Bayonetta's New Voice Actor Jennifer Hale Issues Statement About Bayonetta 3

A professional who respects the legal documents they sign? Fancy that.

I heard tell that because of all the coverage, Bayo3 has shot up in the Amazon sales charts, so the "boycott" might've had the opposite effect.

Didn't you include this in the talking point post?

The industry needs to do away with NDAs, especially when it comes to pay, because a lack of pay transparency is what perpetuates unfair pay practices. This is well known across other industries and I hope we can reach for it in this one.

Good for her staying professional and not taking the bait to clap back at that attack in one of Taylor's video or the people nipping at her now for daring to take a job.

Just gonna throw the info out there cause some people still have little context, from what I've read she was offered about $4000 for 16 hours of voice work. Do the math.

Classy response. Refreshing.

Class act for sure.

Some Twitter wars are good for no one. This Twitter war has been exceptional for NintendoLife. Click. Click. Click.

And THAT’S how you do it. She remained professional and gave respect and support to everyone involved. As always, thank you Jennifer Hale for all that you do! Looking forward to launch!

I feel like a lot of people have utterly missed the point in all of this mess. Sure, $4000 sounds like a lot of money, until you consider that a game like this will likely make upwards of a hundred million dollars for the parent company. Moreover, a series like Bayonetta has sold itself on the power of it’s main character for over a decade, and the voice that brings her to life is a key part of that. For such an important role to make so much less than almost anyone else on the development team overall should be shocking. And that doesn’t just go for the lead actress either - that goes for all truly skilled voice actors who bring their A-game and breathe life into a character, from Breath of the Wild to Mario and beyond.

Seeing so many people arguing against that, or calling these people “greedy” as we the players eagerly consume their product, would have been shocking to me a few years ago. But world events writ large have very much exposed the “screw you, what about mine?” mentalities spread across many parts of modern culture, to the point that a fair statement like “people who do exemplary work should be adequately compensated for it” is now a statement that some react to like the person had suggested cannibalism as a fix for world hunger. >_>

I think both Bayonetta voice actors should discuss the drama on G4.
OH WAIT!

Why do people put statements on social media in pictures instead of text?

She handled this vary professionally, and didn’t say anything rude Hellena, vary nice!

If anything this whole controversy just made the sales skyrocket, and did the exact opposite of what was asked of her, which in all honesty, If what I heard was right, that she worked 4 day 4 hours, the price she was offered wasn’t even that bad, but she is more then in her right to refuse, but she didn’t leave it there, she felt the need to try and get back at them around bayou’s release, and then puts down the new voice actress for no good reason, as if she took the role to purposely get back at her, a lot of this just feels unnecessary.

@solarwolf07 Because Twitter's word limit is like five and it's very annoying and cumbersome so instead of pissing around and making a ten-part thread, they just open up Microsoft Docs or Apple Notes, screenshot it, and then put it on Twitter.

@HotGoomba you can fly?!

@Snatcher idk maybe

@HotGoomba teach me!

What a nice publicity for this game just before it gets out, parlez-en en bien ou parlez-en en mal mais tant que vous en parlez ça fait de la pub and the game will sell like hot cakes ,bravo Hellens!

Not really much to be gleaned from this other than the refreshingly professional attitude behind the words.

I'm so tired of whiny "activists" and SJWs on social media. I will buy this game just because I'm so tired of them.

@Snatcher She is union. The $4000 price was agreed upon by union standards. If she should be mad at anyone, it should be the union.

@Nanoline52 4K isn't a lot of money. 16 hours also isn't a lot of work. And the voices in this series are nothing more than a spice to sprinkle on the main course. The series will live on due to its main character's unique design and appealing gameworld, and all the hard work that was put into them.

@Nanoline52
As has been mentioned elsewhere, on previous games she did 4 days of 4 hours on each day to do the voice work. So if that number is accurate for the latest release or in the ball park then the $4000 is neither an insult or a boon it is merely an average figure for a mid tier game. This is not a triple A big budget game that will sell millions and millions. It was only green lit in the wiiu and early switch days because nintendo were desperate for more "adult" games and new IPs. It will make money, of course (i doubt it would be a loss leader for the big N, especially not on the switch) but i doubt it will be massive.
Everyone is within their right to refuse or accept work as given but how she has gone about raising the issue is pretty poor.
You can tell the woman who took the role is much more professional and is probably why she does allot more work.

I will definitely not boycot this release. i cannot wait for it.

@E_maniac @Coalescence Yes! I know it isn’t a lot of money, but she also, didn’t do a lot of work, so the price wasn’t even that bad for the work given, and it’s true that va have been getting underpaid, but this, isn’t that. Plus she thought it wasn’t worth the money and she didn’t have to take the job and she didn’t.

People also think that bayo was just flying off the shelves, it really wasn’t lol.

Edit: also please don’t take this as me putting down her previous work, because she is vary talented.

Very well put by her! Trying to make it a one woman show all about Helena is just lame when so many other people worked hard on it too. Can't wait to hear Jennifer's version.

@Acein210 4000 for 16 hours of work for this B3 or the first and second game.

@E_maniac 'This is not a triple A big budget game that will sell millions and millions' whys it £50 on the Nintendo store & not priced like an indie game then lol

@Browny I know that the boycott drama got my eyes on the game, and piqued my interest in the series.

This "boycott" sure has the opposite effect huh? This game will sell well and everyone will move on with their lives.

@Would_you_kindly Because most Second and Third party releases at priced at full price? Platinum games is still a publisher, and the amount you listed is industry standard for any AA or AAA game.

This whole thing would not be as contentious of an issue, IMO, had Platinum not lied about the reason they changed voice actors.

Personally, not boycotting but not preordering anymore either (I had preordered as soon as it was available in Amazon but cancelled my preorder.) Chances are I'll buy the game at a later point, ideally after an official statement from Platinum and/or Nintendo.

Corporations over compensation, profits over people, money over morals. It's disgusting.

@Browny
Don’t ask questions just consume game then get excited for next game.

@GinMiguel from what I read it was 4 sessions of 4 hours just for B3

@Would_you_kindly Dude almost any AA game is going to have that price, regardless.

@Would_you_kindly well depends what you mean . No man's sky is an indie game but retails for 50. Cost is not the be all end all of what denotes a triple a game.
It has money spent on it that would make indi developers jealous but equally it would pale in comparison to a call of duty or witcher etc.
Bayonetta has historically sold in the low million sellers which is good. But wouldn't keep a triple A title afloat these days . It's all relative.

@Dom_31 ummm if the game is $60 and it sells 1.7 million copies (which it probably will), it technically would be making “upwards of a hundred million dollars”.

So…. He/She isn’t wrong

For context: Bayonetta 2 sold 1.4 million copies across wiiu & switch at a time where the adoption rate of console vs software was lower than it is today.

@Nanoline52
I’m pretty sure most of us work for for big corporations that make well into the millions per year. I work in a factory making products most everyone uses on a day to day basis and it’s a potentially lethal job if I’m not careful but the pay is good (I won’t say an exact amount because it’s no one’s business but my own) around $15-20 and with overtime $22-30. So if you do the math you’d see she has absolutely no right at all to complain about how she didn’t get paid. I’d love to do what she does doing her work sitting at cons signing autographs and doing selfies for even more money! Sounds extremely entitled to me as someone who gets up and works his butt off and takes pride in his work and has actually seen how the world works.

@Dom_31 Because you can’t read, let me break down exactly why it will likely, as I said, easily clear “a hundred million dollars” (not “hundreds”, a hundred):

The game costs $50. If 2 million people buy the game, that’s 2 million buys X fifty dollars, which is 100 million dollars.

Over 111,000,000 (one hundred and eleven million) Switch systems have sold. 2 million is 1.8% of 111 million. So only 1.8% of everyone who has ever bought a Switch needs to buy this game, and it will indeed make a hundred million dollars.

@GameOtaku So, while I get how you intended it, when you said you were “paid well” for a potentially lethal job and then said you make $15-20 an hour, you lost me. Like, dude. You’re underpaid to *****. Taco Bell is doing $16 an hour now. You’re arguing against her being paid for trained voice work (that most of us can’t do) because you’re good with doing potentially deadly work for $15-$20 an hour.

This is kind of the whole point here - the big corpos are underpaying everyone who should be making more. Including her, and including you.

@RubyCarbuncle I mean, boycotting the games doesn't matter for the new VA. They don't pay a percentage of the sales, only a flat rate, one time payment.

