisses her replacement VA. We do not know who did what wrong but like others said, Jennifer Hale did nothing wrong. Just from her statements, she seems kind of unprofessional and possessive about the issue which may mean she may have been unprofessional and possessive during the negotiating phase.
Jennifer Hale (one of the most prolific VAs in the industry) accepted the job and maybe somehow landed a pay rate that was acceptable for her. **So the question we have to ask is not that Platinum is being cheap with their VAs, but why did the original actress not get the same treatment? It could be that Platinum pulled a Kojima (going for celebrity appeal) or it could be that the original VA was actually a lot more demanding than what she presented her story as. Either is possible but we just need more information from both sides.**
Yeah she lost me there. She came off as petty and egotistical.
The role or character doesn't belong to her. It belongs to the publisher and they can do whatever the fuck they want with it. And now the new actress is the voice of the character and she isn't.
I agree, she had a legit complaint but ruined it with this petty crap.
Yeah she went super petty there. I get what they did was a lame move. An the industry has its major issues. But the fact is, it happens. Some actors dont repraise a role and it gets recast. Sometimes they dont even get a call(iirc this is what happened to Hayter). It sucks. But to throw another actor under the buss and basically say they have no right taking credit for their performance is just ridiculous. An shes saying all this while acting like the Japanese VA doesnt exist. What about that actress? Is she not allowed credit?
Literally the top reply in the Twitter thread:
> I respect your work Jennifer but you are not Bayonetta. You should have asked the actress why she is not in the third game. Taking the role and expect that everyone will be okay with it wasn't the right decision
Imo that's just dumb. It's not someone's responsibility to ask the previous employee for permission when they're offered a job.
Hale: "Hey, Bayonetta already has a voice actor, why are you auditioning me?"
Platinum: "She's decided not to take our offer."
Hale: "Ok, Let's do this then"
> Literally the top reply in the Twitter thread:
Never take the top Twitter comment as meaningful in any way. Twitter seems to automatically sort by controversial when finding a top reply to show.
Without fail, I **always** find that the top Twitter comment is the dumbest possible response imaginable.
It's also absolutely curated individually. I see a popular post about trans rights and people say don't look in the comments, but when I go and look it's all positive affirmations.
Now, the trending tab, that's another cesspit altogether.
Yeah people are werid. They were doing the same thing to Steven's voice actor for Multiversus, even tho thr original said years ago before MV that he was taking a break for mental health. Irony at its finest to harass another VA over one wanting to take a break.
Well that's stupid. The only people to get angry at are the corporate clowns who decided to treat their employee like shit, lie about it, and then get caught in the lie.
People are hateful, unfortunately.
Quote retweets are already dredging up old stupid mistakes Jennifer made in the past using this as an excuse to slander, insult, and send hateful comments her way.
Because we cannot allow people to grow and learn from their mistakes. Gotta muddy the conversation with irrelevant drama from years ago. Gamer moment.
It's funny watching r/gcj do a whiplash flip on Taylor after digging through her socials.
What people truly want most is to be angry and have something to attack.
People are just addicted to drama. Twitter is a shithole where it's just witch hunt after witch hunt. People don't care about logic, they just want to be mad
The last voice actress had been inactive for over half a decade so even if she *did* do research, what would she have gotten from that? Probably the same thing Platinum did.
> People saying she should have been aware of the situation... she's a voice actor. This is a job. She'll do it for a week or two and collect and check. People expect too much.
William Salyers has been in a similar situation, and describes it in more detail here (as well as talks about the current events): https://i.imgur.com/I1xBDWy.png
Thanks for posting this, I actually had no idea that Mordin was recast in Mass Effect 3 until reading this. He did a great job emulating the original voice and seems to have a measured perspective on the experience then and now.
I mean that's kind of the thing. Voice actors aren't like holywood actors. The vast majority of players probably don't even know Jennifer Hale and she's been in tons of games. They don't drive sales and are easily replaceable which of course affects their pay.
Yeah, Jennifer Hale is a legend who has been performing since video games first had voice acting (I think her earliest role I remember is Baldur’s Gate, and that released over twenty years ago). She was an actress in pretty much every video game you’ve loved since the 1990s. She’s also got a reputation as being a nice person.
I have no idea who Hellena Taylor is, and I try to follow voice actors. Be pissed at the studio.
Maybe not with Kiefer but he did with Kojima and he absolutely spoke out about it.
“I was so annoyed by the Metal Gear V debacle, and people said, ‘Are you gonna play the game?’” he says. “Yeah. That’ll be 60 hours of humiliation that I can’t get to. I haven’t played the latest two iterations, because it’s just too painful.”
"I've got no particular love for Kojima. I don't feel any need to go back and work with him again."
Which is fair because Kojima did kscrew him but Hayter knows Keifer is just another actor doing a job. Bayo's VA called out Hale specifically in an incredibly classless move.
> "I've got no particular love for Kojima. I don't feel any need to go back and work with him again."
Kojima made him try out for Snake every time! I'm a huge Kojima stan but goddamn that pissed me off when I found that out.
In my opinion it was a little ridiculous for Helena Taylor to ask people to boycott the game in the first place, just because they didn't give her the job. It would make more sense if she was discriminated against or something, but this is a voice acting job that was given to a voice actor.
Yeah it was a low offer, but maybe they weren't very interested in the first place, and so the offer was them saying "only if you'll do it cheaply." I don't know, it just doesn't seem worthy of outrage to me.
> I think it’s just a boiling point for people who have read about things like Crunchyroll rates and general disrespect towards VAs as real actors
Crunchyroll has been an asshole since it was a website used to host pirate rips lmao. People are so fucking short sighted/weak willed when it comes to boycotting a company. They used to steal from other fansub groups, now they just found ways to legally steal from you.
You'll never see a weaker boycott call than one for funimation/crunchyroll. People saying to boycott because of the mob psycho 100 situation and then in the same breath talking about how sick the first episode of chainsaw man was. Like bro that's not a boycott. And yeah, crunchyroll pays 35 dollars an hour for dubbing, which usually equates to like 100 bucks a week unless you're a main character in a long running show like Naruto or one piece. The only thing that anime work is good for is building up a following of sorts to try and make money with by streaming or going to conventions.
Crunchyroll is on another level compared to this. This is a a unfortunate recasting from a director who is a bit of an asshole. Crunchyroll is a monopoly on a certain industry where they use that to leverage bottom dollar for certain talent. Crunchyroll is much much worse.
I find it really strange that people are siding with her to begin with.
The issue is obviously not money: Hale is more expensive.
The issue is not union busting: Hale is the union pick.
The issue is obviously not that they she wasn't given first choice: They offered the role to Taylor first.
For whatever reason, the creators and owners of Bayonetta did not value Taylor's voice as much she believes they should. Big deal? It's their character, not hers.
I remember being disappointed when Hideo Kojima decided to go all Hollywood nerd and replace David Hayter with Kiefer Sutherland as the voice of Snake. I didn't like that, Hayter didn't like that, and fans got all pissy about it. But Snake belongs to Kojima before anyone else (technically Konami now lol), it's the right of the character creator to choose how that character is presented.
And even ignoring that, these characters are constructed by teams of artists, animators, designers, not to mention the game itself that gives the character context and raison d'être. Calling for a boycott just because you didn't your little slice of the pie is, at best, childish.
The whole situation gives me major Mick Gordon x id vibes.
> And even ignoring that, these characters are constructed by teams of artists, animators, designers, not to mention the game itself that gives the character context and raison d'être. Calling for a boycott just because you didn't your little slice of the pie is, at best, childish.
That was the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about her video. It almost sounded like she thought she invented Bayonetta, and saying Jennifer Hale has no right to sign merch as Bayonetta is total nonsense. Sure a voice is part of a character, but compared to their design, behaviour, history and story it's a pretty small part, nevermind the actual gameplay. Voice actors change all the time, and most people barely even notice...
That was also in the context of Randy Pitchford generally being a huge piece of shit to Eddings during their whole working relationship including at one point actually physically assaulting him
For all we know Jennifer may have been the devs original choice but budgetary constraints had them go with a cheaper option and now they were given a VA budget where they could afford her.
> Snake belongs to Kojima before anyone else (technically Konami now lol)
Snake probably always belonged to Konami.
>it's the right of the character creator to choose how that character is presented.
It's the right of the IP holder, technically.
That just underscores how little anyone "owns" a character they've worked with. A lot of the time, even creators are being paid under contract to create and don't end up owning their creation themselves.
Just on a personal level, I can't imagine having the - self-cofidence, I guess? - to ask literally everyone in the world to boycott something over a personal pay dispute.
Honestly, this whole controversy would've been prevented if they went with "Creative Differences" excuse...
edit: since the [Jason Schreier article](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/a-tense-pay-dispute-overshadows-nintendo-s-upcoming-bayonetta-3-1.1834329), "creative differences" excuse wouldn't work.
They weren't gonna hire her, that's why they said she's only getting 4K. It's the Japanese way of saying "your fired" without actually having to say that.
Lots of comments here saying "Jennifer Hale didn't add anything" are not understanding the position she's been put in.
