Bayonetta's OG Voice Actor Asks Fans To "Boycott" Third Game After PlatinumGames Wage Fallout

Well.....heck,that's messed up.

Damn, I wish they'd kept her. I'm not sure if I will boycott the game, but this leaves a sour taste at the very least.

Yeah, it definitely sucks. But nah, not boycutting it. If we were to boycut over stuff like this, we may as well just stop buying anything ever.

Also breaking NDA? She can be even further down $4000 then if PG decides to do anything.

Oh, that sucks. Sad for it to come down this way.

Man, I liked her voice so so much in the games… now I’m even more salty for not including her…. I’m still on the fence about the game, might wait for her voice as dlc then

What!?!? PlatinumGames really put her thru this??? Wow, I am so sorry to hear, Hellena...

Well that sucks and I'm disappointed in Platinum but it's not really boycott material

4,000.00 USD? Depending on how she gets it, whether once, or over a period of time, I'd say she's being greedy. Especially, if she gets royalties, in addition to the 4 thousand. It's a voice. I doubt that she has done any mocap for the Bayou series, and if any, maybe facial gestures. If it's only a voice, yes that takes talent, and at the end of the day, it's the studio's money. They don't have to hire her.

Times are financially tough, and co.s are going to pass that on to their workers, and consumers. This is where the talk of unions start.

As much as I want to support her, I've honestly anticipated and waited long enough for the game and already pre-ordered it. For me it's too late to back out now. I really want to play it.

That said, I wonder if Nintendo also knew about this. Platinum's messaging was indeed curious and I'm hoping this gets sorted out. I bet they were confident that Taylor wouldn't snitch cuz of the NDA so sucks to be them right now.

Life can be a real b**** sometimes! We should prioritize people over money. If what she said is true, Platinum really missed the mark. Wish her all the best.

I don't think the 4000 dollars is that unreasonable, it's not like they had any issues finding a replacement after all, and as already said I'm not going to boycott the game over one languages voice actress I'm afraid.

So she turned down the job then? That’s what it sounds like, if she had nothing but time. I have no idea what the going rate is for a video game VA lead, but I suspect Platinum knows. I feel sorry for her, as she seems to be going through a rough time, but that also makes me think it’s not only Platinum responsible. And companies don’t generally like to be held to ransom by talent. See every show or film that has ever been recast.

Is it the going rate for voice over work and that is what Chris Pratt got paid for the Mario movie?

4000 dollarinos for the lead role in an established series? I agree that does sound low.

$4000 just to voice some lines? Man some people take things for granted, that's nearly 3 months wage for me and I graft my ass off 36 hours a week.

Now I'm curious to see how much anime voice actors get since they pretty much voice shows non stop. Or visuals novels which have thousands of lines of dialogue.

@bluemage1989 It was easy to find a replacement because voice acting in general is woefully payed, and newcomers will take any well known job that is available. Argue about the boycotting whatever, but the wage is an issue.

Damn, just your typical Platinum shenanigans, what a dumb company

This is heartbreaking.

Oh so Kamiya is an actual a-hole and it's not part of his funny funny Twitter persona?
Who would have known!!
This is a shame. I'm sure Troy Baker got paid the bank when he had to re-record his lines for the Last of Us remake.

She and Platinum both made their decision. They both have to live with it. Voice Actors and Actors in general have this problem, but in this day and age, lots of competition exists, and if another person does it cheaper, that's just the way it is.

It really depends on how much that is compared to the amount she received for providing the voice in the previous games, if she was also paid 4k for those then it seems fair enough, though she should probably have seen a small jump at least. We don't have enough information to make a judgement here.

I don't know how many work goes into creating the voice over. $ 4000 feels low, but it doesn't have to be. However, this is a single sided story so I will refrain from posting my opinion. I will, however, still be playing the game.

I mean $4000 flat? What were they paying on Bayonetta 1 and 2? Was Babylon's fall just taking up all their resources?

Wtf that's a good amount of money from such an easy work.

$4000 sounds pretty good to me. I dunno, what's the typical rate for this kind of work? Really sorry the actress is upset, but, that's the line of work she's in. If she wanted a steadier paycheck, plenty of other fields are hiring.

Seems everyone needs to tell us their life story nowadays. What do I care?

Obviously all of the Platinum Games fanboys are gonna defend them for screwing her over because Platinum can do no wrong

@Deadlyblack so you're saying the company that stole Xbox's Scalebound money to fund other projects and let MS take the blame for years is evil? Indeed who would have known!?

Massive insult there. That’s only 5-7 days of work paid. That’s not a lot.

I cancelled my preorder and will see if I can get it second hand later on. That’s usually not a big problem and I can wait. If only 150 persons around the world do that they could have doubled her wage.

Edit: Maybe I overreacted, since we only heard one side of the story though. But good god do I hate it when big cooperations treat their employees like garbage.

@Deadlyblack People said what Kamiya got worse after Scalebound. It burned him pretty bad.

First of all, I don't know how much VA works are paid so I'm talking from complete ignorance.
On the one hand yeah, it feels like 4000$ is an insult, I'm not sure how much time it could take to do this work but it feels low compared to a project like this. Maybe they offered any kind of royaltie but in a long term and maybe kind of low? If not it really sucks.
On the other hand, if she's saying she has nothing but time and she says she can't afford to ride a car... I feel like the moral way to act is not accepting this work and I agree with her, but meanwhile there will be people accepting even less for the job which will put you in a worse situation in the future.
It's sad from PG to offer so low payment to the main voice.

No problem! Done and done.

This does not sound/look good. But I do have some questions.

1. How much was the actor paid for voicing the first two games?
2. How long was the time commitment involved?
3. Is the job being paid at "scale" — and the actor wants more? (Remember, it was said that this was legal).
4. How much did Platinum have to pay the new actor (which we won't probably not find out)?
5. Are there other factors here (i.e., was this an intentional lowball offer because there were issues between Platinum and the actor - so the company wanted the actor gone but either contractually or for the sake of appearance had to make an "effort" to retain the original actor)?

Again, I agree on the surface that this amount seems low. But I would like additional information on the situation.

It's sad, but if I decided to boycott every single videogame that done stuff like this, what would I play? I love the Crash and Spyro series and I am currently boycotting them thanks to the Activision scandals, but I don't want to boycott them forever.

Plus, Platinum Games is not that rich, I think they almost got bankrupt and they can't pay huge salaries for voice actors, and I don't think Bayonetta is that much of a big franchise, it was always niche and Nintendo had to save it, it if wasn't for Nintendo, Bayonetta would have died with one game.

Unfortunately if she did brake NDA then that’s gonna lead to a whole host of issues… Hopefully there’s more work lined for her in the future.

Not buying the game (out of pure disinterest), and I don't blame her for turning down the role if she felt her time was worth more, but it seems unreasonable to ask fans to boycott a long anticipated title because she couldn't negotiate a better price for her services.

she should take joy that Bayonetta 3 won't sell that much regardless Bayonetta is not a big seller and 3 likely won't be any different

According to this recent article

https://www.google.com/search?q=game+voice+actors+pay&oq=game+voice+actors+pay+&aqs=chrome..69i57.5918j0j7&client=ms-android-ee-uk-revc&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Experienced video game voice actors will receive $200 to $350 an hour or $50 to $200 per 100 words for their video game voice acting work. Novice voice actors earn between $1 and $5 per 100 words. Video game voice actors are also eligible for bonuses up to $2,100.