@Nanoline52 Yeah, they should pay more.

But still, no company will pay anyone a percentage of their earnings, no matter how big their participation in the development of their product/service, etc.

So, if I earn USD$250 HOURLY, I wouldn't actually cry about anything at all. I earn USD$7 hourly, and I hate my work, but I can't do anything about it.

I live in Mexico. And that's all I can do, survive. Can't get many luxuries. My Switch was gifted to me by a friend. My 3DS was bought after saving up for 4 years.

Yeah, companies should pay better. But a percentage of their earnings to every employee? That would be very cool, but not happening anytime soon.

That's something. As much as I understand Taylor's side, she didn't put a lot of thought into her message in terms of the people that could possibly be affected when she asked for a boycott.

Sales are not equal to profit. A game can sell well, but if they don’t make more than they spent making the game, then there’s no profit. The primary purpose of a business is to turn a profit: reduce cost and increase sales.

As for salaries, there’s a budget allocated to each aspect. Good business sense says that you stay within your budget. If you can’t afford something, then you go with what fits your budget. Maybe $4,000 was the budget for this VA role.

As to being transparent, there’s a fine line between privacy and transparency. I for one don’t want all my dirty laundry out in the open.

@Nanoline52
Not all Taco Bell locations pay that. 15-20 is very much an acceptable pay for skilled labor. I used to make more at another job but the commute was 3hrs round trip and this is less than 20 minutes in my home town. She makes roughly $250 an hour doing voice work which she could do from home. I could ask for more but as I’ve researched other jobs in my area it’s the best paying. Of course my state doesn’t have a large cost of living either.

And yeah you don’t have to be trained for voice work I do I very good Cobra Commander and Mario.

@Rerun
Yes that’s absolutely right.

@GameOtaku what you are missing is that VO actors don’t have consistent work EVERY DAY. They must ask for better payments because they could go 2-3-4-5 months or a year without a new gig. Compared to what you do daily because that’s your line of work. Because you have a wage.
So, if she doesn’t find a new gig within a month, then she is as poor as all of us.
It’s not the same thing working at a restaurant when there are literally millions of them, compared to just a handful of video games who require voiceover work.

That’s just how freelance work works.

And from what I read, the only notorious work she is credited on is the Bayonetta series.

And yes, you DO NEED training to do voice work. Just because I was a good actor during my primary school play doesn’t mean I get to do Hollywood movies along DiCaprio… do I?

Classy of Nintendo not to put the old games on sale right now. I bet many who never even considered this franchise would get them at 50% off right now that they are in the news.

I'm probably not going to buy the game anyway as it's not my jam so my opinion is kind of mute. I think the comments by this VA kind of seemed disrespectful to the lady who stepped up to voice the role though.

And if she doesn't have continuous work, thats on her. Sometimes we have to do things we don't love. I started as a bag boy at a grocery store and held plenty of crappy jobs before I got where I am today. I may have to have crappy jobs in the future. I'll do what I have to do for my family.

@YoshiF2
There’s also autographs and pictures with fans who pay her for them. Maybe she needs a side job if it’s not paying well? You don’t really understand the logistics of how businesses run. They exist to make money.

@GameOtaku I understand the logistics perfectly. I’m a freelancer and have my own business.
Believe me… $6,000-$8,000 USD won’t make even the tiniest of dents into the net profits of a video game company and certainly not to pay for your main star of your most important IP 🤦‍♂️

It’s not about what she makes or does for a living. She specifically asked them “what is the value of my work for you?”
And they answered with that, according to her version, which, in all fairness, is really low for, as I said, the main star of your most important series.

I don’t think it’s entirely about the money, it’s the value they assigned to her talent AND their business relationship.

As a business I would gladly have increased 30%-50% the price during the negotiations to keep my star in the game to avoid controversies with my product.
Everybody was wondering about the VAs when the first trailers came up and were worried about what was happening until a week ago.

@Nanoline52 how many hours would it take to record their voice parts? Maybe a week? Why should speaking lines in a video game pay more than the programmers and artists?

@HotGoomba I know it's ancient, but I missed what happened there! Is it a Gamexplain moment? 😂

@Browny Streissand Effect.

@YoshiF2
If you increase your employees earnings you have to increase the cost of your products which in turn effects someone else to do the same. Gas prices are up so cost of shipping increases to pay their employees. Farmers need seed and fertilizer which costs shipping to spread and plant which causes them to raise prices on produce and meat. Fast food chains buy produce and meat which was grown by farmers who had to pay for seed and fertilizer that had to pay shipping cost and so on and so on. So that’s why if you complain that employees should be paid more you honestly no nothing. I’ve been around and seen many things working in retail, manufacturing and even emergency services so I know how things really are. Bayonetta is a great game series but hardly Sega’s top billing franchise. It pales drastically compared to Sonic or SMT/Persona. Not to mention they are a Japanese company so the way they do business is a very different beast altogether. Even if just dealing with Sega of America they went off of the industry standard, apparently she did the work on the last games and in smash for that much the last few times barring any cost of living raises over time. She’s free to turn down work if she doesn’t feel well compensated but to go on a rant about not doing a job she was offered and whining about being replaced is another.

I do well for myself and my family with my job and income. If I turned down work I would make damn sure I had another job to fall back on instead of crying online about how I cheated myself.

The only reason why corporations make so much money is because we let them. Just look at how we went from free online and VC to having to pay $50 a year to play online and have access to classic games! I’ve seen people game the social welfare systems for gain while others are honest and hard working making ends meet. I remember distinctly how a young couple with no kids bought groceries and paid with government assistance and an old man in line behind them paid with cash and he certainly wasn’t living it up as they were and it made me sick to think there I was working a job as the old man had probably done and this couple were paying with government assistance and could work. It’s one thing to have assistance and be thrifty but they bought the better cuts of meat and name brand everything and the older gentleman bought store brand.

So they could only offer 4000 to Helena Taylor, and replaced her with Jennifer Hale? A voice actress of far higher standing and who would likely ask for a lot more. Why do I get the feeling Helena Taylor was ghosted and she’s lying out of jealousy.

Just want to point out that the "professionality" some people are lauding Ms. Hale for is still her very much taking sides in this matter - when all she has to say is that she's not at liberty to say anything, then she's leaving her actions to speak louder than her words.

If you're thrilled to see Hale effectively tell Taylor to buzz off, then just say so; let's not pretend that the former's doing anything noble by staying above the fray while she graciously cashes in her paychecks, though.

@Jireland92 Suppose everything happened just as Taylor says it did, and you're the Platinum exec charged with making sure her departure doesn't put the entire B3 project at risk. Do you:
a) Look around for whatever voice actress you can get for at the original price of $4k or less, knowing that you'll get some no-name that'll likely be of inferior quality to your first pick, likely to sound substantially different from her, and will do nothing at all to quell fan unease, or
b) Break out the emergency piggy bank, and spend whatever it takes to bring in the biggest, most well-reputed VA in the business so that you're able to spin the whole debacle as a net positive instead of an albatross around your neck?

The scenario seems entirely plausible to me. If Taylor was lying about anything she said, then Platinum Games has really dropped the ball in not setting the record straight by now (and no, a vague trollish tweet by their very trollish CEO doesn't count).

@kingbk How does this situation have aything to do with SJWs? I swear, SJWs are the new red scare, but sure.. they are the snowflakes

@Fath As others have pointed out, it’s far more likely she was lowballed to incentivise her to willingly leave the role. Ghosting her is just my own theory.

@Automated_Unit_4937 As others have laid out, the difference is that programmers etc will generally have regular work available during the duration of development (forced overtime aside, which is a whole different crappy corpo thing). Whereas a voice actor may only get a couple of gigs in a year. It’s practically the reverse end of how upper-level voice acting in Hollywood works; something like Toy Story or Cars or Shrek or whatnot would bend over backwards to keep their well-recognized, long-running voice talent happy and well paid, far in excess of what the animators etc make (which is it’s own issue), but in the video game world, “Oh, you’re the ONLY person to EVER voice this character over the course of the last DECADE? Haha screw you you’ll take peanuts and like it or we’ll just get someone else and tell everyone else you’re a greedy ***** and get you blacklisted from the industry…what? No, of course we’re not going to pay our programmers and such much either, but they’re still gonna get 6 times what you make in a year - sucker! In fact, maybe I can keep you in your role with a bit more money if you do a bit of suckin’…”

=/

@Nanoline52 ...you do realize that making a game costs money and so does the marketing for said game, right?