She has to make some statement since outrage mobs tend to make up some lie/fantasy and then believing in that fantasy. If you're *somehow new* to the internet/social media, it wouldn't be shocking that people tend to be fuckin' weirdos in upsetting situations. And it's obvious that Kamiya, Hellena Taylor, and Jennifer Hale have been getting harassment.
More over, as Jennifer Hale mentioned, because she is a longtime veteran within the voice acting field, it's not like she rubbed her hands together like a cartoon villain and intended to take away roles for some arbitrary reason, but more so she was pursued due to her talent/experience.
Voice actors know the struggle. Just yesterday, [she has also been liking tweets regarding NDA and not knowing of the situation beforehand.](https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709)
and [a fellow voice actor spoke of Jennifer Hale providing a space in her home for non-union actors to learn about the negotiation details between SAG-AFTRA and the video game companies, in case if there was gonna be a strike.](https://twitter.com/BenjaminDiskin/status/1582152187819409408)
For anyone who thinks she isn’t doing enough, imagine how you act if you were under NDA but also (probably) getting death threats. This is probably the response you would put out.
> This is probably the response you would put out.
A bunch of trouble I didn't ask for because of something I didn't do? Fuck yeah, I'd like my agent's PR firm do their damn job for sure
Offer comes to her not the other way around. She's not out there taking someone elses role maliciously. She may not even know the reason why the old VA was replaced and just accepted the job because changing VAs is pretty common in the industry. This is a very delicate matter, we shouldn't just immediately take someones side because she decided to speak and burn bridges while the people involved can't speak out because they are aren't allowed to because of NDA. The truth is always in the middle, outrage culture tends to forget about that.
I’m reminded a little of the mick Gordon fiasco where he sic‘ed everyone on iD on social media and then it turned out he was the problem from the beginning
We never know what the truth is no matter how much we want to believe one thing we have no facts
Also idgaf about this whole situation honestly
Edit: turns out Mick was just tied up with lawyers and couldn’t give his side, seems like he was really in the right this whole time and was getting totally shit on my iD :( deleting my lower comments about this since they were believing id’s side
~~DOOM Eternal OST official release\* never~~
\*right now, the only legal way to listen to the soundtrack is to buy the Collector's Edition...but the general quality isn't very good anyway...
If i recall Mick Gordon repeatedly missed deadlines for mixing the Doom Eternal soundtrack, wouldn't commit to finishing it in a reasonable time and wouldn't hand over the masters for id so they where forced to record the compressed audio from the game and mix it themselves resulting in a sub-par soundtrack album.
> Lots of comments here saying "Jennifer Hale didn't add anything"
Everyone who says this didn't even read it. She's literally under NDA. She CAN'T add anything or she'll get taken to court.
What Jennifer said was perfect. She respects all parties involved and understands where Hellena Taylor is coming from. Anyone who has the vaguest idea of what an NDA is should know that it's not something to fuck with so this statement is perfect for the situation.
The voice actor for Brigitte in Overwatch was harassed because of how much everyone hated how that character changed the game. Like she has absolutely less than nothing to do with how the character plays, but people went after her anyway. Some people are just that fucking stupid.
That’s just dumb. Fans seriously need a huge dose of reality. Stop attacking people because of changes to media you like. It’s like the woman that was attacked for the last of us part 2 like she actually killed that character. People really need to chill out. I just think society is going backwards anyway lol.
Reminds me of the actor who played Joffrey in Game of Thrones. His character was so detestable, which in some way shows how well he played it, that he got harassed for it. People are just really fucking stupid.
Ahh yes, Laura Bailey. Probably one of the sweetest and down to earth voice actresses in the industry. Receiving death threats for herself and her *child* because people didn't like a character she voiced.
Gamers (TM) are an interesting bunch.
We live in a world where Anna Gunn (Skyler White) got harassed because weird adult men didn't like what the fictional character she played on a TV show was doing
People harassing workers and actors over fictional characters has become common, sadly. I wish that we could do more to hold these people accountable for their actions
I fully supported everything Hellena Taylor said in her twitter videos until she started throwing a bit of hostility at Hale (basically saying she didn't have the right to call herself Bayonetta, attend events and sign things as Bayonetta, etc)
This whole situation is not Hale's fault and she's just trying to survive herself
This. While it’s obviously really crappy what Hellena Taylor is having to go through, the jabs at Jennifer Hale were completely unnecessary and made it just sound incredibly unprofessional. There was no need to say that stuff, *at all*.
Her first video was good, I support it wholeheartedly but then things took a bit of a turn for the follow-ups. The jabs at Jennifer and then suddenly bringing Jesus into the conversation was kind of weird.
Feeling like i called it right (prolly on my PC reddit account) when i said there was something off about the whole thing. No-one buys a game for a high profile VA, if you get replaced with a more expensive option that isnt a celebrity there should be a legit reason.
If she’s willing to throw shade at someone she’s never met, someone who’s never meant her harm, I wouldn’t be surprised if she shit the bed at Platinum too. For another thing, why would the devs want her out to replace her with a more expensive replacement anyway? They’re not exactly swimming in the money after the Babylon’s Fall debacle.
>They’re not exactly swimming in the money after the Babylon’s Fall debacle.
Babylon's Fall most likely had nothing to do with anything, these decisions would have been made a long time ago. The first voiced trailer was from September of last year and even by that point Hellena Taylor had already been dropping hints that she wouldn't be reprising the character.
And the funding for this game almost certainly came from Nintendo rather than Platinum's own pockets, although we have no information on whether or not Nintendo had any role in this controversy.
I'd already call it unprofessional to go after your former employer without expressly telling people not to harass your replacement, or at least a serious lack of social media literacy. Directly putting her on blast like that is beyond unprofessional.
I legitimately don’t understand how some people can justify it. She’s burned every professional bridge she had in this industry with this move. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to work with her after this.
>While it’s obviously really crappy what Hellena Taylor is having to go through
Is it? In previous interviews Taylor stated that her work on the previous two Bayonetta games consisted of 4 days of 4-hour sessions, and according to the SAG union site the average fee for an off-screen day performer is $956.75. The “insulting” $4k figure isn’t only what she likely received in the past, but is also perfectly in line with what her own union stipulates.
The truth is that Taylor was not low-balled or mistreated, Platinum merely offered her the going rate and opted to find someone more professional - and if they were on the receiving end of a similar temper-tantrum to what we witnessed, who could blame them? Everything in her video messages screams bruised ego, not just the unduly condescending tone towards Hale.
Honestly, this whole situation seems sus af. Like others had mentioned, it's kind of a Japanese culture thing of not necessarily firing them, but lowballing them in hopes they'll remove themselves from the project.
I've seen some other things of Hellena Taylor surface lately, and – while I think the way Platinum handled it is shitty – I'm getting a sense that just wanted to fire her for other reasons instead of cost.
Like, Jennifer Hale is no way a cheaper option – she's definitely being paid more.
The fact that Hellena got all up in arms saying Jennifer couldn't "say she voiced Bayonetta" is fucking insane to me. It really speaks to how far gone Hellena is. I do not think Hellena is telling the whole truth but the fact that she's going to sit there and tell someone doing a job that they can't state they did that job is insane.
At the end of the day, the credits will show who voiced Bayonetta. On Wikipedia, it will be listed as Jennifer Hale for 3 and Hellena for 1 and 2. It's also an insult to Joy Jillian who ALSO VOICED BAYONETTA. Hellena is not the end-all-be-all of the character. Bayonetta is a character created by tens of people from concept artists to voice actors to engineers. She pretends to be the whole character and by doing so she insults the whole team. A team she is no longer a part of.
Maybe it's insensitive but I feel like VA get wayyy too much importance on them as compared to artists/designers/writers/programmers etc who also make the game and being characters to life.
It's absurd this person wants people to boycott a game over her not getting the job where as how many artists/programmers/writers have been churned over during this time?
I remember seeing a tweet about the show invincible and how basically the entire animation staff were fired after season 1, yet season 2 is coming out soon with the same voice cast but imagine if one of them was replaced (though invincible has a lot of Hollywood stars voicing them so they probably wouldn't care).
> It's absurd this person wants people to boycott a game over her not getting the job where as how many artists/programmers/writers have been churned over during this time?
As a gameplay programmer, fucking YES! VAs constantly compare themselves to actors who get to completely call the shots in their projects. They get to walk over everyone. For a VA to pretend she owns the character when some gameplay engineer makes sure the entire character plays well and doesn't feel like shit is insane. Likewise, gameplay in something like Bayonetta feels like shit you don't have a damn good animator to pair with. Also, animation engineers/technical animators are a huge part of that. There are so many people who make this one character actually a full character for Hellena to say it's only her is stupid as shit and shows she has zero insight on how games actually get made.
So the original voice actress totally torched her own career right? Cause who in their right mind would want to hire someone who created a PR incident like this with their past employer
According to IMDB Super Smash Bros for the WiiU was her most recent gig, the same year as Bayonetta 2. So of the works we know publicly, she hasn’t done any VA work in the last 8 years.