So say she got $300 an hour, they were offering her 13 hours of pay. We don't know if 13 hours is enough time to voice all the lines and how many lines are in the game for that character, 13 hours could easily be enough.

For the amount of training she's done, for how taxing VO work can be, for the time commitment, yeah $4000 is ridiculous.

F**k that. Pre-order cancelled.

(And f**k capitalism while we’re at it)

I don't understand the issue.. Platinum did nothing to her but give her a bad offer. She decided to not take the offer. She clearly wanted more based on the sales and value of the franchise by her opening statement. Unfortunately, voice actor pay is based on quantity of dialogue, not how popular a franchise is.

If they went by the standard of franchise value equating to more pay Charles Martinet should be a millionaire.

Hey I called it when it was first announced. Figured they tried to be cheap and she said no. She should have grouped with the other VAs and not sign until they got better pay like DiMaggio did with Futurama.

That said, I couldn't care less if she's involved or what crimes the company behind the game has committed (you can bet they've almost all done their share, most worse than a little sexy harassment).

Boycott a game because she didn't get paid enough?! Haha...yeah not gonna happen. I'll continue to enjoy Blizzard games as well because I don't care about the nonsense behind the doors because SPOILER: every large company is going to do evil and have bad people there.

@Captain-N 4k flat no extra from any further sales. that amount is pathetic for such a series/franchise.

Doing some research (from Backstage magazine):

Video game voice actors starting out in the industry can earn “between $1 and $5 per 100 words,” according to a Performer Life report from March 2022. More prominent performers can earn $50–$200 per 100 words and are required to be paid “$850 for a single session [that] lasts up to four hours.” Like any actor, those in high demand can bump their rates up.

Also, it should be noted that according to IMDB, Hella Taylor has no credits in the last eight (8) years. And the only credits between 2012 and 2014 were for Bayonetta voices.

So I am not sure what is appropriate in this case or what should be done. I do know that hearing one person's side of any story is more often than not an incomplete story.

@Enigk Chris Pratt is far more know then Hellena Taylor, the only know work Hellena is know is for voicing Bayonetta.

How many lines could she actually be saying, though? Not like she needs to memorize them and act (read behave) them out other than providing a voice to them?

How long would it take to belt out a couple of lines into a recorder?

@Dr_Luigi which four?

@victordamazio Nintendo is funding the development of Bayonetta 3, just like they did with Bayonet

@Zyph You could buy a used copy and just avoid spoilers until then.

Wow, I'm seriously disappointed with some of the comments here.

"If I boycotted every company with something going on, what would I have to play?"

Well, first off, a TON. Second, if it's getting this bad, maybe it /is/ time gamers stand up for their hobby and start holding companies accountable for their actions, otherwise it's just going to be the wild wild west for them and we're going to see a lot fewer good companies out there and stories like the nonsense at Activision Blizzard King or Ubisoft are going to become the norm because they'll know they can get away with it and it's going to drag the entire industry backwards.

"$4,000 sounds awesome! Stop whining!"

Let's put this into context. You can get $4,000 working two months at Amazon at base pay. No skills, no extra travel, nothing. That sounds extremely low to me if she spent any kind of extended time to me. I'd honestly like to know if she was expected to pay any major travel expenses for this. And for a cinematic-heavy game like Bayonetta is, yeah, that's sounding a little low.

Guys, I know you wanna play your games, but please consider the shape of the industry as a whole and start understanding that people mean more than your $60 game card that you're going to sell back to the game store for $6. I know PlatinumGames isn't nearly as bad as Ubisoft or ABK, but that doesn't mean when they do something fishy, they shouldn't be called on it. Transparency matters, in my humble opinion.

It depends what the going rate is for this type of work on that type of game. You know the going rate. Shame it has ended all this way.
Lucky they didn’t ask the Rock it would have 4 million USD.

This is interesting and troubling at the same time.
It's so hard to judge, because I have no clue what's the rate of pay for something like this. Is it a union job? Is she telling the truth?

Hoping NL could do some research on voice actor pay and reach out to the parties. I'd really like more information on this, because it matters to me in relation to what I buy.

Wow. I'm not sure how to feel about this. I don't know how long it really took to voice the lines so I don't know if 4000 dollars would be fair or not. Obviously it wouldn't be done in an afternoon but if it would be done in, say, a week, it would be fair. If it would be done in half a year then, yeah, not so much.

Either way I don't think it's that fair for her to attack the new voice actress who is similarly just doing her job. Though we don't know the full story there so I think it's a tough call regardless.

I hope things end well regardless. Either way now I'm not too sure if I want to buy the game.

The amount of Platinum bootlicking and blatant disrespect for voice actors in the comments here is appalling. Shame you if you think voice acting is just “belting out a couple of lines into a recorder”.

@Zach777 it depend on the size of the script, since Hellena Taylor voice Bayonetta, she have a lot of dialogue to record and we don't know, if Jeniffer Hale is also voicing the Bayonetta variants(that i assume Hellena Taylor would do if she has returned to voice Bayonetta in Bayonetta 3).

That's very rude to Jennifer Hale to say that she doesn't deserve the role. It's not like Hale was like, "Oh, I'm gonna steal this role from Taylor." She was hired, she did the voice acting (which I'm sure she did a good job on), and then she got paid. Yes, I think Platinum is wholly in the wrong on this, but she really did not have to put Hale down like that.

@EdwardElric Yeah, the statement towards Jennifer Hale was really weird, and doesn't do Hellena Taylor any favors. It's okay to be angry towards your employer/former, but not attack someone who's just taking a job. The attack is oddly personal towards someone who hasn't done her any wrong.

@Captain-N It’s a flat rate, so I don’t think she’d get royalties. So overall $4000 isn’t that much.
But those videos are pretty rude, in many ways…

Isn’t it a bit mean to say that your the only one that can play a certain character?
(This happen with cloud strife where his original voice actor said that he’s the ONLY one that’s allowed to play cloud.)

I notice how you didn't explain how much you were paid for the first two games. Is there something you are trying to hide here?

I wasn't going to buy the game regardless, but man... it's situations like this that often end up being a double-edged sword on both sides of the spectrum.

I think it's fair that we start doing a bit of research into this situation before making judgements. However, I will say that it was pretty rude to discuss being recast in a passive-aggressive manner. Most actors end up pouring a lot of faith into their successors and go to blame the producers/developers instead.

Well damn that's uh pretty not what i expected. Honestly while i side with her i really don't like the shade she threw at Jennifer Hale and she lost my respect for that, this is not Hale's fault one bit she's just doing her job. I may have actually boycotted because Bayo means a lot to me and Taylor is a massive reason i love the games and character so much but throwing shade at Hale whose done nothing wrong just loses a lot of my empathy for her on this.

@DannZan don't think she would be a millionaire under socialism either.

So...how much did she earn voicing other characters?

No wonder Nintendo didn't bother having voice acting in the newest WarioWare. For a company making so much money in recent years they sure have become cheap in many ways.

Idk the voice actor rates, but i did expect more for Bayonetta which seems like a more dialogue heavy game as opposed to Mario which is just a few grunts from each character.

I could be wrong though so idk.

Ho boy, this will certainly be making the rounds on other news platforms. Maybe we'll get a better understanding of the situation later on...

@Olliemar28 This is the perfect comment and agree wholeheartedly.

For those interested, James Earl Jones got $7000 dollars for 2 hours work on the 1977 Star Wars.

$4000k pre-tax for the use of her voice in the game in perpetuity is ridiculous.

