Topic: Bayonetta 3

It wasn't even in the top 40 on Amazon before this "controversy" now it's in the top 30, you love to see it.

And I think it'll end up having longer legs too, now

On top of the increased sales from publicity, I'm willing to wager a significant number of ppl who originally passed to bask in the glory of their self-righteousness, will see it in a sale down the line, after this has blown over, and will say to themselves, "eh, I can buy it on sale, that's still less money for them". And all the other ppl this controversy brought awareness to, once they see it on the shelf a few months from now, or in a sale, might be more inclined to pick it up now. At least a small percentage will. But if this news reached 10 million ppl, even a single percent of them buying down the line could increase sales by 100k. It all adds up.

Jennifer Hale posted a response and it’s both in line with her NDA and respectful of all involved. If I wasn’t already buying the game twice, I’d buy it again.

She could have said why she didn’t take the role, she could have discussed her displeasure of the cash offered, but boycott? Why? So everyone else who worked hard on the game can tank? I’m sure it’s not devs deciding how much she gets paid, so why ruin there hard work? A game they have clearly taken there time with.

And Jennifer Hale has pointed to another series of tweets that goes pretty hard on ppl being liars, biased, etc and why you should NEVER jump to conclusions based on one side of a story. Yikes.

@KryptoniteKrunch
Ya love ta see it indeed!

#25 now!

I wouldn't sweat for most of the other people who worked on the game as they'll either be on salaries or fixed price contracts like the one she was offered, and they'll still get paid even if it bombs. Maybe Kamiya might be on a percentage but any profit or loss is mostly going to be on the balance sheets of Nintendo and Sega.

There's been some speculation that Platinum games itself might be in trouble, but that would mostly be down to the failure of Babylon's Fall. Again, Square Enix will be the ones eating most of the loss on that, but a work-for-hire studio needs work and their yoyo-ing standards have always been a cause for concern.

Whatever happens with Bayonetta 3 certainly isn't going to be that bad, and I doubt the protestations of a lone VA are going to matter that much in the final analysis, especially when her criticisms could just as well apply to practically everything else the AAA games industry puts out.

@JaxonH For all we know Bayonetta probably wasn’t even going to sell as well as it is now, and it’s all thanks to one angry woman.

Fr tho, I didn’t really like how she acted like it was all her, I get that a va makes a lot of the tv shows games, but she was trying to boycott this series without even thinking about the people behind it who would have gotten effected, who took there time with this game.

I’m also far from one side, Wile it does seem that I’m not on her side, that’s not really true, I just disagree with how she approached this, she isn’t wrong for not wanting to take the job or want more money, but the way she dealt with it, I’m not a fan.

@Snatcher
If she had just said, "Hey, I wanted to explain why I'm not in the role" and proceeded to say she felt the offer wasn't enough, and left it at that, I'd 100% be behind her.

It's the fact she tried to sabotage one of my favorite series, and I don't take that lightly. Even despite all the love and respect I have for and toward her as part of that series, she clearly doesn't feel the same way. How could anyone that loves a series ask fans to kill it off out of a desire for retribution? That doesn't help her cause. It just enacts revenge on her behalf.

And that is why I just can't and don't side with her on this. Even disregarding the swipe at Jenn Hale, which was unprofessional, and disregarding the fact she manipulated ppl by intentionally omitting it was for just 16 hrs work and met union pay wages, and went on about Bayonetta being some 450 million dollar franchise (which I don't even know if that's true- it doesn't sound right), as if total revenue is relevant in any way whatsoever (profit earned on this one game would be relevant, not gross revenue for the entire series, and even then I don't even think that's relevant because pay should reflect value of services rendered, not lust for your employer's success)... it's the fact she tried to sabotage one of my all time favorite franchises. Which very well could have killed off the IP for good had the boycott been successful. I can't respect that. It's the dividing line that really set me opposed to her in all this.

Oh 100% I would have been behind her way more if she hadn’t pulled this stunt, and honestly it’s pretty jacked up, people say “This poor woman” and whatnot, but completely ignore the fact she tried to sink the ship, and she didn’t care who she took down with her, and the. Had the nerve to say she didn’t deserve the role, like bruh.

Wasn't planning on buying 3, still need to play 1 and 2 but after all this boycott b.s. I just might have to.

@Tasuki I would if I had played the other two.