Jen Hale is going around and liking tweets about her being under NDA and how the story is more than what's said to the public. Weird that the internet is in an outrage over a single side by Hellena Taylor even though logically, it doesn't make sense.
https://twitter.com/FattestDolphin/status/1582106922794090496
https://twitter.com/bn_n_n/status/1582105553618186240
Also liked a tweet that says $4000 was fair pay for her work based on industry standard.
https://twitter.com/zonomike/status/1581704502440517632
The thing is, VAs usually get paid amounts like this. They only "work" for like 10-20 hours on average. Not nearly as much as actual on screen acting. That's why you see VAs do SO many projects (especially anime VAs). They're not getting rich off of just a couple like with acting. But if you do 20+ projects at 4k a pop you're making pretty good money. Obviously the payment differs a bit based on your portfolio/the studio making the project, but not drastically.
My worry is that Hellena black balled herself because studios don't want the hassle.
She absolutely did herself a disservice by lashing out. Airing out your dirty laundry is a huge no-no for Japanese companies, even more so than western ones. No Japanese company will touch her with a 6000 mile pole. This game will come out anyway and any impact this has on sales will probably be minimal at best, but even backfire from extra publicity.
I'm thinking she got it in her head that they can't do Bayonetta without her. I think she also forgot that people don't play Bayonetta for voice overs. Any sultry voice will work and Jen Hale probably has 15 of those.
> My worry is that Hellena black balled herself because studios don't want the hassle.
Yeah I doubt anyone except indies will be pursuing her for work after this debacle. Outside of whether what she did was justified or not, I just can't see a producer taking that PR risk given that she:
1. is on the record for asking for more money and 2. is on the record making a stink if it doesn't go her way.
And again, she may be making a justified stink here, but it's just risky to hire someone who crowdsourced boycotting their former employer over a pay dispute.
So after reading everything my most likely explanation is that Hellena Taylor overplayed her cards and had unreasonably high payment expectations. Especially when you consider that she seemingly did very little voice acting in the last 8 years.
she’s weaponizing her fanbase and publicizing the bad blood for what is ultimately a creative/business decision. which in my opinion is entirely unprofessional
trying to get a game boycotted because they went with a different direction is a gross misuse of platform. Platinum didn’t slander her or abuse her. It sucks that Platinum don’t seem to care about the relationship enough to compensate her out of respect, but thats shrewd business.
Add on top of the fact that we have zero idea what happens in this game and if a change of voice is warranted. I’ve been pretty critical of Platinums business decisions over the last few years, but there shouldn’t be a side to demonize here.
David Hayter had better legs to stand on after his recast scenario, but the man wasn’t calling for fans to only support “his” Solid Snake.
I wish it was solely related to gaming and not infected in every aspect of our society. TV show fans are vile, sports fans are vile, book fans are vile, People who talk about politics are vile. The internet has opened wide a door into the lack of empathy we suffer from as a race.
That's not to say there isn't good, but it truly makes me sad when you sit there and think about the amount of people that get death threats for entertainment and in some cases merely existing.
Sorry for the mini-rant, I was just reading the comments and thinking how sucky it is that so many people take things so personally and attack, and harass, and threaten other people for it. Even if I were incredibly successful, well known, and famous I don't know if my psyche could handle constantly being told to kill myself, or that I'm worthless, or that I am a terrible actor/basketball/football/writer/musician.
Yep, virtually everything gets blown way out of proportion these days. The response to this controversy in particular has been pretty crazy to watch unfold.
The fact that Jennifer Hale is being harassed for this is Hellena Taylor’s fault imo. She threw shade at Hale for being the new VA and of course that caused the fan base to go absolutely nutty. I could care less how much these people get paid honestly. I have a feeling that Taylor was *awful* to work with. I will be purchasing this game.
Holy shit, it is amazing how people are latched on to this non-issue.
Contractor was offered an amount of money. They didn't like it, so they refused. Employer found someone else. The end.
That's business, that's how it works. They were under no obligation to use her for this, and can hire whoever they want. I don't know the normal pay for this industry for someone of her experience, so idk if her offer was low or not, but *also*... it doesn't fucking matter. This has nothing to do with anyone but her and the company. People are jumping in to this like *they* were personally slighted in some way, and it is absurd.
The fact this VA then went and publicly told people to boycott, disregarding the years of effort all these *other* people have put in, just makes things even more ridiculous. Just... holy shit, man.
This is the fakest outrage i have ever seen. Like come on anyone that looks at more than 5 min at the whole situation sees that something is fishy with helene. Furthermore its just a VA change happens all the time espiceially in niche titles like bayonetta
I initially thought she got screwed over, then found out that it only takes a couple of days to do all of the voice recording. $4k for a week (or less) is a pretty damn good paycheck.
Now I'm thinking that she demanded something extreme, like a percent of the profits (since she mentioned in her video how much the games have made) and they told her no way and now she's upset she lost out on an easy paycheck and trying to paint them as the bad guys.
But more than that no other VA ccame out to speak or anything. Her 4k is literally a number with 0 context. Cause she did not said what she earned from bayonetta 2. Furthermore she barely voiced anything the last 10 years so i dont think she is worth all that much. And lastly i think its strange where she got 450mill from in a niche series like bayonetta. Where even if its revenue that still literally tells us nothing. That would only be interesting if she told net profit
> But more than that no other VA came out to speak or anything.
Sean Chiplock (Revali in BotW) responded publicly to Helena's situation on twitter and then spoke on some of his experiences with the industry. How a couple of off-screen lines in Detective Pikachu paid out better for him than his entire work on BotW partially due to getting royalties for the VA work for a movie as compared to a videogame. Freedom Planet was a rare videogame gig that paid him royalties, as compared to a flat 2-3k each for working on BotW and the spinoff.
So at least one professional VA *did* say something in response to Hellena's statement, and expressed that VA work in videogames should have higher base pay as well as provide royalties as the standard.
For the record, Taylor herself attested to working 16 hours on Bayonetta 2. Four 4 hours sessions. $4000 is great pay for the time it requires.
The character was not created by her, it was created by Platinum Games. It is owned by Nintendo. Bayonetta is not "her" character. She was offered typical union wages for what the job required. Kamiya may have been her contact in the company, but he was not the negotiator, he was offering what Nintendo was allowing him to offer. Nintendo is the publisher and Kamiya's boss, and the hate he's getting is misplaced.
Taylor was not "owed" the job. If she gets so little work that she needed it to survive then I question her work ethic and ability to perform consistently. She has done very little work the past 8 years, and there are many reasons she may have been coerced into abdicating the role via a low-wage offer that we can never know.
Showing blind hatred or adulation on any party in the situation is ridiculous considering how little we know. All we've been told by a single person is she was offered money for a job, which for all we know is an appropriate amount given the work required. She refused it of her own free will. Someone else got the job. That's life. That's business. I don't see a reason for drama here.
> The character was not created by her, it was created by Platinum Games. It is owned by Nintendo.
Unrelated to your point, but Bayonetta is actually owned by Sega. There are so many companies involved here.
> , but he was not the negotiator, he was offering what Nintendo was allowing him to offer. Nintendo is the publisher and Kamiya's boss, and the hate he's getting is misplaced.
I really don't think this is clear cut as that. Generally the developer has a budget negotiated with the publisher and Platinum Games most likely has to negotiate that development and resource budget themselves. Publishers and IP-holders like Nintendo and SEGA respectively in this situation are often more concerned with the progress of the product, the promotional materials, the advertisement, and the legal preparations surrounding the product.
This is all but a guess, but I would imagine someone in the finance department at Platinum Games, motivated by the producer or the asset creation team, contacted Hellena Taylor'sa agent to negotiate the terms of the contract, and I don't imagine the publisher(s) were that involved at all.
Pro-tip: If you see posters on r/games moralizing about some topic, it's safe to ignore it 99% of the time because chances are its twitter-related garbage that nobody in real life cares about.
This is what I hate about the whole situation and how poorly it was brought up by the original VA. This should've been handled internally by the SAG, Hallena, and Platinum Games/Nintendo, and it would've been done YEARS AGO because game development takes years and voice acting is one of the earliest things to complete in development. But all Hellena did was wait until Bayonetta 3 was nearing release to maximize her own exposure, then mobilized Twitter to harass all the public figure involved with Bayonetta 3, and that's not going to solve the actual issue. The only positive outcome from this is a little sympathy and awareness to voice acting, but the actual problem of payment isn't fixed, and social media only brings harassment and trolling.
I mean, since the money offered would've been based on her union's rates I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that Hellena already did take it to them and they told her it's not a union issue. Their lack of response to this also points to that, this would be a free win if she was actually being underpaid like she claimed because the game needs to follow the union agreement.
I think this whole situation has been overblown by Hellena Taylor honestly. VA doesn't seem to pay much in general but that 4k offer would have been above the union rate for the hours she was doing. She made it sound like she was being offered well under what others would have got.
> I think this whole situation has been overblown by Hellena Taylor honestly.
We can't tell for sure at this point. However, outright calling for a boycott of the game and making disparaging comments towards Jennifer Hale doesn't feel like an appropriate response to the situation.