With so little knowledge on how any of this usually works, I have no idea what to make of this. Regardess, I’m just a fish in a sea of people who will buy this game and not care even a tiny bit about her plight sooo… yeah. I wasn’t gonna buy it on release anyway so hey, my morals be safe I guess. Just always feel that these boycotts don’t get big enough to change anything, so you’re just f*ing yourself over in the end if you were looking forward to this game. I wish it wasn’t so, but this feels like an issue that won’t be solved with just a smol boycott over a voice actress not getting paid enough. So at that point, since you aren’t truly going to change anything by acting or not acting… decide for yourself. Some are already cancelling pre-orders, some give valid reasons not to, I hope something more gets done about this in the future.

Looking up the going rates bring back quite a bit discussion depending on experience, if you have a union behind you, etc. This is from the UK

https://www.equity.org.uk/news/2021/december/uks-first-ever-agreement-for-voice-artists-engaged-on-video-game-recordings/

One way of looking at it is that she asked for the rate, and turned it down as it was too low for her. End of story.

But another way, I think, is that she is integral to the game and they should've worked with her for a mutual resolution.

Not sure about that statement PG put out though.

@Rudy_Manchego There's a difference between film and video game.

@itsclobbintime I buy used games all the time. But that also got me thinking. If no one will buy the brand new ones then there are no used to go around. I'll just stick to my pre-order since I already paid for it. I usually either give it to friends for free or outright sell it off after I'm done playing.

@Cia voice acting is not a easy job, you don't simply go to a recording studio or build a recording studio in your house and simply do a voice, you need to act with your voice how the character is feeling now, theres severals tecniques to change your tone of your voice to make your character voice sound angry/frustated, sad, happy, or even sign

@ketrac According to Google, if a big company made a tv commercial, the voice actor could be payed up to $10,000.

It says a mid-level voice actor would get payed $69,000-$87,500, but I’d assume that’s for a movie. For a video game, you’d probably have to voice more lines, but they might be easier to do.

No matter how you look at it, $4000 is incredibly low

It's awful how underpayed voice actors are across the board. They can take away her role in this game, but she still has a voice; I'm glad she can retain her pride and stand up for what is right.

We don't know the details.

How many hours would she have been expected to show up for, and over what time period?

The value is not just in how much lines are in the game, its also opportunity cost, while she is at their sound booth, she can't be working elsewhere.

If what some are saying is she isn't doing VA work anywhere else, she might be working a normal 9-5 job, so doing Bayonetta might cost her the normal salary she is currently getting.

The amount of people saying she's being greedy or that $4000 is a good amount for an "easy job" is disgusting. Speaking from personal experience, VA work is super tough, and for someone who is as talented as Hellena Taylor to get paid so low for her work is just awful.

@BabyYoda71 Google is not a source.

@Rudy_Manchego

The highly-regarded, award-winning James Earl Jones?

Having said that, it equates to $35k today. So, even with JEJ being well-known, it's still a massive difference. Hmmm

Jennifer Hale is voice acting royalty. I guarantee she got a much better offer than $4000. Whoever made these decisions must be kicking themselves now.

Some of you should be ashamed for the ignorant comments here. What they offered her is complete joke. Platinum isn't solely to blame either as Nintendo owns Bayonetta as well and could have foot the bill. Yet they're quite happy to pay Chris Pratt to phone it in for Mario. Ridiculous.

@UltimateOtaku91
Do you not realize that Voice Actors don't get a consistent wage like you and me? And major roles like this are inconsistent work. And if this is a major role paying 4k, imagine how little they're earning for the smaller jobs that they're able to get consistently.

People don't appreciate or understand how much VAs bring these characters to life, the amount of effort and passion required. And given how horrible the industry is (case and point) $4k is not much at all.

@Danrenfroe2016 that is a gross point of view
the woman is part of what made bayonetta work in the first place
she helped mold the character
and she deserves credit as such...

I understand wanting the pay you deserve but ive waited too long to play this game and i'm not about to let this silly feud talk me out of it. I will think twice from now on though about buying anything else from platinum games.

now i am a bit comficted in buying Bayonetta 3, Hellena Taylor voice as Bayonetta is too iconic to be replaced, really that Nintendo/Platinum Games was too cheap to over her a better salary? but in the same time i waited 8 years for a new Bayonetta game and 5 years for the release of Bayonetta 3, sorry Hellena Taylor i knew you wanted to voice Bayonetta in Bayonetta 3 and that Nintendo/Platinum Games has screw up with you, but i can't let this fact deny me for playing this masterpiece on my extended battery Switch

Hellena Taylor's rhetorical strategies require some work. She's only the English voice for Bayonetta, and the strongest supporting English-speaking audience for video games overall—let alone Bayonetta—is the American. If she'd not instructed what course of actions to take, she'd probably have made a stronger movement take place. Furthermore, why so idiosyncratic? While she was a pivotal part of Bayonetta, she no longer is. Bayonetta was a concept before Taylor was given the opportunity to lend her voice to the figment. Even if she was, the Bayonetta fan base wants nothing to do with politics of any kind, hence the avid desire to play a fun game like Bayonetta 3 in the first place.

Update: Well, she knows a little bit about Jesus it seems. If that's the case, hopefully she either recognizes or is told she can go and find a decent church to help her climb out of this financial hole she's in.

I have mixed feelings on this and the comment section overall. So many people seem to think voice acting is easy and just anyone can do it, to which I ask, why is everyone not doing it as a side job? If that is the case. No its a talent that is practiced and perfected over a long period of time just like singing, or any other creative art (which are known for being criminally underpaid) and I imagine it's pretty demanding of the mind and body. You may be having the worst day ever, but that doesn't matter; today you are the sexiest witch the world has ever seen, regardless of what is going on in your real life.

However, she didn't really handle it in the most professional way, and asking fans to boycott a game they have been eagerly anticipating for years is in poor taste, especially since the replacement VA is equally well loved and talented, and it's an insult to the actual devs of the game. I'm sure they are not the ones calling the shots on how much to pay her, companies are just that and they will crunch numbers to make the most profit just like any other corporation, its an awful reality, but it's true.

That being said I hope she finds work elsewhere that will pay her what she deserves.

I have a friend who is a voice actor. He earns $4000.00 for speaking a 30 second text.

It's insulting to pay $4000 to dub almost a speech book.

I have worked in television, here in my country. Voice actor work is much more difficult than you can imagine. I've tried this career in the past and given up. Is very difficult.

If Bayo 3 was xbox exclusive or playstation exclusive....we would see different reactions here.

@TheSaneInsanity you are a weird dude...
enjoy life

That’s a genuinely insane offer. 4 grand for voicing an entire game is insulting. I can’t believe anybody is trying to say that’s a fair wage.

Admittedly I don't know what the going rate is for voice actors is, but $4,000 for the lead role in a series like this seems astonishingly low. Definitely seems like Platinum are being being scummy here.

@itsclobbintime Buy an used copy, someone had to buy that copy new.

Buy an used copy, the number of used copies for sale goes down, meaning that more people will resort to a new copy, nowadays, new copies can be sold constantly.

She’s SAG according to her Twitter profile. Sounds like the union really needs to do better for their lowest paid actors. I can understand $4000 being standard or even high for an equivalent amount of work on a first time basis, but they need to figure out a way to ensure first right of refusal and at least a five figure number for returning leads in a production that earns half a billion dollars. I fully support her.