God knows how much they spend on marketing before the game's release and god knows how much they paid to make the game including monthly wages. After all this they also have to pay a LOT of money for manufacturing and distribution.

If the game sells $50 millions worth of money but takes around $35 million to make then they will only make a fraction above what they spent.

Besides all this, split up all of the payments between the entire team afterwards plus upkeep manufacturing costs and give a fraction to the publisher (Nintendo) who invested this money into the game and uh...

I think you get the point.

No this game will not make a lot of money, Bayonetta was never a highly grossing franchise. And no, I am not siding with Helena when I can see that the clearly more professional actress has taken up the job for the offered pay.

Sorry, but it just doesn't make sense.

Just because your career pathway lead you to becoming a freelancer that doesn't mean you get more pity points from me. Especially when the pay you're receiving (16 hours = 1.5 months of my work and I work in a Radiology company) is higher than standard.

@Varkster Which part of “they may only get a couple of gigs a year” is repeatedly flying over everyone’s heads here? Like, literally, if she gets five gigs in a year at this rate, she’d be below the poverty line. Where I live in upstate NY, she literally would not be able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment and groceries and gas at those rates…never mind medical needs or anything else even remotely necessary for modern living.

I just keep seeing people giving the financial-answer equivalent of “it sucks for us too, why should she do well?”, and it’s infuriating because the entire point is that we’ve now encouraged and enabled a culture of people taking advantage of us because instead of supporting each other in growth, we rip at each other’s hair to drag each other back to prevent anyone from being “too successful”.

@Would_you_kindly Are you kidding? Games like Ys VIII, Rune Factory 5 and Disgaea 6 are also full priced and neither could ever dream of teaching 1 million copies sold. Ever. The game being full price doesn't mean it's AAA and is expected to sell many millions of copies. Some common sense please!

A very nice and modest response.

@Tharsman given the inpouring of info that normally VAs get paid 2-3k for this much work, that Hale is the literal face of the movement to get fairer pay for VAs and chugs out voicework by the dozen per year (a lot of Taylor's speech sounded like she wanted this job to pay her enough for a year's worth of groceries while the rate at which Hale works looks like she prefers to get paid 2k 16 times instead of 4k zero times, and regularly does uncredited appearances which we don't even know are paid or not), it smells like Platinum didn't lie, they tried to save everyone's face, including Taylor's.

Because "we offered union rates to the VA and she told us to go screw ourselves" sounds way worse than "we couldn't make it work".

@Nanoline52
I don't know why you're even using this line of argument, when Hellena Taylor has not done any VA work in 8 years! Bayonetta paying enough or not has nothing to do with her life situation because she's such an infrequent voice actress. Also your assumption on how much money a company makes from games purely based on sales multiplied by 60 is extremely ignorant.

@Nanoline52 You may do yourself a favor and pity a person who you don't know, who clearly has an agenda about an event which you don't know the full story and details about.

I will not argue about this, I'm not even surprised there is such a large fraction outraging about this because that's the internet nowadays, without knowing every little detail people will jump the gun every single time. It's cool to cause a big deal over things we don't actually know fully on the internet, and clearly you do not have any actual evidence or information so currently you're falling in the same boat.

According to the lack of your response to the majority of my first comment you are missing quite large chunks of logical information about how video game sales actually converts to money and at what rate. A retail sale of a game isn't even close to equating to how much revenue the game makes for the company developing it.

I will go with my gut feeling on this and buy the game which clearly had a lot of love put into it. Whether you want to expend your time and energy on this matter is up to you.

@RubyCarbuncle This happens every single time an "internet outrage" occurs. The vast majority of people partaking were not even going to buy the product in the first place, and in fact it gets free extra publicity.

@Nanoline52
and your way of thinking also encouraged a culture of people that take advantage of you based on pity

I've seen a lot of people like this, and most of the time, those who ask for pity are actually on the wrong side, so yep, not gonna support her just because she feels she is worth more.

I'm going with my feeling when I see her video, which is a salty VA trying to cancel a product just because she's not given what she wants.

Life was better before we were privy to all this. I wouldn't have watched a minute less of Michael Jordan had his affairs been plastered all over Twitter. Video games have become the WWE now: their fans are more interested in talking about this backstage stuff than the actual product. It doesn't make you any more special or interesting and your "support" or lack thereof will go entirely unnoticed.

Off on a bit of a tangent here, but I believe non-disclosure agreements should be banned. Silence with regards people’s immoral acts should not be able to be bought. It allows the corrupt to flourish.

I love how many people make wild assumptions about topics they have zero personal experience of and then decide to just side with the corporation anyway, saying "well if she only worked four days that's a lot of money" or saying Hale got paid more or less blah blah blah...

YOU DON'T KNOW THESE DETAILS!

It's ridiculous to take sides when there are so many unknowns and for that reason I choose to believe the person making the accusation, because even if 9 out of 10 people are lying it's still better than not believing the one person telling the truth.

@timp29 wait till you learn about super injunctions!

@Nanoline52 if VA work doesn’t pay enough, she should do more to get other gigs OR she can find a day job that pays day to day expenses. Not everyone has the luxury of a huge paycheck, so you take actions to make ends meet until you get what you want. NFL HOFer Kurt Warner worked in a grocery to make ends meet before making it to the NFL.

@Nanoline52 I did contract work for a bit (art not VA) and yeah if I didn’t get enough contracts in a year I would be below the poverty line. In much the same way that if I quit my now full time position and didn’t find a new job for a year, I would be earning well below the poverty line again.

It was up to me to find and apply to the contract work. Sometimes I went via agencies who helped but also took a cut. It was tough and at times scary, but that is the very nature of contract work. It isn’t stable.

Taylor herself said she did Bayonetta’s VA in 4, 4 hour sessions. 16 hours of work. If she did 5 gigs in a year let’s say approx the same length she will have worked for 80 hours that year. Excluding the work it takes to find and apply for those roles of course. Let’s double that for the work of finding work and say 160 hours.

The average working week in the games industry is 37 hours. In the UK we get around 20 days holiday which is 4 working weeks plus some bank holidays so let’s also say 2 more weeks off. Assuming it’s a good company with no crunch that means you’ll be working 46 weeks a year at 37 hours a week so 1,702 approx hours for a dev to earn a living wage. And yea they will get some level of benefits and healthcare too so there is a bit more than just pay.

But you are upset and outraged that a contracting VA cannot work 160 hours a year and earn the same living wage as someone working 1,700 hours a year? Like that is a great injustice?

Now I’m not saying VA aren’t being underpaid and that it’s not an issue. They need to be paid a decent and respectful amount but people also need to have some level of perspective on their contributions here. So many people make these characters and worlds come to life. The VA’s contribution is impactful but also a mere blip in the dev cycle.

@Otoemetry
Well if you go that route I would simply choose to doubt her based on the fact that she lies about and greatly exaggerates how successful Bayonetta is. She claims it makes 450million without merch but that is simply not true. Not to mention that other VAs have commented that 4000$ is not exactly disrespectful. Would you rather believe people who actively do VA work or someone like Hellena who hasn't done anything in 8 years?

I’m not really one for boycott movements, but after reading some of the comments around the issue I’d like to also share my opinion. A little respect towards industries you have no experience in can really go a long way. Unless you are familiar with the amount of work somebody does it’s really not warranted to make a claim about somebody. I don’t particularly agree with Hellena’s method of making this public, as it discredits the people who have worked hard to make this product, that said I completely agree with her statement about fair pay, and have greatly appreciated her work on previous entries. In my opinion her concern is legitimate, I just don’t agree with making it public.

Hopefully all involved can move forward in a positive manner. It be a shame to tarnish such a great series. Much respect to Jennifer also for keeping it civil.

@Otoemetry ever been falsely accused? It has equal potential of ruining one's life. Been there, it ruined mine back then. Accused by the person that had abused me for over a year in many ways I'm not going to say here, no less. So at least stick to your not taking sides if you don't know, that is a neutral stance. Also, I had to work over 2 months of 40 hour week night shifts in a car factory to make 4000, and that was considered a "good pay" despite being below the national poverty line here. Sure, capitalism is a disaster and I completely agree there, it's legal but immoral, but her rant might just as much be an insult to everyone that didn't have her "privileges". Her boycot could have ended up destroying so many people's hard work, and more importantly, their lives under capitalism. If she feels an offer undervalues her, more power to her for refusing it. We can all learn from her in that regard. But if others value it for their own reasons, struggles,... She could learn to keep her head high yet remain humble towards them.