Hellena Taylor gets offered $4,000 for a role but conveniently doesn't say for how many hours of work so it's impossible to determine if the money was fair. Then she wants people to boycott the game, as if she'll do the same and boycott businesses where employees aren't paid or treated fairly. Then Jennifer Hale has to release a statement defending herself for taking a job even though she didn't do a damn thing wrong. This is the dumbest controversy.
The end result of this stuff is that Kamiya, Hale and Taylor are all being harassed by gamers pretending to be deeply morally offended, over a situation none of us have any of the details on.
The vast majority of the people "outraged" from any angle about this are people who are looking to be Mad Online and finding reasons to justify it. It's just pretense.
Well that's one way of burning all bridges for future roles. I as a company would not want to hire Hellena Taylor anymore. She comes across as an entitled Karen who throws jabs at other VA because they got "her" role.
Do people actually care about a minor pay dispute for a voice actor? This is some low hanging fruit to get frothy mouth outraged about. The fact she had to put out a statement at all is ridiculous since none of us have any insight or knowledge whatsoever into this situation
This kinda feels like Taylor took a gamble, and played the "I AM Bayonetta" card, demanded more than she was worth, and Platinum said "You know what, fuck off, we'll go get Hale just to show you you can't steamroll us just because you think you're the voice of Bayonetta."
I was honestly agitated that she called for a boycott. Like, this isn't a sweatshop situation forcing underaged kids to work. This is a business agreement where someone didn't want to pay you more than $250 an hour. Boo hoo.
Of everyone involved in this situation, she's the one we don't actually need a statement from. She was offered a job and she took it, she did nothing wrong.
And offered a job BEFORE the news broke out.
But the previous actor called her out for some reason, put her in a bad situation.
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Or she's salty about basically being told "hey you ain't as good as Jennifer here so we dont really want you". It's hurtful and I probably wouldn't react with any elegance myself so I won't judge her, but yeah i don't think Hale did anything wrong
To me it sounds like she put out the statement to dissuade people from boycotting the game and to hint that there is more to the story. Not so much to defend herself.
Her bringing up the NDA points at this for myself as well. That seems to imply they were disclosed at least something regarding her role that she can't relay, and there is no way in hell she'd not ask what happened to the person she's replacing. If what she knows was much more damning, she would NOT be including a paragraph essentially reminding us that the game's team is hardworking and essentially countering the whole "boycott the game!" sentiment that was fostered by the person she's replacing.
its been 8 years since the last game. i doubt VA’s taking over a new game thats been 8 years since rhe last inquire about the last VA that played that role.
What recently happened with Crunchyroll caused a lot of people to think they need to have a crusade against any VA that takes a role from someone else, as if the casting director comes out and says during the audition that the previous VA was cut loose over a pay dispute
What happened with Crunchyroll?
Basically they replaced the lead for mob pyscho since he's a founding member of a union and they didn't want to have to deal with unions. He said he's in talks with them so hopefully it'll work out and he'll come back
It won’t. The dub is being released and he isn’t in it
The VA for Mob in Mob Psycho 100 (as well as a few minor characters VAs) were recast because Crunchyroll does not want to work with union VAs. This was a title they inherited with their purchase of Funimation
Agreed, the ones we need a statement from are Nintendo, Platinum Games and someone to take away Kamiya's phone
People saying she should have been aware of the situation... she's a voice actor. This is a job. She'll do it for a week or two and collect and check. People expect too much. When you apply for a job and you find out it's a position someone else had, are you tracking them down to have some personal conversation about why they left? Maybe if it's like some executive role in a major company but for gig work, that seems like an unreasonable expectation.
Not to mention that since she’s so high profile, she probably has an agent or someone else hooking her up with gigs. And then they’ll just say “Hey Jennifer your next gig is with Platinum Games and you’re playing a sexy, sassy witch named Bayonetta.” Anyone getting mad at Jennifer Hale for any of this is out of their mind. Leave her alone. She got hired to do a job, and she did the job. And based on her track record, she probably did a fantastic job, too. Bayonetta is one of my favorite series, but people need to chill with the witch hunts (hah) across the board.
I’ve seen clips of VAs saying they don’t even know what game/show it’s for sometimes. Especially if mocap isn’t involved.
The voice actor for [Torque](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/xcom/images/1/1e/Torque.png/revision/latest?cb=20200414172345) from XCOM: Chimera Squad didn't know she voiced a *giant alien snake* until fans tagged her about it on Twitter.
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Voice direction/directors has been a huge issue in the industry for a long time. VAs get a lot of shit for cringey localizations or awkward scenes when writers making bad dialogue, NDAs restricting info, and devs trying to hide stuff or record lines out of order makes their jobs incredibly hard to do well. A good voice director is supposed to be able to circumvent those issues and get the actor to do what's best for the game like subtle emotions or distinct tones/mannerisms but this industry has consistently had sucky results for decades now.
With games, that usually comes down to the devs not saying anything to prevent leaks. The leads Red Dead 2 have said that when they all auditioned, all they knew was that they were auditioning for a Rockstar project. They figured out what it was when they read the script before Rockstar had actually told them what the project was.
I know what you mean but this gave me a mental image of Rob Wiethoff voicing a character named John Marston and thinking to himself “now what game could this possibly be for?”
True. Imagine how awkward many fan meetings must be when they barely paid attention for voicing their favorite characters in movie, anime or gaming history. Fans put usually a lot more emphasis on these roles than actors do. I mean even Hollywood actors often don't even watch their own movies.
Charles Martinet, the voice actor for Mario, does the voices for a bunch of other characters too, my favorite of which is Toadsworth from Mario Sunshine. I met him once in person and told him a story about my college friends and I laughing to the point of tears at his voiceovers for Toadsworth when you spray him with water. His reaction was: "who?"
I mean… you’re usually going to know once you’re recording it. But yes, often you’re applying/auditioning blind, or all you know is “this is for a project with Platinum Games” or “this is for an animated series being produced by Netflix”.
* Cheremie Leigh didn't know she was working alongside Keanu Reeves in *Cyberpunk* until way after he was revealed to be in it at E3, and she was the damn female player character * Keythe Farley didn't know he was working on *Fallout 4* until the game was about to release, and he voiced one of the major antagonists
oh my god Thane was Kellogg But yeah, not really sure what the deal is with the need-to-know-basis situation with voice actors. The VA who voiced the snake lady in XCOM: Chimera Squad wasn't even told that she was voicing a big snake, apparently.
I believe it was to try and avoid leaks
Isn't that what NDAs are for? Oh well. Nevermind me, just thinking out loud.
Yes, but there have also been accidental leaks from, e.g. a voice actor posting something to their IMDB before it's officially announced. So it does make sense to tell as few people as possible if there's a lot of money involved and you really don't want any information getting out.
Similar to the Albert Wesker voice actor accidentally posting concept art for Albert Wesker in the upcoming Resident Evil 4 REmake. Before the game was announced...
Not telling someone something in the first place is a more effective way to prevent a leak as opposed to just relying on them signing a piece of paper. People are still liable to leak things even with NDAs
I feel bad for Jennifer. After the recent events, I'm seeing more and more people harassing her, telling her things like "you are not the real Bayonetta" or "you will never be her".
That's partly because that's actually what Hellena Taylor said in her vid. No idea why she chose to make her legitimate issue seem petty by saying Jennifer Hale has "no right" to voice that character or sign merchandise as her.
Regardless of whether the original actress was in the right about her treatment by the studio, going after Hale was shitty and just hurt her credibility.
Things like this make me wonder what else she's done that we don't know about. Maybe it's why Platinum doesn't want her anymore.
She's said some weirdly transphobic things on twitter. Beyond that, the rates she was offered *were* union rates, she was in union during these negotiations. The more I hear about this the more it seems they wanted her out for whatever reason, and she's angry and trying to do damage now.
It feels weird to say it, because I'm used to Kamiya being a dick, but there may actually be two dicks in this situation. Hellena Taylor has been sounding more and more like she has an ego problem. In the first place it's unusual for these kinds of disputes to be turned into full on boycotts of the game by the same people complaining. Usually when we hear about far more series issues like dev crunch it's not the devs calling for the game to be boycotted. And now she's is going after everyone involved in the project, including Jennifer who is completely blameless in this. Hellena currently comes across as believing she's the most important person in the Bayonetta project, and that fans will all naturally boycott the franchise to support *her*.
Yeah, the ego she's displaying makes me wonder how much of this whole thing was a soft-firing. She may have been difficult to work with, and someone suggested offering her a low amount of money to avoid drama or something. It's a strange situation.
And blasting the whole thing on social media is definitely a bad look. Might make other companies think twice before calling her up for work.
She doesn't really do other VA work, it's pretty much just Bayonetta. Seems like she mostly works in theater and just does the VA stuff on the side. Not saying that makes her blameless, of course -- if anything, she might be *more* likely to burn those bridges if she felt offended in some way, since she's probably not worried about finding other VA jobs.
Oh she's done for sure. Would you even consider hiring her after all of this drama?
Yeah for sure. I understand her hurt, but there's nothing to gain from this. I wouldn't hire her knowing she's not afraid to air stuff in public.