Oh, and also, Jennifer Hale is credited by Guinness as the world's most prolific female voice actress. According to her filmography, she does about 4 notable roles a year. I'm guessing she probably does some more small roles, but even if that doubles the number, at $4000/role (and few of these are as major as Bayonetta), she'd be trying to live on $32k a year.

Sounds to me she was already in a bad place independent of this job. I mean 'mental health issues' for not being able to agree on a pay check?

Also I like to know how long the job would take. A week maybe? 4000$ is not bad for a week's work.

Wow is that how little voice actors are paid for their talents? That seems like a pittance compared to the magnitude of the role.
I’d be curious whether her Japanese VA counterpart was paid a comparable 400,000 yen or so, or how much Hellena earned for the previous two games.

Knowing so little about the situation, I can’t really comment other than this is a sad situation all around and it’s very brave of her to come forward. It’s terrible Platinum couldn’t have handled this more equitably.

@russell-marlow Yes one is a bigger industry than the other with typically higher profit margins.

Since I planned to completely ignore Bayonetta 3 anyway, consider your request fulfilled!

I don't think Platinum games is being scummy, I think it's just a cultural matter. Japanese salaries are usually very modest, I think 4k dollars is around what a platinum games worker would earn in 2 months.

@Rambler If memory serves he was award nominated in 1977 but Star Wars opened a lot of doors. Plus Star Wars was literally considered to be an embarrassment for 20th Century Fox and no one thought it would make lots of money. So it wasn’t exactly top tier casting with guaranteed success.

I've read some comments in which people say that $4k is a lot of money. $4k itself as a lump sum is fair but of money, but that's literally all she would ever get for Bayonetta 3. No royalties for sales or re-releases in the future.

She goes on to explain that actually she won't be able to afford to run her car for very long, implying that she doesn't have much more work ahead of her. Presumably recording all of the dialogue for Bayonetta 3 would have taken weeks if not months.

When you look at it with all those considerations, $4k isn't much. And for the third original release in the series (plus re-releases of the previous games on PC, Wii U and Switch), it's an even bigger testament to how undervalued her performance is. Each Bayonetta game has been a success. She deserves better post for a character she helped make a success.

I wonder if it was for ‘all the alternate Bayonetta’s’, or for ‘the original Bayonetta’ who apparently gets killed off early in the game?

To me it sounds like they lowballed her so she refused. Guessing the new actress is getting more than that.

@Olrun

Like acting in film or television the pay rate depends on the project, the value of the voice actor/actress, among a million other things like budget.

Someone like Troy Baker, Nolan North or Laura Bailey bring in insane money off of their names alone. In video games and anime they are basically what one could call household names. Hell i would say Troy Baker is the Tom Cruise of video game voice acting; he’s always in high demand because his voice work is so recognizable even to slightly interested casual gamers. So they can demand significantly more money than most other voice performers.

But I will say that 4000 is awfully low for someone of Hellena Taylor’s pedigree. She’s not some no name fresh out of college VA. She’s been in the industry for two decades and has done a ton of anime too.

I wouldn’t expect Laura Bailey money, but she deserves a lot more than a 4,000 flat rate.

@Tasuki
This is why En Dub will never thrive
they got popular once, they keep asking for more
Just because the franchise is successful doesn't mean you too have to be successful, if it's true, Mario bros VA would be so rich today, if the offer were truly an insult, there wouldn't be another who will take the project, but that is not the case by the looks of it

@MrGawain I have no idea if what you posted is at all accurate, and really, really don't want to know, but that's a pretty heinous spoiler to be casually dropping like that.

Her comments towards the new VA just make me want to buy the game even more.

@Tober 2 months or more.
I work with movies for cinema and TV advertising. This level of work takes a lot of preparation and time before recording.

The recording itself takes around full time 20 days. Today the studios ask for a pre-editing by the voice actor. This pre-editing may take another week.

It's not just about the voice. The actor needs to play the character, study it, train the character's tone and personality.

Every voice actor had to take an acting course to be able to work with this. The exact same short as movie actors. It's not just talking to the microphone, you actually interpret, rehearse, train. Sometimes you hire a professional to direct your work...it's complex.

People are fickle creatures. We shout our love and support to the downtrodden all the way to the heavens...as long as what they are doing doesn't inconvenience us.

@ATaco best answer here!

@Rudy_Manchego
He got or was nominated for Tonys and Emmys in the late 60s / early 70s. So sez Wikipedia anyways!

But yeah, thinking about it, $7k does seem like quite a lot for a VO on a film that was quite a gamble!

So… uh… Kamiya responded in a very “Kamiya” way.
“Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That’s what all I can tell now.
By the way, BEWARE OF MY RULES.”

I haven’t a clue how to link on a phone, but it’s there on Nibel’s Twitter if you want a gander.

I was unsure when they replaced the voice actress. Now that I know the original was disrespected and horribly underpaid for this multi-million dollar franchise, I cannot stomach the purchase anymore. Preorder cancelled.

@HxRaider @Grocery-bag Charles Martinet is a multi-millionaire, from what a quick Google search tells me.

While I get that she wanted a better wage and that equal pay and all that has been an issue for a long time, she completely lost me when she basically criticized Jennifer Hale for taking on the role. It was her choice, whatever, but don't criticize somebody else for taking on a role that you passed on, no matter whether it was to take a stand or whatever.

Not going to boycott the game as I tend to ignore the politics of things. Was what Platinum offered her a lowball offer? Probably, but at the end of the day I worry about myself, and I will play whatever I want to play. It'd be different if what they did was criminal, but it wasn't.

I have no idea what the average pay for a voice actress is or how many hours the work is for something like Bayonetta. If she was really handed a raw deal and had no way to renegotiate it, then I feel bad for her. Hopefully she can still get work after this. Breaking NDAs and starting a boycott looks pretty bad to potential employers.

Can’t afford to run her car but turns down paid work 🤷🏻‍♂️

#sadbayonetta I don’t know what to think really, on one hand it does seem low to how much the franchise has made on the other id do it for $2000 lol. But in all seriousness it’s difficult to comment on unless you really know and understand the work in which a voiceover artist does and know the ins and outs of the situation 🫤

Why should I care that her voice was valued at 4k and she denied it? If I regarded every single VA's in my game and who turned down because of the pay I would be for one not caring, two it was their decision, why would it effect me?

Also is she not getting other roles? Being VA isn't as a good job but other VAs has a stable income, is she not taking other jobs?

I understand that the offer is insulting. It's unfortunate, but the game is also the work of hundreds of employees.

@nessisonett

I would say if it was for a first timer on a AA project it would be acceptable.

But she’s not a first timer. She’s been in the industry for 20 years and has done voice work for a ton of games and anime.

She’s got pedigree. So to offer 4000 dollars flat is extremely insulting.

This doesn’t change my opinion about the game; I’ll be getting it eventually regardless. If I boycotted everything I like because of things like this I would literally have no entertainment whatsoever. But this is a pretty screwed up situation.

Kamiya replied... https://twitter.com/PG_kamiya/status/1581316361657102337

"Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That's what all I can tell now.

By the way, BEWARE OF MY RULES."

Surprised that no one commented on the fact, that actually Platinums Statement triggered her to post these videos...
So either there is more to the story or PG was not making an honest statement...

@Olliemar28
well, for some context - where I live, 4k dollars is almost half a year worth of income. And mind you, I'm not saying about low and badly payed job.
We simply dont know if 4k $ is good or bad, how many lines she had, how much time she has to spent on that role before she can take another job. For me it seems a bit low, but I have no idea of VA works.
Also sorry, but bashing other actress for taking her role (last time I've checked she didn't created that character) is just childish and entitled.