@HotGoomba well at least G4 paid some guests so well that the entire show went under and everyone ended up on the street again. From what I heard at least. Oh wait, that's NOT a good business model.

@Would_you_kindly Bet you wish it were priced as an indie title. lol.

@timp29 I couldn't agree more.

@kingbk And yet here you are whining about them.

"don't worry about it just buy"

@Otoemetry life rule 1)never side w corporation

@Otoemetry looks like these exist in Australian law… comically I wonder how anyone even knows they exist

@GameOtaku

it's okay, I'm criminally underpaid at my skilled/dangerous job, too. 👍

I would like more information about this because it just has that feeling that something else happened. Like did they only offer 4k because they knew she wouldn't take it? And if so what was reason for that snub?

However, offering so little for the main characters voice knowing the millions your going to make is shady. Sadly they are making even more now off her complaint.

@kingbk Wow, so wanting to paid fairly is apparently "SJW" now. What do you think trade unions do? I hope you work for the rest of your life in a non-unionized, at will employment workplace without complaining, because otherwise that makes you a SJW.

@Browny "boycotts" often backfire like this if they're not well thought through. Streisand effect, counter-influence... there's lots of reasons a product may actually do better when targeted with a call for boycott.

As always Jen Hale show a different level of profissionalism, she's a outstanding voice actress that even people who knows very little about VA, like me, are able to discern.

Some context about the $4000 fee is needed- how many hours did the original voice actor work on the game?

@Nanoline52 So employees of McDonald's should get a piece of their profits? If you think $250 an hour for someone lending their voice is not enough, then I'm not sure you live in reality. Helena did not help create the game, she read lines in her voice and she claims to be so broke she can't afford to live

@Mattock1987 16 hours. 4 days of 4 hours

@PKDuckman $250 an hour is not fair??

@Nanoline52 it's quite extraordinary to want to adopt a moral posture while seeming totally disconnected from reality. We all love video games, we wouldn't be here otherwise, but we still have to try to keep things in perspective.

4000 dollars for 16 hours of work, it's not the salary of a teacher, it's not the salary of a nurse, it's not the salary of a garbage collector or a firefighter. When we give lessons in decency to others, we should perhaps start by establishing our own priorities as citizens.

A lot of things suck in this industry, the crunch is unacceptable, harassment is unacceptable, preventing workers from unionizing is unacceptable.

To offer 4000 dollars for 16 hours of work, and to respect the legal clauses in force is absolutely not unacceptable. Just because this topic has become a drama on Twitter doesn't necessarily mean it's legitimate.

The only important thing, much more than Bayonetta or Nintendo for that matter, seems to be the distress in which this actress finds herself. It doesn't mean it's anyone's fault but it's something that really saddens me and I hope things will work out for her in the end.

Other than that, lecturing everyone while finding it normal to undermine the work of hundreds of people seems pretty ridiculous to me.

@Tharsman Please don't take this as sarcasm, but what kind of statements do you want exactly?

They have to make a communication to apologize for having chosen another actress? This story is absolutely insane.

The majority of people in the world who might be interested in this game don't care about this controversy, which borders on pure and simple ethocentrism. The development team and their work? We don't care, they are Japanese, what matters is our precious English dubbing.

@Kryhme so $250 an hour. Seems pretty good.

@GameOtaku sorry man but that was a looong reply in which your examples do not work in this case.

1) Nobody is saying to increase every employee’s payment. You fail to understand the difference between a pay-for-hire (freelance) and and employee with a wage WHICH agreed to a sum when they signed their contract. So, no, a manufacturer line of production is not even comparable…. Because you don’t have freelancers, you have employees.

2) Sega has nothing to do here. Platinum is the one who develops the game and decides where to allocate its resources. Sega just owns the IP. However it is Platinum’s baby from start to end.

3) I don’t approve the rant and her will to boycott the game. What I understand is where she is coming from.

4) I’m a freelancer in the advertising industry and when I do work for agencies I charge double or 2.5x times the employees wage in said agencies, for doing the exact same job as them. And they pay it. Why? Because my work isn’t defined by a standard wage and contract among employees. Also I receive less benefits as I’m not under the agencies payroll, which I have to include in my fee. It’s just negotiations. And because I know that I can get more from them and they happily pay it. Also because I don’t get an everyday payment/work vs a wage.
And for me, in some cases I don’t care to lower my fee or for them they don’t care sometimes when I raise my fee, because negotiations aren’t just about the money… it’s to keep your pay-for-hire talent and your business partners. Something she AND Platinum seemed to forget.

5) There are two facts for me. She shouldn’t have gone on a rant and Platinum DID offer peanuts for her work. And that’s why everybody’s got a side.
It was a stupid thing from both to end their working relationship over a couple thousand dollars or peanuts for both, from Platinum’s perspective, their main star and from the VA’s perspective, her main employer/client.

I care little about this debate over voice acting and am more interested in the gameplay P-games has developed.

Still preordered and wouldn't consider this news in my decision. I actually feel its embarrassing for the actress to do this. The deal offered to her and the industry direction destroyed her relevance. Treating voice talent like must have property assets has never worked out in the past.

@timp29 because we live in a globally connected world now and you can't (for the moment) police information in other countries, this is how I'm in the UK and I know about Prince William's affair that the UK press is blocked from discussing.

@Kryhme you don't know that for a fact, you cannot take information based on previous games and simply assume it was the same for this game.

I think she should disclose her pay. Union rates are about $350 per hour of recording time that last time I checked, and any self-respecting actor should keep track of their hours in the recording booth.

@Kryhme Honestly fast food, retail and basic customer services jobs should be paid much more than they do considering the amount of abuse they get daily. If that be management pushing their staff to shove predatory credit cards on customers, having to upsell people on the regular and constantly having to meet sales and time quotas... they really deserve a lot better.

BUT WEXTER the retail and fast food employees are lazy teenagers. Yeah, and? You'd get better employees if you treat them and pay them better. More people would be willing to stay as well if working conditions were better. There were generations of Americans and Europeans working on a high school diploma in factories making enough money to raise their families. When that was no longer viable they pushed their kids into university and trades because a simple diploma was no longer of value because basic jobs are not enough to raise a family even close to the lower middle-class standard.

Anyone saying that $4000 is not enough for a 4-day gig better be tipping and treating their fast food, retail and other basic customer service reps like gods.

@steely_pete @Nanoline52 never said NET PROFITS 🤦‍♂️

@steely_pete did she not say Platinum as a company made that much? That's what I heard her say in the video anyway, might have been the way she worded it but I thought she said the company not the game series itself.
Other VAs have had a multitude of opinions on the matter, but neither you, they, or I know exactly how much work was expected of Hellena Taylor in the production of this game; in my opinion voicing an entire game with multiple characters sounds like it would require more than the 4 hours or whatever everyone keeps quoting here as a matter of fact even though it's an assumption based on how long previous games took to record, that plus the way she spoke in her video sounded like it's come from a place of hurt which -actress or no- I believe.

All I learned from this is I really dislike Kamiya now.

@Kryhme You’re taking union rates out of context. Yes, the rates are high, but most actors aren’t making union rates on a regular basis. Most of their time will be spent auditioning for the next gig. Scoring one gig just means you keep the lights on for a month, but once that gig is done you’re back to the audition grind. If you score a major role in a show like My Hero Academia, which doesn’t pay union rates, then you’re underpaid, but… there’s job security in those roles since it’s a popular, long-running series. However, most people aren’t that lucky and need to stick to the daily grind.

@Nanoline52 like crabs in a bucket

@Wilforce That's honestly the deal in most professional entertainment jobs. If that be acting, music, YouTube, Twitch streaming, standup comic, VA work, and other forms of entertainment. Many people might be able to grind a livable wage, but as Saylers said on his Twitter it is basically gambling. If you can't make a living off it no matter how much you love doing it you need to do other jobs to keep the lights on. I empathize with Taylor's situation, but entertainment is a gamble. You either make it big and have decades-long careers, or you fizzle out. Entertainment is the most cutthroat industry in the world. P* does not have the responsibility to pay $60,000 for every actor that does a week-long gig for them. One gig = one month's pay. You keep grinding auditions or doing conventions till you get the next job.

This is sad, but the more I read into this she was treated no different than any other unioned actor.