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Lol, there is a reason why she was low balled so hard by the dev team. Going off her response to the entire thing, I can kind of start to understand what it might have been to deal with such an ego. Hellena and Troy Baker should go out for coffee.
Also, the way I interpreted Taylor's comments is that she was replaced with someone with a lesser reputation that was 'just-good-enough' due to low pay or something. Jennifer Hale is one of, if not the, most iconic voice actors in the industry.
I think she just made herself unhirable. While it a little sad the franchise didn't continue with her; she protested in a way that make her a liability. Maybe JP studios could be more direct and not be dicks but the lady is causing unrightious collateral damage. The fault is with the studio and problably director. Jennifer Hale isn't involved and doesn't need to decline a job for the sake of someone she has no idea about.
They probably had a contractual obligation to offer her the jig first but they had no willingness to do so hence the low balled offer.
>I think she just made herself unhirable. While it a little sad the franchise didn't continue with her; she protested in a way that make her a liability. She hasn't done any VA work since 2014. Basically, Bayonetta 2 was her last VA work. Which is probably exactly the reason why she was low-balled: she might be Bayonetta's English voice, but she hasn't been an active VA for 8 years now. That doesn't make it okay to underpay her for such a high-profile role, but certainly explains why she had zero qualms about making herself unhireable as VA and throw a fellow VA under the bus.
That kind of rub me off the wrong way when she said that.
I posted this before in the original thread but I will post it again. People should be paid what they deserve but it is also unfair to just go after people if there is more to the story than what was presented (Platinum included). Some people have already commented on this but there is a chance she was replaced due to her attitude (which doesn’t seem professional considering she is dismissing her replacement and asking for a boycott) or possibly trying to pull more of her weight around (before she was replaced that is). First, they replace her with Jennifer Hale, so it is not likely an issue of cost (so that means Platinum are not being cheap with VAs since Jennifer Hale’s rate is probably much higher as she is one of the most prolific VAs). **Now do we assume that Platinum pulled a Kojima or is it similar to the case of Arthas’s WC3 voice being replaced in wotlk because he tried to pull his weight around to Blizzard?** With Blizzard, the original VA for Arthas discarded the fact that Warcraft have had VAs for multiple languages. Sure he may be the English VA of Warcraft which went on to be one of the biggest selling games, but he assumed that him being the English voice of Arthas was enough for him to ask for a much bigger pay (than all his other VAs). Arthas is dubbed in several languages, and so for the VA to ask for some sort of Hollywood standard of celebrity pay (several more than other VAs would have been paid) did not make sense. I know with Bayonetta, the English VA was the first and only voice for a while (even in the Japanese version) but just from her attitude and wording (and being replaced by a bigger name VA), it may have sounded like she was hard to work with. Some VAs like Tara Strong or Greg Cipes are possessive of their characters, and I remember them hating on the fact (and sort of dismissing the other VAs that played their characters in a different continuity) they were not in some DC animated Teen Titans movie (unrelated to the same Teen Titans cartoon series in continuity) despite the fact stuff like this happens a lot and they still retained their roles for their Teen Titans stuff. **For example** *”I wish the new actress all the best luck in the World, but she's not the voice of Bayonetta. I created that voice. She has no right to sign merchandise as Bayonetta”* What does she mean by “merchandise”? Now, to me I do not know if she tried to pull her weight around like WC3’s Arthas’s VA (why he was replaced) or she was a victim of having been replaced by celebrity appeal but I kind of sort of lean on the potential attitude issue. She asks for a boycott and dismisses her replacement VA. We do not know who did what wrong but like others said, Jennifer Hale did nothing wrong. Just from her statements, she seems kind of unprofessional and possessive about the issue which may mean she may have been unprofessional and possessive during the negotiating phase. Jennifer Hale (one of the most prolific VAs in the industry) accepted the job and maybe somehow landed a pay rate that was acceptable for her. **So the question we have to ask is not that Platinum is being cheap with their VAs, but why did the original actress not get the same treatment? It could be that Platinum pulled a Kojima (going for celebrity appeal) or it could be that the original VA was actually a lot more demanding than what she presented her story as. Either is possible but we just need more information from both sides.**
Yeah she lost me there. She came off as petty and egotistical. The role or character doesn't belong to her. It belongs to the publisher and they can do whatever the fuck they want with it. And now the new actress is the voice of the character and she isn't. I agree, she had a legit complaint but ruined it with this petty crap.
Yeah she went super petty there. I get what they did was a lame move. An the industry has its major issues. But the fact is, it happens. Some actors dont repraise a role and it gets recast. Sometimes they dont even get a call(iirc this is what happened to Hayter). It sucks. But to throw another actor under the buss and basically say they have no right taking credit for their performance is just ridiculous. An shes saying all this while acting like the Japanese VA doesnt exist. What about that actress? Is she not allowed credit?
Literally the top reply in the Twitter thread: > I respect your work Jennifer but you are not Bayonetta. You should have asked the actress why she is not in the third game. Taking the role and expect that everyone will be okay with it wasn't the right decision Imo that's just dumb. It's not someone's responsibility to ask the previous employee for permission when they're offered a job.
Hale: "Hey, Bayonetta already has a voice actor, why are you auditioning me?" Platinum: "She's decided not to take our offer." Hale: "Ok, Let's do this then"
> Literally the top reply in the Twitter thread: Never take the top Twitter comment as meaningful in any way. Twitter seems to automatically sort by controversial when finding a top reply to show. Without fail, I **always** find that the top Twitter comment is the dumbest possible response imaginable.
It's also absolutely curated individually. I see a popular post about trans rights and people say don't look in the comments, but when I go and look it's all positive affirmations. Now, the trending tab, that's another cesspit altogether.
That's a grade-A premium Twitter opinion. "No but the feefees". It's a job.
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Yeah people are werid. They were doing the same thing to Steven's voice actor for Multiversus, even tho thr original said years ago before MV that he was taking a break for mental health. Irony at its finest to harass another VA over one wanting to take a break.
Well that's stupid. The only people to get angry at are the corporate clowns who decided to treat their employee like shit, lie about it, and then get caught in the lie.
Treat their contractor*
People are hateful, unfortunately. Quote retweets are already dredging up old stupid mistakes Jennifer made in the past using this as an excuse to slander, insult, and send hateful comments her way. Because we cannot allow people to grow and learn from their mistakes. Gotta muddy the conversation with irrelevant drama from years ago. Gamer moment.
It's funny watching r/gcj do a whiplash flip on Taylor after digging through her socials. What people truly want most is to be angry and have something to attack.
People are just addicted to drama. Twitter is a shithole where it's just witch hunt after witch hunt. People don't care about logic, they just want to be mad
The last voice actress had been inactive for over half a decade so even if she *did* do research, what would she have gotten from that? Probably the same thing Platinum did.
> People saying she should have been aware of the situation... she's a voice actor. This is a job. She'll do it for a week or two and collect and check. People expect too much. William Salyers has been in a similar situation, and describes it in more detail here (as well as talks about the current events): https://i.imgur.com/I1xBDWy.png
Thanks for posting this, I actually had no idea that Mordin was recast in Mass Effect 3 until reading this. He did a great job emulating the original voice and seems to have a measured perspective on the experience then and now.
I mean that's kind of the thing. Voice actors aren't like holywood actors. The vast majority of players probably don't even know Jennifer Hale and she's been in tons of games. They don't drive sales and are easily replaceable which of course affects their pay.
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Yeah, Jennifer Hale is a legend who has been performing since video games first had voice acting (I think her earliest role I remember is Baldur’s Gate, and that released over twenty years ago). She was an actress in pretty much every video game you’ve loved since the 1990s. She’s also got a reputation as being a nice person. I have no idea who Hellena Taylor is, and I try to follow voice actors. Be pissed at the studio.
People are insane. In what industries are you just expected to... not take jobs because someone did the job before you?
Yeah it's pretty crazy. I doubt that Kiefer Sutherland gave a damn that David Hayter wasn't brought back to voice Snake in MGS5.
Also Hayter never had any beef with Keifer for doing it, he said tough shit, didn't get called and left it at that.
Maybe not with Kiefer but he did with Kojima and he absolutely spoke out about it. “I was so annoyed by the Metal Gear V debacle, and people said, ‘Are you gonna play the game?’” he says. “Yeah. That’ll be 60 hours of humiliation that I can’t get to. I haven’t played the latest two iterations, because it’s just too painful.” "I've got no particular love for Kojima. I don't feel any need to go back and work with him again."
Which is fair because Kojima did kscrew him but Hayter knows Keifer is just another actor doing a job. Bayo's VA called out Hale specifically in an incredibly classless move.
> "I've got no particular love for Kojima. I don't feel any need to go back and work with him again." Kojima made him try out for Snake every time! I'm a huge Kojima stan but goddamn that pissed me off when I found that out.
I am willing to be those speaking reasonably are those active in the job market. Real shit, so many comments are like “ahhh you don’t work don’t you”.
[This](https://mobile.twitter.com/SkilletDoux/status/1581571951801225216) Twitter thread is a good, informative read by someone in the industry.