Reading the answers here.

OK. The next time we read about toxic work at Activision, we'll reply, "I have nothing to do with it, I'll just keep buying Activision games as normal." Long live the Call of Duty!

Not really a fan of platinum already, but this is not surprising and extremely disappointing. What a disgrace. Ultimately the average gamer doesn’t care, especially when it’s a woman, but this is just another reason platinum is trash

My unsorted thoughts:

1) So, Jennifer Hale, an arguably Bigger personality in the VA field, was either offered the same 4000 and accepted, or, as a Bigger personality, was able to negotiate more.

2) It would be nice to have a full transcript of this.

3) Taylor is the only one that we know won't return, so this means everyone else reprising their roles did accept what they were offered. The nerve! How could they! All the joy of the world for them, though.

4)"X franchise is millions-popular, they're being cheap" argument always overstate how actually financially things works: Metal Gear Solid is a way more gigantic franchise and still gave Konami (figuratively) just a handful of pennies that they decide going full Pachinko was a better strategy.

5) I f only there was some kind of profession that could investigate a) How much work a certain VA would do for a role, b) How it compares to, say, Mio's VA in Xenoblade Chronicles 3, both in account of work and $, c) How it compares with other languages VAs... Where's Schreirer when one needs him the most?

I do voiceover work too and that’s insultingly low. She has every right to be pissed off just like the original voice of Major Zero was at Konami that led to him not returning for MGSV.

I also remember the actor for Niko in GTA4 got paid “only” $100k (someone please fact check the numbers for me because it probably was lower).

@Fath I stand corrected... however Charles Martinet is also a film actor and has other accomplished roles. His net worth is not based on only voice acting work, which is what I was referencing.

Sorry for not making that clear.

Edit: Also Martinet has voiced Mario more than on one occasion. I imagine is value is much higher than Helena having only voiced twice so much easier for the studio to move on. Not condoning, as I originally did stated it was a bad offer... There is still no fault here.

@Rykdrew
last time I've cheked no "normie" cared a bit about our outrages and CoD still sold well. Same story with yearly bash of Madden, Fifa, etc. That's the world we're living in.

A woman having a hissy fit isn't going to determine whether I buy a game or not. The money she was offered is no concern of anyone wanting to buy the game so her telling people to boycott it is a bit petty. She don't like it, move on and do other voice work somewhere else. Like it says here, it wasn't illegal, just someone wanting more and crying when it's not offered.

Company gave you an offer to take it or leave it. It's down to you to take it or walk. I get her point, but to make it sound like platinum are bad, did she ever disclose what she earned from them in the past one's? No. Rather she came here to make all these claims. I will like to hear from platinum side of the story before siding for anyone. Everyone has their time, maybe platinum have decided to move on from her. A contract is a contract.

I HAVE ALREADY PRE-ORDERED. won't stop me from playing. My decision, final.

This is a gold mine of a thread to see everyone's true colours. "I don't care because I like Bayonetta". I'd like to see this happen with another game, maybe an EA or Activision game and see the response on this website.
So many hypocritical people on here and they can't even see it.

Personally, I don't care about Bayonetta or Platinum games but I think it's childish for the VA to ask fans to boycott the game. You got a garbage deal from a job? Bite your lip and move on to other VA jobs.

Guess that means all the video game journalists and ResetEra posters, who pretend to be activists, will boycott the game? ...Right? 🤔

When she was upset when receiving the offer and felt she had to voice so publicly, she could have at the time.

Doing this only days before the game's release feels like an act of revenge and purposely designed to hurt Platinum games and all the people who worked on the game for years, of which 99.9% have nothing do to with payment negotiations. Including the new VA she even calls out for not earning the job.

Revenge is never a good thing. I say again if she felt the need to voice her concerns publicly she could have done so a long time ago. This lady is not in a good place and it's not because of the offer she got, there is more trouble in her life. I hope her the best, but this purposely designed sabotage act is not ok.

So here's my thoughts.

First off, I love her as Bayo and would have been glad to see her return. And I can appreciate the fact she stood on her principles and refused an offer she felt wasn't enough. I don't know if it was high, low or normal. Surely they didn't offer her less than for Bayo2 and she accepted that. So... it seems to me she just wanted more, and maybe she deserved it. In fact, let's assume she did deserve more. OK fair enough. She rightfully voted with her actions and more power to her.

However.

Saying, "Jennifer Hale has no right, I'm the one who made the voice, you should skip the game and donate your money instead" is crossing the line. If it bothers her that much, she should have just taken the job. I admire her sticking to her guns, but you can't then go and get salty they hired someone else and expect fans to just skip out on a masterpiece.

I'm sorry. But no. I'm not skipping this game. I shouldn't have to miss out on a top shelf game because a voice actress refused a gig.

Jennifer Hale is one of the most prolific and successful voice actors in all of gaming. If the pay was good enough for her, then it seems to me expecting more than what the most prolific voice actor is willing to accept was expecting too much. But even if it wasn't, slandering Jennifer Hale for taking a role you refused is downright scummy.

Sadly, we see the same thing happening with anime VAs, except for the most high profile ones. I fully support Hellena. She has played a large part in creating Bayonetta's image as a character and deserves higher compensation.

Well everyone you can all forget about Bayonetta 4 ever happening. Now the sales of Bayo 3 will tank and Platinum games will go out of business. It was a fun ride while it lasted.

So is the one who wrote this article planning to boycott the game?

I never boycotted Capcom for canceling Mega man legends 3 and treating Inafune like crap or Konami when David Hayter got replaced in MGS 5.

Konami kinda boycotted themselves with their crappy mobile obsession and drastic dip in quality.

I might not boycott, and I think it’s a bit rich asking, but that pay is crazy low.

She was offered roughy 0.0009% of their $450 million profits.

She’s the main character in a popular franchise.

She’d not only have to voice the character but be expected to promote it. Visit expos etc.

They should value her far more than what was offered as her voice and talents helped create that character.

@Fath that "spoiler" is like literally in the first ever teaser of Bayo3 we got, if memory serves.

$4k is pathetic. Sure, for someone off the street with no prior training, it would be a nice paycheck. But for a legit voice actress? This is shameful

@OrtadragoonX I'm not into English VA since it's not my mother tongue but some of these names are familiar even to me. That info was really clarifying (which makes the situation even worse), thank you!

@Severian The internet says that your memory is pretty much spot-on: https://www.gamesradar.com/niko-voice-actor-earned-only-100000/

Depends on how many hours she worked..
$4000 usd is a lot if she got her lines done in a timely manner

never played Bayonette and not interested in getting into the franchise. Cant say how much work and effort she would need to put in for the 4k, wonder what kind of money she expected to get, a million?

$4000 for speaking for some hours in day? That doesn't sound bad at all. Companies that hire the voice actors know their rates. It seems she wanted to get paid more, they said no, and just recast the role. I don't want to be mean, but, it seems it's more her fault.

@Truegamer79 Much like you say "Konami kinda boycotted themselves," if this series ends up crashing and burning after trying to stiff their lead VA, the only ones to blame for this tragedy will be Platinum.

Sooo, they made an offer and she declined...? So what's the problem?

I agree she should have declined for just 4000 and I get that it sucks for her and Bayonetta fans.

But no one did anything wrong, especially not the woman that did take the role instead of her.

Also, she broke NDA to tell us she personally declined a job? Uhm..