@GameOtaku oh you're one of those kinds of people. The HOW DARE THAT PERSON EAT DECENT FOOD WHEN THEY HAVEN'T WORKED FOR IT kind of person 🙄
You made an assumption about that couple and their ability to work, you have no idea who they are or why they get government help yet you've made a value judgement on them and decided they're undeserving. Let me tell you, this kind of rhetoric is only ever used by corporations and politicians to turn you against your class and instead of moaning about the literal crumbs people get from governments to survive situations you know nothing about, how about looking up at the billionaires avoiding billions in tax or the politicians taking "donations" from oil companies to deny climate change and prevent renewable energy... Look up, not down. 🤦🏼‍♂️

It seems to me that the people here who work as daily grind employees don’t understand the difference between their contract work and freelance work…. And jealousy starts to show. “Why should she earn more than my wage or the programmers wage?”

Well, if you don’t want to live with your minimum wages… try quitting and become a freelancer, where not everyday’s work is assured… it’s a gamble based on your actual talents and abilities to negotiate. Do it… you could earn twice or triple what you make now… or you could earn nothing at all. 🤷‍♂️
Remember you won’t have those sweet health benefits though. But you’ll be your own boss.

We will see how your perspective changes on this matter about wages and value of working hours 😉

Don’t want to take the risk? Then continue working under your contracted and previously agreed minimum wage and daily grind 👍

@Acein210 you cannot take information pertaining to previous titles and assume it was the same for this game, I've read that Hellena was expected to voice more characters in the 3rd game meaning the workload would have increased. Also she was the voice of the main character, does she not deserve to be paid well for that work?
To me it seems like nothing more than a tantrum from Kamiya and knowing the calibre of Jennifer Hale I doubt she took a lower offer than Hellena rejected.

As many (also me) stated, there are more People behind such Projects and it seems very egoistic to call out a Boycott.

More so, 4000 Dollars are a lot of Money for most.
I work nearly 40 Hours a Week(!) for half the Money.

@YoshiF2
Yes I’m guaranteed work and am compensated for it. She has other means of making money like the autographs, selfies and the like from conventions and she should be able to find other roles besides Bayonetta. Thing is she was offered a job she didn’t like what they offered and turned it down. Everyone is allowed to turn down employment just don’t get mad when you are replaced.

@YoshiF2 You can’t just take 1.7 million sales and multiply it by $60 and say it’ll make over a hundred million dollars. That’s not how it works. Do you think GameStop sends all $60 straight to Nintendo’s bank account and then Nintendo has zero costs sunk into the game?

@GameOtaku and I can agree with you on that about the rant. However it is a fact that the offer was low and you gotta understand her perspective, not the means in which she sent her message.

The autographs and stuff don’t apply, that’s not a living income (As far as I know they don’t even charge for those)

And whether she does other stuff or not is up to her, not to us to judge. She could have other 20 gigs… does that change the low value of the $4,000? As the employer, you don’t need to know if she currently has 1 or 50 gigs or works at a food cart. BUT, the offer like she said “what is the value of my work to you?” was quite low. And as a business owner I would have negotiated with her. “If you feel uncomfortable with the sum, don’t worry, let me get back with my team and we’ll see what we can do”.

You come back 2-4 days later and say:

“Ok, I talked with the team and we could offer you a 30-40% percent increase, we adjusted some numbers and we would like to keep working with you in the future for our franchise as we are pleased with your talent”

And that’s it. Everybody happy.
She thanks the effort for trying to get a higher sum and you appreciate the resolution of the negotiation for only a meager $1,500-$2,000 increase.

Job well done.

@VinylCreep did you ever saw me or the original commenter say the word net profit or profit per se?

It IS a mathematical fact that it WILL make a hundred million dollars by simple multiplication…. But we didn’t talk or say the word profit, did we?

“More so, 4000 Dollars are a lot of Money for most. I work nearly 40 Hours a Week(!) for half the Money.“

These are the exact comments that I mean that people don’t know how freelance work works and edge on the border of jealousy and socialism.

Ok man, if you’re not happy with your wage, quit and become a freelancer and you’ll get to experience it. It’s not just about going in to a corporation and charging double what other people make.

I could guess there are reasons why you don’t become pay-for-hire work and prefer the security of a wage in the first place. I mean, I’ve worked as both in my lifetime and know the benefits and risks of both.

@Wexter I don’t think they should pay $60,000 that’s insane. However, I question $4000 as reasonable for the gig. Based on union rates that’s about 12 hours recording time, which maybe they can knock out all the lines in 2 days, but I’d be skeptical since it’s a fairly long game.

@YoshiF2 when you say a game will make a certain amount of money it generally means profit, yes. Multiplying the cost of the game by sales figures is a completely useless number to inform the conversation. It actually provides more disinformation than actual information when framed like that.

@YoshiF2

I am turning this just around, she wasn't ok with that Amount and didn't sign the Deal.
Thats absolutly ok and professionell, she don't have to do it, if she is not ok with it.

But she now goes public calling out a Boycott.

It seems more that she is jealous that some other Person got the Deal.

Just look at how her call is structured, it is more about that she feels insulted, any real Information has to be gathered through own Research of the Reader.

@VinylCreep no, it doesn’t mean profit at all. YOU understand it like that. But there’s NO way to know the actual profits unless we worked at Platinum and had the actual numbers and budgets. That’s why profits and net profits are not part of the argument.

@RubyCarbuncle

...which leads me to believe people who are boycotting were never going to buy the game at all.

That statement right there is more accurate to majority of these overnight twitter/social media "boycotts". One of the best ones that comes to mind is when back during the 2016/2020 elections, there was supposedly a "boycott" against Home Depot because some blue-haired twitter weirdo discovered Home Depot did a political donation to a certain orange skinned candidate. That went absolutely nowhere because those that would boycott Home Depot never shop there or even been inside one

Using that logic, I technically boycott pineapple on pizza every day because that's just disgusting

good for hale hope they continue to use her voice for future bayonetta games but its a shame really that hellena had to go this route by throwing insults at hale who didnt do anything and changing her story and look i support higher wages for voice actors but the way she acted towards hale made her lost credibility.

@Azuris totally agree with you on that man. Let me be clear, I don’t agree with her call to boycott… or even those videos, or throwing the new VA under the bus.

However people seem to miss the point of it all. The initial offer was low and can’t be compared to your experiences as employees on a daily wage.

Now, if she decided to take it to social media, that was her mistake….. but I understand where she is coming from.

Almost all the comments, like the one below are “wish I could make $4,000 usd for 16 hours of work, why should her?”
Yeah, we all do.

Let me put it in another light. Rarely, but Sometimes I make more than that, in a good month of freelance work… and I live in damn Mexico… AND I’m not the main star of a million selling video game franchise. 🤷‍♂️

Does that mean I’m rich? Definitely not, because other months I make waaaay less than that.

That’s how I know it is low.

Jeez, wish I could make $4,000.oo for a few hours just sitting on my ass and doing nothing but talking.

The entitlement of Hollywood...
-__-

@YoshiF2

Yeah, i think that we all stay in the dark with background Informations also leads to divide People and unnecessary Arguing

I know it from my Work Place, that only a bit Information can turn around how something appears completly.

That makes me overthink my Position:

I have not enough Info, it is not my Buisness

@Spider-Kev You could drop your day job and become a freelancer too. It’s pretty easy. The pay is great when you find work. Most of your time is spent busting that same ass you’d sit on trying to find work. It’s called hustling, and not everyone is cut out for it.

@Spider-Kev The entitlement of this statement is why people like YoshiF2 and I are sitting here practically banging our heads off our desks at this point. You have zero concept of what voice acting entails, what it requires physically in regards to vocal wear and tear over time (people literally lose their voices over time doing all those anime yells and cries and marathon sessions when companies won’t allow for breaks or pauses - and many don’t, something publicly documented in online news you can easily find with a Google search), never mind the fact that it is not regular and reliable work where someone can make that kind of money every day or every week or even every month given the limited pool of available jobs versus the amount of talent seeking them. People keep arguing for the $4k payment being some grand and impressive sum that anyone could easily just drop their day job and go make with no training and no experience, when really a much better comparison of just how low it is in real terms would be the way that farming corporations will pay migrant workers $0.42 an hour to pick tomatoes, and their choice is to either take it and the abuse and body-breaking physicality that comes with it, or refuse and starve while you watch all the other migrants take it because that’s the system and there’s no fighting how entrenched it is.