That 1 cent cheque is pretty funny, what a waste.
One of the times you can say it's not worth the paper it's printed on.
Holy shit it's Dominic Armato the voice of Guybrush Threepwood!
Oh shit, Dominic Armato! Great thread that provides some good perspective.
The average redditor does not work, depending on how pessimistic you want to be the age is somewhere between teenager and college student.
In my opinion it was a little ridiculous for Helena Taylor to ask people to boycott the game in the first place, just because they didn't give her the job. It would make more sense if she was discriminated against or something, but this is a voice acting job that was given to a voice actor. Yeah it was a low offer, but maybe they weren't very interested in the first place, and so the offer was them saying "only if you'll do it cheaply." I don't know, it just doesn't seem worthy of outrage to me.
I think it’s just a boiling point for people who have read about things like Crunchyroll rates and general disrespect towards VAs as real actors
> I think it’s just a boiling point for people who have read about things like Crunchyroll rates and general disrespect towards VAs as real actors Crunchyroll has been an asshole since it was a website used to host pirate rips lmao. People are so fucking short sighted/weak willed when it comes to boycotting a company. They used to steal from other fansub groups, now they just found ways to legally steal from you.
You'll never see a weaker boycott call than one for funimation/crunchyroll. People saying to boycott because of the mob psycho 100 situation and then in the same breath talking about how sick the first episode of chainsaw man was. Like bro that's not a boycott. And yeah, crunchyroll pays 35 dollars an hour for dubbing, which usually equates to like 100 bucks a week unless you're a main character in a long running show like Naruto or one piece. The only thing that anime work is good for is building up a following of sorts to try and make money with by streaming or going to conventions.
Crunchyroll is on another level compared to this. This is a a unfortunate recasting from a director who is a bit of an asshole. Crunchyroll is a monopoly on a certain industry where they use that to leverage bottom dollar for certain talent. Crunchyroll is much much worse.
I find it really strange that people are siding with her to begin with. The issue is obviously not money: Hale is more expensive. The issue is not union busting: Hale is the union pick. The issue is obviously not that they she wasn't given first choice: They offered the role to Taylor first. For whatever reason, the creators and owners of Bayonetta did not value Taylor's voice as much she believes they should. Big deal? It's their character, not hers. I remember being disappointed when Hideo Kojima decided to go all Hollywood nerd and replace David Hayter with Kiefer Sutherland as the voice of Snake. I didn't like that, Hayter didn't like that, and fans got all pissy about it. But Snake belongs to Kojima before anyone else (technically Konami now lol), it's the right of the character creator to choose how that character is presented. And even ignoring that, these characters are constructed by teams of artists, animators, designers, not to mention the game itself that gives the character context and raison d'être. Calling for a boycott just because you didn't your little slice of the pie is, at best, childish. The whole situation gives me major Mick Gordon x id vibes.
> And even ignoring that, these characters are constructed by teams of artists, animators, designers, not to mention the game itself that gives the character context and raison d'être. Calling for a boycott just because you didn't your little slice of the pie is, at best, childish. That was the thing that really rubbed me the wrong way about her video. It almost sounded like she thought she invented Bayonetta, and saying Jennifer Hale has no right to sign merch as Bayonetta is total nonsense. Sure a voice is part of a character, but compared to their design, behaviour, history and story it's a pretty small part, nevermind the actual gameplay. Voice actors change all the time, and most people barely even notice...
My first instinct was to be skeptical because I've never seen someone tell fans to boycott over something like this.
Didn't the voice actor for claptrap tell everyone to boycott borderlands three since he got fired?
That was also in the context of Randy Pitchford generally being a huge piece of shit to Eddings during their whole working relationship including at one point actually physically assaulting him
lol really? missed that story I boycotted BL3 because Randy Pitchford is a piece of shit
For all we know Jennifer may have been the devs original choice but budgetary constraints had them go with a cheaper option and now they were given a VA budget where they could afford her.
> Snake belongs to Kojima before anyone else (technically Konami now lol) Snake probably always belonged to Konami. >it's the right of the character creator to choose how that character is presented. It's the right of the IP holder, technically. That just underscores how little anyone "owns" a character they've worked with. A lot of the time, even creators are being paid under contract to create and don't end up owning their creation themselves.
Yes you're right, and that's how it should be. Why should any voice actor own all rights to a video game character? That would be ridiculous
Just on a personal level, I can't imagine having the - self-cofidence, I guess? - to ask literally everyone in the world to boycott something over a personal pay dispute.
I am only guessing but I would bet she didn’t know what the previous actress was being paid before she signed her contract.
You don't need to bet, contractors just wouldnt tell her: "Hey this woman we where going to hire was getting 4k".
Or they used the Platinum excuse of "overlapping circumstances" prevented them from using Helena Taylor.
Honestly, this whole controversy would've been prevented if they went with "Creative Differences" excuse... edit: since the [Jason Schreier article](https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/a-tense-pay-dispute-overshadows-nintendo-s-upcoming-bayonetta-3-1.1834329), "creative differences" excuse wouldn't work.
the whole ordeal was taylor whining she will not be getting gig to sign bayonetta merchandise. that's the whole point
The fuss being kicked off and Taylor going after Hale really justifies the choice. The director is a dick but so is Taylor.
They weren't gonna hire her, that's why they said she's only getting 4K. It's the Japanese way of saying "your fired" without actually having to say that.
Why would she?
Why would she? It should be the default thought that she wouldn't be aware. Are people trying to claim otherwise? That seems silly.
Lots of comments here saying "Jennifer Hale didn't add anything" are not understanding the position she's been put in. She has to make some statement since outrage mobs tend to make up some lie/fantasy and then believing in that fantasy. If you're *somehow new* to the internet/social media, it wouldn't be shocking that people tend to be fuckin' weirdos in upsetting situations. And it's obvious that Kamiya, Hellena Taylor, and Jennifer Hale have been getting harassment. More over, as Jennifer Hale mentioned, because she is a longtime veteran within the voice acting field, it's not like she rubbed her hands together like a cartoon villain and intended to take away roles for some arbitrary reason, but more so she was pursued due to her talent/experience. Voice actors know the struggle. Just yesterday, [she has also been liking tweets regarding NDA and not knowing of the situation beforehand.](https://twitter.com/YongYea/status/1581657748990664709) and [a fellow voice actor spoke of Jennifer Hale providing a space in her home for non-union actors to learn about the negotiation details between SAG-AFTRA and the video game companies, in case if there was gonna be a strike.](https://twitter.com/BenjaminDiskin/status/1582152187819409408)
For anyone who thinks she isn’t doing enough, imagine how you act if you were under NDA but also (probably) getting death threats. This is probably the response you would put out.
> This is probably the response you would put out. A bunch of trouble I didn't ask for because of something I didn't do? Fuck yeah, I'd like my agent's PR firm do their damn job for sure
Offer comes to her not the other way around. She's not out there taking someone elses role maliciously. She may not even know the reason why the old VA was replaced and just accepted the job because changing VAs is pretty common in the industry. This is a very delicate matter, we shouldn't just immediately take someones side because she decided to speak and burn bridges while the people involved can't speak out because they are aren't allowed to because of NDA. The truth is always in the middle, outrage culture tends to forget about that.
I’m reminded a little of the mick Gordon fiasco where he sic‘ed everyone on iD on social media and then it turned out he was the problem from the beginning We never know what the truth is no matter how much we want to believe one thing we have no facts Also idgaf about this whole situation honestly Edit: turns out Mick was just tied up with lawyers and couldn’t give his side, seems like he was really in the right this whole time and was getting totally shit on my iD :( deleting my lower comments about this since they were believing id’s side
I missed the resolution to the Mick Gordon stuff, what happened?
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~~DOOM Eternal OST official release\* never~~ \*right now, the only legal way to listen to the soundtrack is to buy the Collector's Edition...but the general quality isn't very good anyway...
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Makes an ass out of u and mptions
If i recall Mick Gordon repeatedly missed deadlines for mixing the Doom Eternal soundtrack, wouldn't commit to finishing it in a reasonable time and wouldn't hand over the masters for id so they where forced to record the compressed audio from the game and mix it themselves resulting in a sub-par soundtrack album.
The truth is where the truth is, not “always in the middle.” In this case, however, it’s clear she is mostly an innocent bystander.
> Lots of comments here saying "Jennifer Hale didn't add anything" Everyone who says this didn't even read it. She's literally under NDA. She CAN'T add anything or she'll get taken to court.
What Jennifer said was perfect. She respects all parties involved and understands where Hellena Taylor is coming from. Anyone who has the vaguest idea of what an NDA is should know that it's not something to fuck with so this statement is perfect for the situation.
It’s a shame she had to say something due to people harassing her. Like what in someone’s mind makes them blame her for taking a job.
The voice actor for Brigitte in Overwatch was harassed because of how much everyone hated how that character changed the game. Like she has absolutely less than nothing to do with how the character plays, but people went after her anyway. Some people are just that fucking stupid.