It just makes you think.... How much did they pay everyone else? Bayo is the main character.... 😮‍💨
I feel icky about this. That's barley 2 months paycheck, and VA isn't a 1 and done thing, it takes months.

$4k for voice acting a game like this is insanely tiny. I'm about to drop $1k just for vocals on a song, for comparison. Idk what's going on at Platinum, but that's *****.

In any case, I wasn't buying the game already, so I can't really affect the numbers. I'd highly recommend any fans just buy Valkyrie Elysium instead though. That game is great.

Are we all underpaid?
Yes.
Has capitalism escalated to show its true face of slavery?
Obviously, to anyone who has even opened a single eye within the pas centuries probably. Or ever.
Is it good to refuse when you think a deal is bad?
Most definitely. And I'm in absolute support of that.
Will someone else who needs the money still fill in that role?
Certainly.
I wouldn't rent my body or mind or soul to a slave system for all of the "money" in the world. Others just need five dollars for whatever it is they think they want, and they're yours.
Is it your right to claim the future of what you did in the past it and boycott them?
Nope.
Someone took a job you refused. You can't take it all hostage and make demands that undermine the ones who did agree. But still, if you felt insulted by the offer, I'm happy, genuinely, that you refused. More people should refuse offers that insult them. But keep that pride and remain a bit more humble at the same time in what predictably follows.
Legality and morality have nothing to do with each other, so basically (ffff) legality. But the market does what the market does, and they don't owe you to agree to your terms just like you don't owe them agreement. That would be total slavery (and it is legal in many forms throughout the entire world). One look inside a factory, a slaughter house, a mine, a battlefield, a political agenda... and you know legality and morality should barely fit in the same sentence ever, if it isn't to deny any existence of them being tied to each other in any way.

@Giancarlothomaz It was kind of a flippant comment based on a current controversial voice over choice. I know he will be getting paid a lot more to sound nothing like the Mario we all know. I wonder what kind of fee a regular voice actor can command if they are the voice of a titular game character in a series and what she received for the previous games. You'd like to think that she was offered more as the series went on.

I don't know what the going rate should be for the unknown size of that role should be, so it is not wise for me to comment of if it is or is not enough. I can say bad mouthing the current VA is not a good look. The current VA felt that the pay was acceptable for them and the prevoius VA didn't. B3 is a game I have kept my eye on and will consider buying. I won't avoid the game just because the previous VA rejected an offer.

The other side of this is that PG could have hired out a 3rd party VA company like Atlus does and they set the rates. PG may have have little to no input in deciding the rate.

Also if you Boycott the game the people that ultimatley lose are the low paid game devs who work thousands of hours to please fans.

@MasterGraveheart based!

@Poco_Lypso A heck of a lot of humanity's woes come from our silly inability to naturally grasp the differences in numbers. Of course nobody would expect "a million" for this role, but even just four-one-hundredths of that would've still been ten times more than what Ms. Taylor was offered here.

@Darylb88 - If you don't mind me asking. How do the devs suffer?

I find it shocking that she drew a parallel between herself to a nurses visiting food banks. So entitled.

@nimnio And customers/fans are free to sympathize with the voice of a beloved character of theirs and boycott the game if they want.

The Bayonetta games have earned $450 million? Really?

I hear that claim and immediately find everything else here extremely questionable.

That’s really crappy. Here we have a game with female empowerment and they’re actually behind the scenes not following through with that message. That really puts a sour taste in my mouth. :/

I'm just here to read the comments. Grabs popcorn Thanks for the entertainment.

@Slowdive hey, it seems it wasn't nothing for the actress that took the role, and I don't think she feels insulted in any way about how much they paid her.

People can't really think that 4K flat is a lot of money, right? ... Right? No wonder the VA industry is dying with stuff like this and how anime VAs are exploited. This sucks.

If this is how they treat her, imagine how Platinum treats it's other members of staff.

I'm starting a new initiative where we boycott boycotts. Just kidding, that's her right, but i really doubt it helps her at all. I do have empathy for her situation, unlike Stallone who is a little too rich to gripe about the rights to Rocky.

Well this just got spicy. I was planning on just playing the game on PC anyway... After playing Bayonetta 2 in 4K goodness you don't really expect me to play the 3rd game in a measly 720p do you?

@Brett The first game broke the million-sales mark over a decade ago (https://www.destructoid.com/bayonetta-breaks-one-million-sales/). $450 million lifetime revenue for all releases and rereleases of the series is entirely plausible.

@Bayjax They make games for people to play and enjoy. They work long hours and cruch to make something that people love. Devs are usually some of the lowest paid staff within a development as we have seen so they want their hard work enjoyed. Having working in the field myself the reconition pays far better than the wage.

It's just that what Hellena said can't be true. I think she definitely has something to hide. Hideki's statement only served to anger fans even more. I hope they explain everything for their own sake and for the sake of the game.

Hmm. But super veteran VA Jennifer Hale took whatever Platinum offered (or negotiated for better pay). The game is offered in multiple languages as well, HT isn't THE voice of Bayonetta, just the English speaking one...well she was. Atsuko Tanaka is Bayonetta in Japan for all three games so she took whatever Platinum offered as well. Plus breaching NDA and trying to harm someone else that took that job just out of spite? Not a good look there. Yeah I'm good. My preorder remains on lock. Will be at BB as soon as they open to pick up my Trinity masquerade edition.

Edit: I would say this even if the amount offered had been six figures (most people are underpaid, this isn't new). My issue is the lack of professionalism wholesale, and the disregard for how contract work...works. You always have three options: Take the offer as is, renegotiate, or walk. Whichever you choose, don't break the contracts you sign (that is your word as a professional at its most basic...which means you are untrustworthy if you do and it shoots you in the foot if you were mistreated) and don't attack others or try to sabotage the work out of spite.

There are tons of jobs out there; if all you care about is the paycheck, then you can get that without starting drama. Most folks however realize that job is more than that. It is experience (resume builder), contacts (networking and mentorship) and education (if you don't learn something new from the work you are doing, something is wrong...I can cite things I learned from my first fast food job), which means if you don't get the pay you want, you can still get those other things that will lead to more pay.

Look at Jennifer Hale; she has been doing all kinds of roles for decades. I recognize this woman's voice almost as well as my mother's due to how many things she has been in that I have consumed. I'm sure many of those roles paid crap, (some still do on occasion I would imagine because companies have budgets) but she kept plugging away and is now VA royalty. That's professionalism... that's how you get paid. Ranting on social media is not professionalism and not how you get paid.

@ChromaticDracula Did you honestly believe all of these games with "female empowerment" characters was really anything more than brownie points? Corporations don't give a damn about anything but money, and in order to get the most money they follow the current trends.

@Fath No, it is not plausible.

@Marxally Too many people in this thread seem to think that VA'ing the heavily-stylized main character of an entire AAA game consists of, to quote just one of them, "a couple of days work," sooooo... yeah. =/

@Fath yeah, my bad, he is rich, though I won't say he is a multi-millionaire, by the looks of it, his net worth is equal to Jeniffer Hale.

Wow every body here complaining about the 4K. There is no mention about what the other VA was payed, she might have got more.
Also saying that the other VA has no right to play the role makes her a crybaby for me. She did not get the role, so she has nog say in it. And for me it makes her look like a really sore loser.

And yes I know the wages for VA’s are low, but if she wants to improve this she could have done a better job.