And now I wait for someone to misrepresent the above as “lol 42 cents can’t be compared to 4k” and miss the point of the metaphor entirely…3…2…1…

@Azuris gotta agree. I always feel there’s an amicable sweet spot in business negotiations. I agree with your position about the rant. I would NEVER go on social media and rant about my clients payments like that… why? Because that’s my living. I would have tried to settle this in a more diplomatic manner. Doesn’t mean the initial offer wasn’t low though.

@YoshiF2
They do charge for them. $30-50 for 1 autographed item (that’s if you brought something to have signed as they offer prints with the actor and character for sale for $10 or so) and your picture taken with them is usually the average price range. More better known VAs and actors charge much more.

@Wilforce
She doesn’t have that many lines. It’s an action game not an RPG. I’d say she has around overall an hour if not a bit more of dialogue (Enzo and Rodin speak more in the opening intros and than she does).

@GameOtaku ok, didn’t know that. However I don’t think autographs are in no one’s negotiations about their payment for work.
Doing work doesn’t guarantee you’ll have an active fan base asking you for autographs.
Imagine if someone would come up to you and tell you “I’ll pay you low x BUT you’ll get to charge for autographs ”
Its obvious there wouldn’t exist a need to continue those talks.
SHE charges for those autographs, it’s not part of Platinum’s deal.

What I mean, is the fact that even if you have more sources of income, doesn’t mean that the initial offer wasnt low. Platinum doesn’t need to know if she sells pictures of her butt on the internet or autographs to get more money for her living

@Wilforce
She has an Agent that finds her work.
I don't.
She doesn't have to do anything besides pay the Agent.
That's her decision!

@Nanoline52
I was a voice-actor and a model for a little while, I know exactly what it entails.
Life happened and I had to stop. I'm not going into my personal life to explain it.

@Spider-Kev how do you know she has an agent?
Lol the assumptions 😆

And what do you mean “she doesn’t have to do anything besides pay her agent?”

Mark Hamill would be telling you to get out of the room immediately. LMAO

@Nanoline52 I feel like a lot of people have utterly missed the point in all of this mess. Mrs. Taylor, by playing on emotions, wants to destroy work of many people, just because she was treated rudely by HR of PlatinumGames.
Very nice of her.

But ok, keep defending her.

@Spider-Kev She has an agent who finds her auditions, which isn’t the same as finding work. She auditions like every other actor and isn’t guaranteed work. Even with an agent, performers are still freelancers and need to do their own hustling. You don’t need an agent to hustle, but you do need to hustle to get an agent.

To be honest this response to everything is respectful and very..transparent? I dunno.
To be honest bayo’s original VA saying that hale doesn’t deserve the role sounds a bit mean.

@YoshiF2 I gather a lot of people don’t actually understand how the voice over industry works.

@YoshiF2
I know of a few people that work side jobs or gave their own small businesses they run on the side. If the only thing she does only pays what it does so sporadically she should seriously consider other forms of employment. That one job would’ve paid well considering what others have to do to make the same pay. Maybe broaden her characters besides Bayonetta and do other voice work. Maybe she needs to hit the convention circuit when she can to make extra money. As I’ve always heard don’t sit around on your butt and whine get your start like I got mine.

@Wilforce
It’s a job what else is it to say about it. Oh it’s so stressful doing a job where you say lines into a microphone compared to someone who gets up and clocks in working 8 hours or more a day less than an ideal working environment to make around $250 an hour compared to the factory workers who make $15-20 an hour. Oh yes I absolutely sympathize with her she’s been so mistreated how dare they offer only $4000! She should be paid $40,000 so that way she wouldn’t need to work the rest of the year!

@GameOtaku sigh…. You learnt nothing from our conversation 🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️🤦‍♂️

Hope you never quit your job because you won’t make it out alive leaving the employee cog-machine

@YoshiF2
Same as you. A job is a job. You work and you get paid. You don’t work or turn down paying job down you don’t get paid. Is it that hard of a concept to actually grasp? To have a job that is so much easier than the majority of others who would do anything for the chance to do the same just comes off as a bit selfish and demeaning to the average Joe who has to work long hours for less pay and recognition she has. I don’t see her any different than myself or any other working adult. But it seems we hold celebrities in much higher regard. While I won’t say I’m completely happy with my job I do take pride in it and I do get recognition for a job well done with bonuses and the like not to mention other benefits I get from my job like healthcare insurance, retirement savings plans etc.

If I quit my job it’s only be because I found something better and was already guaranteed the job. I certainly wouldn’t go long without pay. The last job closed it’s doors and moved out of the country so I was out of work for a few months. But I got a job closer to home but making $10 less than I was but I had a much shorter commute so it balanced itself out in that regard. If the opportunity arose for me to get into VA I’d gladly take it. If I wasn’t getting enough pay I’d take a side job while I waited for the next gig.

@GameOtaku so, just because she’s got a better job than you she must downgrade her payment to the average Joe?

LMAO…. Talk about a socialist agenda.

And no, you don’t understand what goes into the freelance workforce because you are comfortable from your perspective as an employee. Doesn’t mean that we’ve got to lower our payments just because you agreed to the employer’s contract. That’s on you and solely you.

If you don’t want to take the risk as a freelance, don’t take it. But don’t complain about the people who DID take the risk and get paid a lot more than you do.

@GameOtaku It’s not just a job where you sit “reading” lines. It’s a job where you captivate audiences with enticing dialogue and convincing emotions. You drive to 100 auditions a month just hoping to score one role for a single payment at union wages and maybe residuals if you’re lucky. Depending on the audition notice, some of those jobs can receive over 100 auditions. The talent pool is large and opportunities are small.

It’s not like working for McDonalds where you’re guaranteed a paycheck every month. She has to hustle for her money, and clearly she has a higher value for her talents than P* was willing to offer - THAT I’m open to debate because criticism for her wanting more money may be fair, but even on that end of the debate there are a lot of unknowns. We don’t know what her time commitment would’ve been had she taken the role. If she was getting paid $4000 at SAG rates that’s about $350 an hour. $4000 sounds nice, but that’s one job, which in her profession may be her only job for the next 3 months.

The voice over industry is a revolving door of talent as a lot of talent washout in the first couple years because they can’t make a living wage because of the lack of job security. So while we sit here enjoying our stable jobs, thousands of voice actors are out there hustling to make as much as your or I do.

@Wilforce glad we agree that $60,000 is extremely unreasonable. Now we get to the game of what is reasonable. According to Saylers on Twitter, he would have taken this offer. And Saylers is not an unknown guy. And Chiplock revealed on Twitter that $250 an hour is the industry standard, not $350. But, maybe you're quoting someone different and that's okay.

My point was that P* is not responsible to give her a year's salary equal to a week's work. That's her job as a freelancer. And freelance work is a gamble you're betting on yourself to build a resume that gets you high-pay gigs. Compared to 9-5 work which pays a consistent salary.

While I empathize we don't know other factors that did not get her more pay. Was she hard to work with during Bayonetta 2? Has she built a strong enough resume for P* to feel she's worth more? There is just so much we don't know that I'm not sure how I feel. However as a part-time freelancer myself I would not sneeze at $4k for a week's work. That's decent money and will keep my lights on for at least a couple of months.

EDIT: Appoligzing for typos writing on my phone.

@YoshiF2
She was offered the industry standard pay as has been discussed over and over. If her pay isn’t cutting it for her she can work in another industry. I see no difference in her and me when it comes to actually doing work. Yes I would like to make more money but I’m not hurting for it and gave stable income. If she is going to be in the industry then I’d expect her to put forth the effort to get VA roles. She should’ve known what she was getting into choosing this as her career. If you aren’t going to do what you need to do to make money to support yourself but instead hope you get that one big score that’ll set you up for life and not have to work again is a very unrealistic outlook.

@Wexter
Thank you. At least someone else can see it too. I hate that she isn’t reprising her role but end of the day when all is said and done she turned down the work and was replaced with someone else who took the pay.

@Wexter I’m quoting an approximate on the SAG-AFTRA Union minimum rates. That’s the screen actors guild minimum for union work. I double checked and union rate is $327 so I’m not sure where you’re getting $250 from because accepting below union rates will get you booted out of the union and blacklisted.

I’m not saying others wouldn’t take $4000 either. There are a lot of hungry actors who would take that in a heartbeat. She has a value to her voice and is standing by it. Good on her and others, but that’s why actors like Frank Welker are getting replaced by imitators for Optimus Prime.