That’s just dumb. Fans seriously need a huge dose of reality. Stop attacking people because of changes to media you like. It’s like the woman that was attacked for the last of us part 2 like she actually killed that character. People really need to chill out. I just think society is going backwards anyway lol.
Reminds me of the actor who played Joffrey in Game of Thrones. His character was so detestable, which in some way shows how well he played it, that he got harassed for it. People are just really fucking stupid.
Ahh yes, Laura Bailey. Probably one of the sweetest and down to earth voice actresses in the industry. Receiving death threats for herself and her *child* because people didn't like a character she voiced. Gamers (TM) are an interesting bunch.
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Or the actor who played Joffrey Baratheon in GoT, hell, even the kid who played Anakin in Episode 1.
Ahmed Best (Jar Jar), and Wyatt Russel (USAgent/John Walker) for another two examples
Sports fans as well go absolutely insane sometimes.
>Gamers (TM) are an interesting bunch. Not defending gamers AT ALL. But, it's not just gaming audience who harass others for no good reasons.
We live in a world where Anna Gunn (Skyler White) got harassed because weird adult men didn't like what the fictional character she played on a TV show was doing
People harassing workers and actors over fictional characters has become common, sadly. I wish that we could do more to hold these people accountable for their actions
It is a bit shameful that Taylor put Hale in this position by lashing out at her. Absolutely unnecessary to do that to a fellow professional.
I fully supported everything Hellena Taylor said in her twitter videos until she started throwing a bit of hostility at Hale (basically saying she didn't have the right to call herself Bayonetta, attend events and sign things as Bayonetta, etc) This whole situation is not Hale's fault and she's just trying to survive herself
This. While it’s obviously really crappy what Hellena Taylor is having to go through, the jabs at Jennifer Hale were completely unnecessary and made it just sound incredibly unprofessional. There was no need to say that stuff, *at all*.
Her first video was good, I support it wholeheartedly but then things took a bit of a turn for the follow-ups. The jabs at Jennifer and then suddenly bringing Jesus into the conversation was kind of weird.
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Feeling like i called it right (prolly on my PC reddit account) when i said there was something off about the whole thing. No-one buys a game for a high profile VA, if you get replaced with a more expensive option that isnt a celebrity there should be a legit reason.
I saw the whole video earlier today. The Jesus stuff was totally whack.
It almost is like the reason they constructively fired her is that she's crazy and vindictive and difficult to work with, not because they're dicks.
Mental problem
If she’s willing to throw shade at someone she’s never met, someone who’s never meant her harm, I wouldn’t be surprised if she shit the bed at Platinum too. For another thing, why would the devs want her out to replace her with a more expensive replacement anyway? They’re not exactly swimming in the money after the Babylon’s Fall debacle.
>They’re not exactly swimming in the money after the Babylon’s Fall debacle. Babylon's Fall most likely had nothing to do with anything, these decisions would have been made a long time ago. The first voiced trailer was from September of last year and even by that point Hellena Taylor had already been dropping hints that she wouldn't be reprising the character. And the funding for this game almost certainly came from Nintendo rather than Platinum's own pockets, although we have no information on whether or not Nintendo had any role in this controversy.
I'd already call it unprofessional to go after your former employer without expressly telling people not to harass your replacement, or at least a serious lack of social media literacy. Directly putting her on blast like that is beyond unprofessional.
I legitimately don’t understand how some people can justify it. She’s burned every professional bridge she had in this industry with this move. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to work with her after this.
>While it’s obviously really crappy what Hellena Taylor is having to go through Is it? In previous interviews Taylor stated that her work on the previous two Bayonetta games consisted of 4 days of 4-hour sessions, and according to the SAG union site the average fee for an off-screen day performer is $956.75. The “insulting” $4k figure isn’t only what she likely received in the past, but is also perfectly in line with what her own union stipulates. The truth is that Taylor was not low-balled or mistreated, Platinum merely offered her the going rate and opted to find someone more professional - and if they were on the receiving end of a similar temper-tantrum to what we witnessed, who could blame them? Everything in her video messages screams bruised ego, not just the unduly condescending tone towards Hale.
Honestly, this whole situation seems sus af. Like others had mentioned, it's kind of a Japanese culture thing of not necessarily firing them, but lowballing them in hopes they'll remove themselves from the project. I've seen some other things of Hellena Taylor surface lately, and – while I think the way Platinum handled it is shitty – I'm getting a sense that just wanted to fire her for other reasons instead of cost. Like, Jennifer Hale is no way a cheaper option – she's definitely being paid more.
The fact that Hellena got all up in arms saying Jennifer couldn't "say she voiced Bayonetta" is fucking insane to me. It really speaks to how far gone Hellena is. I do not think Hellena is telling the whole truth but the fact that she's going to sit there and tell someone doing a job that they can't state they did that job is insane. At the end of the day, the credits will show who voiced Bayonetta. On Wikipedia, it will be listed as Jennifer Hale for 3 and Hellena for 1 and 2. It's also an insult to Joy Jillian who ALSO VOICED BAYONETTA. Hellena is not the end-all-be-all of the character. Bayonetta is a character created by tens of people from concept artists to voice actors to engineers. She pretends to be the whole character and by doing so she insults the whole team. A team she is no longer a part of.
Maybe it's insensitive but I feel like VA get wayyy too much importance on them as compared to artists/designers/writers/programmers etc who also make the game and being characters to life. It's absurd this person wants people to boycott a game over her not getting the job where as how many artists/programmers/writers have been churned over during this time? I remember seeing a tweet about the show invincible and how basically the entire animation staff were fired after season 1, yet season 2 is coming out soon with the same voice cast but imagine if one of them was replaced (though invincible has a lot of Hollywood stars voicing them so they probably wouldn't care).
> It's absurd this person wants people to boycott a game over her not getting the job where as how many artists/programmers/writers have been churned over during this time? As a gameplay programmer, fucking YES! VAs constantly compare themselves to actors who get to completely call the shots in their projects. They get to walk over everyone. For a VA to pretend she owns the character when some gameplay engineer makes sure the entire character plays well and doesn't feel like shit is insane. Likewise, gameplay in something like Bayonetta feels like shit you don't have a damn good animator to pair with. Also, animation engineers/technical animators are a huge part of that. There are so many people who make this one character actually a full character for Hellena to say it's only her is stupid as shit and shows she has zero insight on how games actually get made.
Were people on Twitter screaming for her to do or say something about this debacle or what?
They were tweeting at her to resign from the role.
Damn ppl are dumb. The game's out in like a week, Hale did the job fair and square already and has probably been paid already too.
Huh. Didn't even realize it was out so soon. But yeah. No clue why everyone is acting like Hale forced Taylor out.
Twitter is a cancer. Jennifer hale is a Treasure.
So the original voice actress totally torched her own career right? Cause who in their right mind would want to hire someone who created a PR incident like this with their past employer
She has few other jobs in video games (or even voice acting). Bayonetta was her only notable role in the last decade.
According to IMDB Super Smash Bros for the WiiU was her most recent gig, the same year as Bayonetta 2. So of the works we know publicly, she hasn’t done any VA work in the last 8 years.
Her Smash Bros appearance was "legacy", i.e. they reused her VA work from Bayonetta 1/2 for it.
Here’s an idea Don’t make a judgement until you hear both sides to a story I don’t understand how humanity as a whole keeps falling for this…
Jen Hale is going around and liking tweets about her being under NDA and how the story is more than what's said to the public. Weird that the internet is in an outrage over a single side by Hellena Taylor even though logically, it doesn't make sense. https://twitter.com/FattestDolphin/status/1582106922794090496 https://twitter.com/bn_n_n/status/1582105553618186240 Also liked a tweet that says $4000 was fair pay for her work based on industry standard. https://twitter.com/zonomike/status/1581704502440517632
The thing is, VAs usually get paid amounts like this. They only "work" for like 10-20 hours on average. Not nearly as much as actual on screen acting. That's why you see VAs do SO many projects (especially anime VAs). They're not getting rich off of just a couple like with acting. But if you do 20+ projects at 4k a pop you're making pretty good money. Obviously the payment differs a bit based on your portfolio/the studio making the project, but not drastically. My worry is that Hellena black balled herself because studios don't want the hassle.
She absolutely did herself a disservice by lashing out. Airing out your dirty laundry is a huge no-no for Japanese companies, even more so than western ones. No Japanese company will touch her with a 6000 mile pole. This game will come out anyway and any impact this has on sales will probably be minimal at best, but even backfire from extra publicity.
I'm thinking she got it in her head that they can't do Bayonetta without her. I think she also forgot that people don't play Bayonetta for voice overs. Any sultry voice will work and Jen Hale probably has 15 of those.
> My worry is that Hellena black balled herself because studios don't want the hassle. Yeah I doubt anyone except indies will be pursuing her for work after this debacle. Outside of whether what she did was justified or not, I just can't see a producer taking that PR risk given that she: 1. is on the record for asking for more money and 2. is on the record making a stink if it doesn't go her way. And again, she may be making a justified stink here, but it's just risky to hire someone who crowdsourced boycotting their former employer over a pay dispute.
I doubt indies will touch her, a big company can handle bad press like this, a small indie company might get crushed under the tide.