One of the amusing ironies in all this is that the people who tried to pump up the value of a lead VA in games. Almost to the point where you'd think that the VA was pretty much the only game in town. Quite literally when this first broke out I read some hot-take on twitter where someone was trying to say they play games for "the story" not the "pew pew" and that therefore the VA was the most important thing

.......... the huge Irony is that Bayonetta 3 is a Nintendo exclusive game. You know, Nintendo. The one developer/publisher/platform holder that's infamous for their general lack of voice actors in their games. The company who's most vocal fans will, myself included, whine incessantly about the value of gameplay over everything else. The corner of the gaming universe where pre-rendered cutscenes and quick time events took the longest time to reach. The company who's most iconic characters only ever seem to say "heeyyaa" and "yahoo"

You're telling people on THAT platform that the VA is the most important part of the game? That a game's main worth is as an interactive podcast? I mean maybe you can convince the people who brought and enjoyed Other M of that, but good luck with most of us

I still find this bizarre in the way a seemingly minor story about a public pay spat over a minor game series and a minor voice actor has gained so much traction that it rivals Dexit, a Brie Larsson article on NintendoLife or Zelda being delayed news. I remember reading the article and quickly forgot about it just to see the next day it's exploded, it's a credit to the angry internet nerd cliche.

It's kinda sad the game's quality doesn't speak for itself as despite the series being a critical darling with several mainstream GOTY awards from a developer known to be able to produce some strong action games plus the character getting into Smash and having it's own anime now it all wasn't good enough to convince people to give it a try they however want/not want to support it on some kind of principle over a rather silly matter.

@skywake I have no idea mate Lmao!

I felt the same way.

At first I read the report and was like huh, ok, she didn't like the offer. That sucks. Moving on...

Oh wait, what? She's calling for a boycott?

If there's one thing I know about Twitter, it's that they love a good controversy, a cause to fight for and reveling in self-righteousness. As soon as she said "boycott" I was like oh snap, there it is. People are gonna be foaming at the mouth to hate on this game now.

It does go to show just how disconnected Twitter is from the real world though. You go anywhere else, you see mostly rational takes on this matter. Sales charts exploding, fans excited... Go on Twitter, and there's legions of justice warriors proudly boasting how good of a person they are for boycotting Bayonetta 3, all while playing games from Ubisoft, Activision, EA, etc. It's just a cesspool of hypocrisy and virtue signaling.

@JaxonH I wasn't talking about Twitter, I was just looking at this site. 900+ comments which doesn't include the more ahem questionable comments which were removed.

I've seen little about this on my Twitter aside from Steve Blum defending Hale but most of my feed gets taken up music postings. I really need to cut some of the people I follow as it's over a thousand bands constantly posting gig dates for other countries, hopefully some of these bands will do something offensive soon so I can culture cancel them from my following list! ;p

@JaxonH When has twitter ever been in the real world. Maybe at a time, a place, that I sure wasn’t involved in. So sides of twitter are better then others and I hate to say it, but anything that’s more subjective, usually sucks.

I don't really blame the terminally online social media users who are uncritically spamming memes about boycotting this game. They find meaning in their lives by jumping around from one "controversy" (we have about 1000 or so each year now) to another, strung along sequentially throughout their lives like a rosary of meaningless grievances. They'll move on to the next Thing You're Supposed To Be Angry About soon enough.

Considering most of the people yelling about this likely never intended to buy the game in the first place, they lose nothing in any of this. HT, on the other hand, will possibly be sued, will never voice Bayonetta again, and, frankly, once this is done and dusted, will be shown to have dragged her professional name through the mud for nothing. It's even looking like her attempt to tank the game's sales has backfired and actually increased preorder numbers.

I'm just gonna point out the obvious that the angry internet nerd hate isn't confined to one side, there's plenty of nasty comments all round and there does seem to be a few who want to buy the game solely to be contrarian based on the comments on this site and the sales charts.

I've still not decided if I'm getting this one day or not yet which is not due to controversy or money but rather I ain't got the time for them, same thing happened with Astral Chain releasing the same time as a bunch of other game so I didn't play it for a year. Sep and Nov has two big time sinks in Splatoon and Pokemon, then you have a run of games all releasing in Oct. Neir was the first so already got it, Mario + Rabbids the game I want the most is also completely contra by it will be the heaviest discount in the future so I should wait for it, which leaves Bayonetta and Persona. I'm leaning to getting Persona and then wait on Mario + Rabbids and Bayonetta but it could easily change.

If I don't buy Bayonetta day one you can bloody well bet I will boast about it on the social media inter webs how I am supporting unionised pay whilst doing it!

@Thoughts
As Reggie explained in an interview, unions are neither good nor bad. If a company is doing what they should be, you won't hear talk of unions because there's no need. You only see grumbling for unions when employees don't feel they have financial security, a way forward and a safe work environment.

Unions serve their purpose, but they're not the automatic solution in every instance. As with everything, each situation calls for wisdom and discernment. Sometimes unions can do great to ensure workers are offered fair wages and insurance. Other times, unions can tank an entire industry by demanding more than a company can feasibly afford while staying in the black (see auto industry).

But of course you're free to your views. However, I would point out that if you're talking about "specific cases undermining unions" this is not one of them, as both Jennifer Hale and Helena Taylor were union VAs, and were offered unions VA wages.