@Wilforce
Have you played the Bayonetta games up to this point? I have. She doesn’t have that many lines in the games even as the main character. Maybe a minute or less per chapter and a lot of looped battle sounds like grunts and the like (Smashing!). It’s not like persona 5 where dialogue is spoken every screen.

@GameOtaku that’s a fallacy. We don’t even know nor I care if she sells pictures of her butt on the internet as a side job. That’s totally irrelevant. As I explained countless times now… when you work as a freelance you’re not subjected to ANY industry standard payment, because if they all charged the same, what would be the difference from a wage? Duh
As a freelancer you negotiate on the value of your talent. She did ask them what was the value of her talent and they came up with that number. She didn’t agree… and then we don’t know what happened on the negotiations.
Just because you think $4,000 usd is too much, doesn’t mean that she values her skills as you do. That’s the beauty of leaving the grind.
As I said, I’m from Mexico and even I can get that amount in a good month and I’m not the main star in a million selling video game. 🤦‍♂️

@Wilforce
Then they don’t report it to the union. You do realize that the union takes a significant cut of her pay to be in the union right? It’s not a free membership club thing. You want to talk about scummy practices look no further. If the union fails to negotiate a higher pay grade you still have to pay them either way.

@YoshiF2 By your own standards why are you mad? She tried to negotiate more money with the resume she had and did not get the job. She bet on herself and P* felt they could get better performance for similar pay elsewhere. That is how the cookie crumbles when you do freelance work. You will get looked over if you don't have the resume that justifies the pay you're asking for. If you look at her IMDB it is Bayonetta and basically, minor NPC work pre-2014. If she is looking for more money she needs to have a resume to justify it. And we don't know if this is what she was paid before or an increase.

I did freelance work for a non-profit last Spring. I could have asked for my standard $25 an hour for what I was doing. Instead, because I knew they could not afford that I charged $18 an hour. They took it because I knew they could not afford my services otherwise. Not saying that is what you should do, but sometimes you lower your asking price if you want the job or need the job.

@Wexter totally, and that’s what goes into the negotiations. I already mentioned what you’re saying a few comments up.

I’m a big Platinum fan… but what gets me mad is that people fail to see why others see $4,000 usd as a low option. Just because they don’t understand how freelancing works. They all come from a perspective of an employee saying
“I wish I could do $4k because my 120 hour a week pays me half… so she must be selfish.”
Which is a totally false and incorrect assumption.

So the person that took the other actors job and financially came out on top of this whole thing is "taking the high road"?

Oh wow, she deserves a nobel peace prize...

@YoshiF2
But she was offered an industry standard rate. She obviously didn’t have a problem with the last 2 games and Smash appearance being paid for that. They negotiated. Apparently it was low so she went to Kamiya and the best he could offer was the $4000. After all there’s another new character so they had to pay her too as well as Luka, Rodin, Jeanne and Enzo. As far as lines spoken in the last game Jeanne got the bad deal as she had maybe 5 or 6 lines throughout Bayo 2 as story events happened.

@GameOtaku Union dues are $201 annually, they take roughly 1.27% cut per gig for the first $500k annually. At minimum SAG rates, that’s $4.15 per hour, which that’s still more than your made up number of $250.

Yes, actors take under the table, non-union roles using alternate stage names. However, the do so at a serious risk of being blacklisted. Only non-serious and unknown actors can really get away with that.

@YoshiF2 For a lot of people $4k is a LOT for a week's work. And it is still a lot of money even if you go freelance. The issue here is she's talking livable wage (and for the time investment she is doing, that is good money by any metric) when all her VA work is P* for the past decade. I understand that maybe she should have been offered maybe $5k or $6k, but at the end of the day, that money is not going to go much further than $4k. And that is what got people justifiably annoyed when they discovered more details.

If she does not have the hustle to do freelance work with other companies she should not be burning the only bridge she has in the industry. If this is a side job for her and the bulk of her income comes from somewhere else $4k can actually go a long way. If that be investing it in high-interest savings or in the stock market. You gotta hustle and play the game.

@YoshiF2
So which is it exactly the point you are trying to make? She negotiated for more and lost out and was given to someone else. Just because she feels like her talent is worth more doesn’t mean it is. That’s how it goes. She could’ve successfully negotiated for more but she didn’t. Maybe Platinum didn’t think her talent given her work history was up to par? Maybe they wanted to bring someone else on? Shady? Underhanded? Absolutely! But that’s the nature of the beast that is business. Dog eat dog.

@Wilforce
The number is based of the interview on another article NLife did on this when the VA of Revali told how much he made for his contribution to BOTW. That $250 an hour is the average industry standard.

I think the most annoying thing about this is they chose a Canadian / American to replace the voice actress I really find it annoying when they put on those fake accents

@Wexter
To me a job is a job. A athlete gets paid millions to throw a ball but that’s their job. Her job is acting. If that’s not doing enough to pay the bills and live fairly comfortable then maybe she needs to look into other avenues. If it requires that much work to get a gig then she should do the legwork to get jobs. I had to put in application after application before I got hired. I was out of work for 3 months when the factory closed where I was making $25 an hour. But I couldn’t sit and whine about it I needed to get paid to pay for food to eat, clothes to wear, utilities and so on.

@Wexter I agree with almost everything you said. And I did touched on the same subjects above. I would have never burnt a bridge with my main employer/client on social media. Sometimes you take the lower fee, I said that too. Sometimes the client pays the high fee. It’s a push and pull in which there are no goods and bads.
But telling me that she just sits and read lines, without training or experience, and comparing her to an everyday employee which get paid less it’s not a fair comparison in any way. And that’s why I’m head butting with some of these guys. Almost everything you said I said it too. but obviously I wouldn’t force you to read all the whole comment section.
You can see that most of the comments come from a jealous approach. What if she finds $4,000 underwhelming? I’m not the one to decide what are her bills or how she sees her talent.
Three facts for me:
1) Platinum was cheap, to be honest, because like you and I said… a $5k or $6k total wouldn’t have hurt Platinum in the slightest. From her viewpoint and financial situation $1k or $2k would have benefited her more than how P* views a $1k or $2k increase. Which takes me to the next one:
2) She should have taken the gig to keep a good business relationship with them and take the hit to secure more future projects.
3)She shouldn’t have taken to social media like that.

Those are the indisputable facts.

@GameOtaku As an actor when you land certain roles for certain franchises your expectations for pay go beyond what the time sheet says.

I'm sure Ms Hale did NOT take the role for $4k, so why should the person who created the vocal essence of the character have to take such insulting pay?

This is what Japan does to people they want to fire. They either make work conditions so unbearable or the pay so insulting that the talent has no choice but to leave...and it's disrespectful

@Thenewguy well alot of people on here are saying the games don't sell that well , maybe if it was multiplatform & priced a little lower it would sell more lol

@YoshiF2 I'm glad we're on a similar page then. Just things I needed to clarify and make sure. When we're looking at 900+ comments to filter through, some slip through the crack.

@GameOtaku I haven’t seen that interview, but I did see where he said he was paid $2000-3000 for BotW, which doesn’t give us a precise per hour number. I’ll stick to SAG rates because they give us some factual established numbers instead of speculative averages.

@Wexter yeah I know. That’s why I wouldn’t be head butting with you because I know you just came in to the discussion. But Otaku I know has read all the points above and still feels she should be paid less because average Joes get paid less 🤦‍♂️

@Wilforce
Given what he was paid though the offer of $4000 wasn’t that far from it.

Exactly this: @Bizzyb those are common practices with talent in Japan, and we saw it with the Konami workforce before.
For me it goes more along those lines.
But I would never state it as a fact because there is no proof.
Platinum has been one of my favorite developers for more than a decade. I won’t boycott the game but I did find the offer pretty cheap and suspicious.

@GameOtaku @YoshiF2 I think you both need to take the day from this conversation. As an outsider looking in it seems you're agreeing on a lot more than it looks when your neck deep in a discussion. It is just the roughly 10% that I think you're both disagreeing on (how much work VAing actually is). Which is fair as that is how most political discussions go.

@YoshiF2
I don’t think she should be paid less. I never said that. She turned down an offer which if the story is to be fully believed the $4000 was Kamiyas offer after she was given a lower offer. She had no problem working for them before. If this was lower than her last work on the franchise I could see her walking away but from everything we know that doesn’t seem to be the case and if it is she hasn’t said.