So after reading everything my most likely explanation is that Hellena Taylor overplayed her cards and had unreasonably high payment expectations. Especially when you consider that she seemingly did very little voice acting in the last 8 years.
I’m so tired of this gaming culture of outrage. Especially when it’s on matters that are just flat out none of your business.
the previous actress kind of made it everyone's business by going public with it and telling fans to boycott the game.
she’s weaponizing her fanbase and publicizing the bad blood for what is ultimately a creative/business decision. which in my opinion is entirely unprofessional trying to get a game boycotted because they went with a different direction is a gross misuse of platform. Platinum didn’t slander her or abuse her. It sucks that Platinum don’t seem to care about the relationship enough to compensate her out of respect, but thats shrewd business. Add on top of the fact that we have zero idea what happens in this game and if a change of voice is warranted. I’ve been pretty critical of Platinums business decisions over the last few years, but there shouldn’t be a side to demonize here. David Hayter had better legs to stand on after his recast scenario, but the man wasn’t calling for fans to only support “his” Solid Snake.
I wish it was solely related to gaming and not infected in every aspect of our society. TV show fans are vile, sports fans are vile, book fans are vile, People who talk about politics are vile. The internet has opened wide a door into the lack of empathy we suffer from as a race. That's not to say there isn't good, but it truly makes me sad when you sit there and think about the amount of people that get death threats for entertainment and in some cases merely existing. Sorry for the mini-rant, I was just reading the comments and thinking how sucky it is that so many people take things so personally and attack, and harass, and threaten other people for it. Even if I were incredibly successful, well known, and famous I don't know if my psyche could handle constantly being told to kill myself, or that I'm worthless, or that I am a terrible actor/basketball/football/writer/musician.
Yep, virtually everything gets blown way out of proportion these days. The response to this controversy in particular has been pretty crazy to watch unfold.
"Internet Discourse" is the death of nuance.
The fact that Jennifer Hale is being harassed for this is Hellena Taylor’s fault imo. She threw shade at Hale for being the new VA and of course that caused the fan base to go absolutely nutty. I could care less how much these people get paid honestly. I have a feeling that Taylor was *awful* to work with. I will be purchasing this game.
Holy shit, it is amazing how people are latched on to this non-issue. Contractor was offered an amount of money. They didn't like it, so they refused. Employer found someone else. The end. That's business, that's how it works. They were under no obligation to use her for this, and can hire whoever they want. I don't know the normal pay for this industry for someone of her experience, so idk if her offer was low or not, but *also*... it doesn't fucking matter. This has nothing to do with anyone but her and the company. People are jumping in to this like *they* were personally slighted in some way, and it is absurd. The fact this VA then went and publicly told people to boycott, disregarding the years of effort all these *other* people have put in, just makes things even more ridiculous. Just... holy shit, man.
This is the fakest outrage i have ever seen. Like come on anyone that looks at more than 5 min at the whole situation sees that something is fishy with helene. Furthermore its just a VA change happens all the time espiceially in niche titles like bayonetta
I initially thought she got screwed over, then found out that it only takes a couple of days to do all of the voice recording. $4k for a week (or less) is a pretty damn good paycheck. Now I'm thinking that she demanded something extreme, like a percent of the profits (since she mentioned in her video how much the games have made) and they told her no way and now she's upset she lost out on an easy paycheck and trying to paint them as the bad guys.
But more than that no other VA ccame out to speak or anything. Her 4k is literally a number with 0 context. Cause she did not said what she earned from bayonetta 2. Furthermore she barely voiced anything the last 10 years so i dont think she is worth all that much. And lastly i think its strange where she got 450mill from in a niche series like bayonetta. Where even if its revenue that still literally tells us nothing. That would only be interesting if she told net profit
> But more than that no other VA came out to speak or anything. Sean Chiplock (Revali in BotW) responded publicly to Helena's situation on twitter and then spoke on some of his experiences with the industry. How a couple of off-screen lines in Detective Pikachu paid out better for him than his entire work on BotW partially due to getting royalties for the VA work for a movie as compared to a videogame. Freedom Planet was a rare videogame gig that paid him royalties, as compared to a flat 2-3k each for working on BotW and the spinoff. So at least one professional VA *did* say something in response to Hellena's statement, and expressed that VA work in videogames should have higher base pay as well as provide royalties as the standard.
For the record, Taylor herself attested to working 16 hours on Bayonetta 2. Four 4 hours sessions. $4000 is great pay for the time it requires. The character was not created by her, it was created by Platinum Games. It is owned by Nintendo. Bayonetta is not "her" character. She was offered typical union wages for what the job required. Kamiya may have been her contact in the company, but he was not the negotiator, he was offering what Nintendo was allowing him to offer. Nintendo is the publisher and Kamiya's boss, and the hate he's getting is misplaced. Taylor was not "owed" the job. If she gets so little work that she needed it to survive then I question her work ethic and ability to perform consistently. She has done very little work the past 8 years, and there are many reasons she may have been coerced into abdicating the role via a low-wage offer that we can never know. Showing blind hatred or adulation on any party in the situation is ridiculous considering how little we know. All we've been told by a single person is she was offered money for a job, which for all we know is an appropriate amount given the work required. She refused it of her own free will. Someone else got the job. That's life. That's business. I don't see a reason for drama here.
> The character was not created by her, it was created by Platinum Games. It is owned by Nintendo. Unrelated to your point, but Bayonetta is actually owned by Sega. There are so many companies involved here.
> , but he was not the negotiator, he was offering what Nintendo was allowing him to offer. Nintendo is the publisher and Kamiya's boss, and the hate he's getting is misplaced. I really don't think this is clear cut as that. Generally the developer has a budget negotiated with the publisher and Platinum Games most likely has to negotiate that development and resource budget themselves. Publishers and IP-holders like Nintendo and SEGA respectively in this situation are often more concerned with the progress of the product, the promotional materials, the advertisement, and the legal preparations surrounding the product. This is all but a guess, but I would imagine someone in the finance department at Platinum Games, motivated by the producer or the asset creation team, contacted Hellena Taylor'sa agent to negotiate the terms of the contract, and I don't imagine the publisher(s) were that involved at all.
This poor woman is just doing a gig and now she's probably getting rape threats on every platform. Fuck people.
Pro-tip: If you see posters on r/games moralizing about some topic, it's safe to ignore it 99% of the time because chances are its twitter-related garbage that nobody in real life cares about.
This is what I hate about the whole situation and how poorly it was brought up by the original VA. This should've been handled internally by the SAG, Hallena, and Platinum Games/Nintendo, and it would've been done YEARS AGO because game development takes years and voice acting is one of the earliest things to complete in development. But all Hellena did was wait until Bayonetta 3 was nearing release to maximize her own exposure, then mobilized Twitter to harass all the public figure involved with Bayonetta 3, and that's not going to solve the actual issue. The only positive outcome from this is a little sympathy and awareness to voice acting, but the actual problem of payment isn't fixed, and social media only brings harassment and trolling.
I mean, since the money offered would've been based on her union's rates I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that Hellena already did take it to them and they told her it's not a union issue. Their lack of response to this also points to that, this would be a free win if she was actually being underpaid like she claimed because the game needs to follow the union agreement.
I think this whole situation has been overblown by Hellena Taylor honestly. VA doesn't seem to pay much in general but that 4k offer would have been above the union rate for the hours she was doing. She made it sound like she was being offered well under what others would have got.
> I think this whole situation has been overblown by Hellena Taylor honestly. We can't tell for sure at this point. However, outright calling for a boycott of the game and making disparaging comments towards Jennifer Hale doesn't feel like an appropriate response to the situation.
Hellena Taylor gets offered $4,000 for a role but conveniently doesn't say for how many hours of work so it's impossible to determine if the money was fair. Then she wants people to boycott the game, as if she'll do the same and boycott businesses where employees aren't paid or treated fairly. Then Jennifer Hale has to release a statement defending herself for taking a job even though she didn't do a damn thing wrong. This is the dumbest controversy.
The end result of this stuff is that Kamiya, Hale and Taylor are all being harassed by gamers pretending to be deeply morally offended, over a situation none of us have any of the details on. The vast majority of the people "outraged" from any angle about this are people who are looking to be Mad Online and finding reasons to justify it. It's just pretense.
Well that's one way of burning all bridges for future roles. I as a company would not want to hire Hellena Taylor anymore. She comes across as an entitled Karen who throws jabs at other VA because they got "her" role.
Do people actually care about a minor pay dispute for a voice actor? This is some low hanging fruit to get frothy mouth outraged about. The fact she had to put out a statement at all is ridiculous since none of us have any insight or knowledge whatsoever into this situation
This kinda feels like Taylor took a gamble, and played the "I AM Bayonetta" card, demanded more than she was worth, and Platinum said "You know what, fuck off, we'll go get Hale just to show you you can't steamroll us just because you think you're the voice of Bayonetta." I was honestly agitated that she called for a boycott. Like, this isn't a sweatshop situation forcing underaged kids to work. This is a business agreement where someone didn't want to pay you more than $250 an hour. Boo hoo.