@Ryu_Niiyama Jen was probably paid a lot more then Hellena since Jennifer Hale is essentially a household name that's done work for bigger companies. Platinum probably thought they could get away with paying Hellena $4000 since she's not as big, which is pretty disgusting

I feel sorry for her, but I don't know if this is boycott-worthy. Her voice of Bayonetta is very good/iconic but not worth the price of admission (or boycott) by itself.

I'm not going to not buy it because it's just freaking awesome. Unless there is some information that clarifies true extent of it all.

It does seem dirty that they couldn't give her more money, but I don't know how much work would be involved considering she's done the past two games, but lead lady is pretty chatty.

Sadly this leaves bad taste , but not quite enough to not buy it. We shall see though

@Tasuki
Besides, she said she was broke, but she refused a paying job. That's kinda strange to me. She might think 4k is low, but hey, money is still money. And in this economic recession? I'd rather get all I can if I was her.

@ESC71 Honestly I would say doing this was the best thing Hellena could've done. 90% of people don't respect VAs as is (as we can see in this comment section), so drumming up loud noise was probably the only way to get people to listen

@Olliemar28 I know right?! People just don't care. They just want their games no matter what. I'll get a used copy or...an alternative but this is just messed up. And Kamiya's attitude towards people is just disgusting.

@Sora181 HT had three options: take the offer, negotiate for better pay, or walk. She walked, so no need to try to sabotage a product that required the work of not only Bayo's VAs (plural because AT is also Bayonetta) but possibly hundreds of other people, now. I don't know what Jennifer Hale made (but like I said she took it) and I won't comment on that because even being a vet doesn't guarantee amazing pay (and many VA and Actresses and Actors have all mentioned taking either roles they don't want or a bunch of low paying roles to pay the bills so HT isn't special), but HT made her choice and she needs to live with it and move on. Coming back with a she said, she said is not only unprofessional but can be self sabotaging. Plus possibly blowing her NDA is a breach of contract which can and should open her up for litigation. Frothing up a mob is not how you get better pay/more work. Build your resume (by working) and negotiate your pay and over time you will command the pay you want. Everyone has to do that in every industry.

@Sora181 I don't know. It would appear that Platinum preferred to pay someone else more than have her back, and breaking an NDA in a frankly megalomaniacal fashion probably doesn't lead to people beating down your door begging to work with you.

@mike_intv This is the best response/take on this issue, period. So many factors we don't know, so to take a side is just to show your bias.

I'm sorry for the lady, but I really do need more details before I'd go so far as to boycott the game.

The woman is right, power to the people solidarity to voice actors. Dont forget guys that voice actors dont always working, she can't even afford a car. I wouldn't buy the game anyway so its not like i'm boycotting

@Dr_Luigi Pretty much. Boycotting because VA didn’t get enough money is a pretty low level on the “protest” chart. I mean plenty of people would love more money for their own jobs but that isn’t always the reality and we deal with it. Either that or find other employment opportunities.

It’s a whole different league then a bunch of sexual harassment controversy for instance. So yeah still buying the game day 1.

Also clearly the new voice didn’t find it an “insult” since she took the money and she isn’t some newbie VA either

@Bayjax when companies don't earn as expected, devs and other personnel in the technical side (including digital artists) are the first to fall, and the remaining ones are more likely to suffer crunch.

Also, remember that if not for Nintendo's $ input, Bayonetta would have remained as a niche XB360 Sega title (and awful PS3 port)

I lot of you clearly have no idea how much work voice acting is. Especially being the lead in a game. Grow up.

That is horrible to think about, 4000$ for voicing the whole game, but you don’t feel any problem as a publisher to sell it for 60$/copy. That is greed with no limit

@Ryu_Niiyama She literally did try to get better pay. $4000 was the final offer from Platinum, she was going to get paid less beforehand. Also, in the case of jobs like voice acting, getting crowds of people on your side IS how you get better working conditions. The fact that she was willing to break NDA shows how serious this is

@UltimateOtaku91 "to record some lines" is grossly exaggerating it. She's the voice of the main character her and Rosa. For mainly the entirety of the game... She is the voice of Bayonetta..

Factor in that she says they made over millions of dollars for the series with it's lead using her voice. Chanting spells in another language I'd be bitter too!
Then find out bayo 3 required you voice 4 other bayonettas? And voice lines for them? 4000 is low for a series that made that much...

I knew there was more to PlatinumGames using a different voice actor. $4000USD is an insult (and I'm assuming this is pre-tax). She is the lead and a very good VA. I'm with her on this one. If everyone keeps undercutting / taking an unfair wage, then don't blame anyone when you can't afford basic living.

@Sora181 So, again, she walked. Which means that's it. Decision made. You don't break NDA and you don't toss professionalism out the window to froth up a bunch of people that don't know the full story and will react out of emotion. You can feel the way you feel about this, because it is absolutely not worth going in a circle over, but she made a decision professionally and needs to live with it/move on to the next gig. No one is irreplaceable.

Usually you should ummm have contract in place before performing?

4000$ is too low of an offer for a game that I imagine will have a lot of lines for her to say. If it was a month's worth of work, then that is a very decent salary in terms of UK wages, but I imagine there would more to it than that.

I will wait to hear the other side as well though, because the Jesus quote of the final video gives me mental illness vibes, so there might be more into this than what we know so far.

@Olliemar28 Your comment makes it sound like you're supporting her call to boycott the game. Not a good look for Nintendo Life.

@nimnio actually, while I do understand English (and British English) well enough to play the game, I don't have the option to do so in my native Spanish (much less neutral/"latino" Spanish) so even though we do have options, these are still very limited.

Wow some people in this comment section really like licking that corporate boot, huh.

I'm not following that advice, but I hope VA get paid more. They deserve it.

@Kienda , why do you think $450 million profits? The franchise sold about 3.09 million copies max. Last time I checked they were not selling the games for $200 a piece or had micro transactions in them.

Nintendo had to literally save the franchise and did so to diversify its line up, not because the franchise was making money.

source VGcharz:
https://www.vgchartz.com/games/games.php?name=bayonetta&keyword=&console=&region=All&developer=&publisher=&goty_year=&genre=&boxart=Both&banner=Both&ownership=Both&showmultiplat=No&results=50&order=Sales&showtotalsales=0&showpublisher=0&showpublisher=1&showvgchartzscore=0&showvgchartzscore=1&shownasales=0&showdeveloper=0&showcriticscore=0&showcriticscore=1&showpalsales=0&showreleasedate=0&showreleasedate=1&showuserscore=0&showuserscore=1&showjapansales=0&showlastupdate=0&showlastupdate=1&showothersales=0&showshipped=0&showshipped=1

@Sora181

It’s possible that Jen got a higher offer, but it’s also not very logical. If they were going to offer Jen more money than why not give Helena the higher offer instead?

@BTB20 yup this. Her being that petty doesn’t help her “please Boycott entire game for me” argument.

That would be like David Hayter throwing insults at Kiefer Sutherland just because Sutherland voiced in Phantom Pain

I guess the Taylor fans in this comment section conveniently ignored this and continued their “Rawr company always bad little person always in right!” mantra

@ZealMajin Chris Pratt is a Hollywood celebrity with a much higher pay demand.

@Dr_Luigi Which is what I say about nearly all corporate grievances.

@MrGawain

Do the alternate Bayos all have different voice actresses or are they all voiced by Jen Hale? If they’re all voiced by Jen Hale, it’s reasonable to assume that they wanted Helena to voice them all too.

@Olliemar28 or maybe we should look at the situation with nuance instead of going with our emotions.