@Wexter
Probably so. I take pride in my hard work and feel accomplished doing what I do even if I personally feel I should make more I’m not out of work like she is which is what really gets under my skin. We all have to do things we don’t like to get my in life. Life’s not fair after all. If the opportunity came for me to voice act or act (my dream job) then I would put in any amount of work and legwork to ensure I would continue employment. Of course I think it’s ridiculous how much athletes and other celebrities get paid for work doing comparatively very little but as I said that’s a job.

I doubt this will stop people from buying the game. Hellena felt she should have been paid more, though Platinum didn't. Jen Hale is well-known, as the article points out.

@GameOtaku depends on the athlete! I respect the grind of the minor leaguer who is making $50k-80k a year putting their body through the meat grinder in hopes to someday make that $800k a year life-changing salary. But, when millionaires squabble about making that extra $1 million when they already make $5-12million that's when I personally start wondering why I buy my jerseys and other sports gear.

But, I agree. I used to play football and destroyed my knees doing it so I have mad respect for athletes who have the hustle. Shame about 70% of them go broke after retiring.

@Nanoline52 well it's been proven whoever voices the character doesn't determine the success as evident with the pre orders skyrocketing

For those curious things got spicy. Bloomberg reports that P* actually offered Ms. Taylor $3-4k per session and $15k in total over four sessions. And when they moved on to Hale they offered Taylor a $4k cameo appearance (this might be what she is referring to in the videos. Not a lie per say, but maybe not the full truth based on this report). And she wanted six figures and residuals. WELLL DAMN!!!!! Either she's lying or Bloomberg is... Don't know who. It would make Kamiya's tweet make a lot more sense now.

SOURCE: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FfYArP-XEB0VDtz?format=jpg&name=900x900

I'm respected Ms. Hale more than Ms.Taylor on professionalism. $250 usd per hour is a lot. She supposedly make multiple VA jobs per year but she choose to not doing it.

The new rumors from Bloomberg is that Ms.Taylor was offered $3000 - $4000 per season & the whole game is for 5 seasons. That's minimum $15,000 for full Bayonetta 3 ! I can't trust Ms.Taylor anymore. She so greedy person

@Arehexes here you go https://twitter.com/jasonschreier/status/1582439093677723648

@YoshiF2 look, I know you Americans are indoctrinated against the big bad socialism, but socialism has nothing to do with any of this. This is capitalism at work, people are taught it's rude or taboo to discuss wages so the bosses can get away with paying people (usually women and poc) less than others, and when that doesn't work they're told to begrudge fast food workers unionizing because how very dare they think they deserve more for their dead end job... Socialism is at the very core of the Union movement where workers deserve to be paid significantly more for their work because they generate all the profit with their labour, it sounds from your comments like you agree with all this so I really don't get why socialism is the boogyman for you?

@Wexter I well at least now we know who was gonna voice the Bayonetta that dies…(Cameo role)

@Otoemetry because Otaku meant that everybody should be paid equally (or the same) ... from the averagest of average Joes ... to the most skilled ones. That everybody should share an equal pay regardless of skill, which I don't agree at all. I didn't say this situation evokes socialism... but his mindset does.

@Wexter I told you guys $4k was a really low number for that kind of work. Now... with the new information the whole thing changes. I would now say that a six figure is quite a lot and she should have lowered her negotiations by quite a big margin. However, I'm reading the tweets and it seems there are half-truths out there.
I would like to know the real story before continuing with the topic or any arguments.

@YoshiF2 To quote the great Teal'c "indeed". the initial $4k number set my spidey senses off as odd... It felt right because other industry pros said it was rather standard pay. But, now after that, I have my foot firmly in my mouth and can say: You sir were right! The number was very low based on what P* reportedly actually offered.

@Wexter you know what would be funny? If P* actually offered $4k for each session and she understood $4k in total. Making the translator the biggest troll of all time.

And well, it seems the whole story could change now. It seems its a case of he/she said now. But hey man, thanks for the civil reply

@YoshiF2 I try my best to be civil with people who are civil with me. Thank you sir!

@GameOtaku In relation to guests charging for autographs it depends on the agreement with the convention. I did some convention work in Europe so have a little insight. Basically guests will charge a fee to the convention depending on how much work they need to do. Many come with a suggested list of talks they can give. Anyway the convention can choose to pay a full fee for the weekend and the guest will sign anything for free. Many do prefer this if possible so then they can just hang with their fans and not look for money. However many conventions can't afford to pay the guest the fee they need and instead pay a discounted amount of say about $2,000 for a small convention plus accommodation and travel. The guest then makes the rest of their fee through signings. I've found people reluctant to pay for signatures unless a big fan so they don't make huge money from it unless very famous, it really can be hit and miss with some guests making about $100 or another $2,000.

@YoshiF2
Never did I say everyone should be paid equally. Where did I say that? I said all work is equal. You want to get paid you do a job. Something has been lost in translation somewhere.

@GameOtaku man, let's just end this in good terms. There's no point in going round and round. At the end neither one is wrong or right, and because of the new information coming out, there's no way of telling who is telling the truth. So, there's no point in discussing this anymore. I'd rather keep seeing your comments and keep discussing in other news amicably as always. I bid a great week to you sir.

Im just glad jennifer hale is bayonetta. Hope to never hear of that amateur🐍 again I bet she already regrets what she said. Her only worthy title was bayonetta and she ruined it.

@YoshiF2
Same here.

@Jireland92 Yeah I get the feeling Hellena's not telling the whole story here. To me, she came across as not exactly greedy, but rather more so egotistical.

@Nanoline52 Here’s the thing, it’s been touched on by a few other people here as well, on both sides of the discussion. People getting into gig industries generally understand the attached challenges, one of which is that the greater part of gig work is finding and securing the gigs.

If someone only gets a few jobs a year (I’m tired of saying “gig”) they have to evaluate their work. Are they networking effectively, how so and how could it be improved? Are they taking every possible route to make new connections and establish rapport? Have they maintained/improved their abilities, or fallen behind on training? Acting/VO is somewhat physical work, are they taking good enough care of themselves to continue doing it at a competitive level? Do they have access to the information they need to find more work, if not, how can they get it? I evaluate my work for efficiency, safety, and knowledge. I evaluate how I communicate with team members and management, I keep apprised of opportunities for department changes and promotions, I stay active and plan my meals to maintain my strength and a high energy level, I take advantage of education benefits to widen my skill set. I do this every day. I don’t need to do any of it. I work a regular job. I could skate by just doing 90% and staying quiet but I do this because I don’t ever want to have to find another job, it sucks. Gig work is looking for jobs and if someone is making a career of gig work they have to understand they have a 24 hour a day job. Gig workers are their own bosses, so they have to honestly detach and evaluate themselves as if they are their own boss.

Just to touch on one other point, you’d mentioned the difference in Hollywood VA and game/cartoons/etc by mentioning Shrek and Toy Story in particular. These specific comparisons aren’t entirely fair. Mike Myers, Jon Lithgow, and Cameron Diaz weren’t voice actors when Shrek was made. I am sure you already know this but Myers was already a greatly successful comedy lead with movie roles going back to the early 90s and a career on Saturday Night Live, Lithgow was a star of stage and big screen, and was the lead in a successful TV sitcom, and Cameron Diaz, nobody doesn’t like Cameron Diaz. And Toy Story, fuhgettaboutit. Tom Hanks is a beloved titan and all the main toys were voiced by established screen actors. These were made before animated movies had fully broken into the “parents can watch them too and not feel like pulling their hair out” territory, which is why it was so crucial to bring big names to them. Those movies made more money, and Pixar became a household name, because of those actors’ names and abilities.

So now she's backpeddling? This is why you don't go to social media when you're emotionally compromised and post in the heat of the moment.

Good response from Hale.
I'm all for voice actors getting good/better pay and fair treatment. That said I can't support Taylor, especially when she is appearently backing down now from what I heard.

Whats very ironic about this controversy is that, in addition to Bayo 3 getting more attention than from the actual merch and ads, the game has reportedly shot up in the number of pre-orders or something within giants like Amazon, so Taylor asking fans to boycott Bayo 3 has done the opposite effect. Go figure.🤷

It was pretty petty for the original voice actress to tell people to stop buying the game as a result of her own personal decision. Even worse that the internet trolls magnified that same opinion……knowing full well they’re getting the game themselves!