@Fath . According to VGCharz it's 3.09 million for the entire frachsise. So $450 million profit is not plausible at all.

source:
https://www.vgchartz.com/games/games.php?name=bayonetta&keyword=&console=&region=All&developer=&publisher=&goty_year=&genre=&boxart=Both&banner=Both&ownership=Both&showmultiplat=No&results=50&order=Sales&showtotalsales=0&showpublisher=0&showpublisher=1&showvgchartzscore=0&showvgchartzscore=1&shownasales=0&showdeveloper=0&showcriticscore=0&showcriticscore=1&showpalsales=0&showreleasedate=0&showreleasedate=1&showuserscore=0&showuserscore=1&showjapansales=0&showlastupdate=0&showlastupdate=1&showothersales=0&showshipped=0&showshipped=1

I have no idea what is reasonable so it's very hard for me to comment. But I would have thought the original voice actor was worth more than $4K to the game. No idea how stuff like this works and hve nothing to compare it to.

@RushDawg Because that's how the VA industry works, as unfortunate as it is. As I stated prior, Helena isn't as big as Jen in the industry, so Platinum probably thought they could get away with paying her less. Since she rejected the pay, they decided to go to some to someone who's worth more, a lot more. Possibly to use in advertisements and such

@MasterGraveheart Dude, THANK YOU. This is seriously one of the most depressing comment sections I've ever seen.

Giving a damn and not playing the game isn't going to ***** kill you.

@Captain-N lmaooo do you even know how many hours goes into the VO recording session? and when someone says they get paid $4000 flat, that means ZERO royalties.

Everything I could say has been said multiple times over, but $4k to voice the lead character's role in a AAA game published by Nintendo does seem like a slap in the face. I'm curious what her rates for the first two games were for comparison's sake.

I get that $4k sounds like a lot to an average person - it's like a 1/10 of what I make annually, so it is! - but we are talking about an entertainment property that makes millions, if not tens of millions, of dollars.

Frankly, I find it surprising Jennifer Hale signed on if they also offered her $4k. Isn't she a much bigger voice acting star!?

@Rykdrew I’m laughing that you unironically think this is anywhere near the level of the Activision fiascos.

And some people still defend PG and their crappy decisions.

This is why video games do not need voice acting. It’s an extra layer of nonsense that only slows down the game flow.

@Sora181 lmao VAs constantly don’t respect other VAs. Have you not kept up on all the drama of VAs backstabbing each other over the years over drama/controversy? Even Taylor is not respecting the new VA lol

@RudeAnimat0r It's more than possible that Hale is being paid more.

As for the "millions, or tens of millions", well, Hellena claims it makes about half a billion dollars!

@Arawn93 Most people do not stay updated on internet drama.

@RudeAnimat0r

If they were only going to pay the original voice actress Hellena Taylor $4,000, I highly doubt Jennifer Hale of all people recieved that same offer or less.

I dont know the average payout for voice acting, but this seems very low. I imagine getting Hollywood actors costs publishers and studios millions, so to see only $4,000 because your not Hollywood talent? Yeah, that's BS.

@ketrac Well that is how misinformation gets spread. Maybe most people should wait until MORE INFORMATION drops before torches/pitchforks dance especially when the other side is already claiming this is BS.

I for one would like to hear what the new Bayo VA has to say about this especially with Taylor insulting her

Either way this isn’t looking good for Taylor if any NDAs was breached or could potentially be blacklisted now like other voice actors

Well, a VA friend of mine tells me that $4K is quite a reasonable rate for a job like this. Maybe it should be more, but you can't blame Platinum for offering fair industry rates.

to anyone that are being dismissive of her grievance her, how about learn a bit of how hard and time consuming voice work can be. just imagen working for 1 to 2 hr only to find out that you have to redo it because bad audio balancing, yeah this is a common problem that happens. also sometimes you have to push your voice to the limit which can cause harm to throat. voice work is not just going to a booth for 2 to 3 hr a day for a month and call it a day. it could be months of work.

now my critic of hellena. just because she went through this, does not mean she has the right to ***** all over the other voice actress. she does not have anything to do with PG decision and need to actually work in solidarity with other voice actor/actresses to push for unionization and better working condition for all voice actors. this are not going to get better unless they push for better working conditions.

@Arawn93 I would be surprised if Jennifer Hale says anything about this other than just promoting the game. She usually stays out of work drama and focuses on the job. Besides despite the (attempted) shade thrown, this is a squabble between HT and Platinum. Hale has nothing to do with it aside from it led to a work opportunity.

To the people saying it's an easy job, I'm sure it's not. If it was, I'd being in the voice acting business instead of breaking my back at work. 🙄🤦‍♂️

$4,000 is a pittance compared to what these publishers and studios pay to have Hollywood actors in their games. Professional voice actors aren't just a John/Jane Doe like you and me roleplaying a character. Just compare any low budget game with horrible voice acting to something like Uncharted, The Last of Us, etc. Because sure, you and I can easily pull off emotional performances like that.

Please. 🙄🤦‍♂️

I'm inclined to say P* is in the wrong here. I won't boycott the game as I love Bayonetta as a series and I like Jennifer Hale (I'm a Bioware-stan what can I say). I'm now curious about what Jennifer made for Bayonetta 3? She is a very in-demand talent from American cartoons, video games and anime... I doubt she was cheap. I just pulled Hellena Taylor's IMDB and does not seem to have a credited role since 2018 with Smash Ultimate. Makes me wonder why she gets so few roles considering how good of a VA she is.

Sucks that she did not get the role, but it is P*'s right to negotiate their contract and walk away and recast her if they think they can get a comparable talent for a similar asking rate. It is understandable if deeply disappointing.

@Kang81 "To the people saying it's an easy job, I'm sure it's not. If it was, I'd being in the voice acting business instead of breaking my back at work. 🙄🤦‍♂️"

I agree. I got mad people saying that it is an easy weeks work. What these people fail to take into account is VA is not a stable job. You could have a job lined up right after doing another but it could be months or even over a year before you get another role.

Lol. 4 grand will maybe cover rent, food, and gas for a month here in the Bay Area. All for being an actor in a game that will make millions and live on forever.

@Unprdctbl Well playing the game because one VA out of hundreds of employees that worked countless hours on the game is complaining about her wage isn’t gonna kill anyone either.

My speculation, if $4000 flat is really a bad deal :
Helena and PG or Nintendo had some agrument, or dislike, or whatever unconfortable.
So japanese company do the japanese thing to her and give her a bad deal.
Just look at Ono and Inafune from capcom.

I believe her absolutely disgusting of them this game can get in the bin

At the end of the day it's business and someone else took the business you didn't want to take. Don't want to accept an underpaid job? Power to you, even if it sounds like you could use the money. Trying to cancel Bayonetta and slag the new VA? Get off yourself.

@SilentHunter382 This is true. But, VAs also tend to make their money from the convention circuit. But, with COVID that probably caused a major hit for them.

Let's see what Pratt is being paid by Nintendo / illumination in comparison I bet it's much much much more for a much worse performance

@cainswo Well living in California [especially in San Francisco of all places] sucks in general with how expensive everything is. Didn’t regret moving out years ago.

Nevermind being a VA you can’t even get a decent house in the area as a single person unless your salary is maybe the high five figures low six figures bare minimum that is assuming you don’t have other debts to deal with like car, tuition, credit card, whatever

Sorry, but any sympathy I could have felt for her situation vanished when she went on to attack the new VA for no reason.

@Arawn93 I didn't say anything about respect? I'm quite familiar with VA backstabbing since my favorite VA no longer does his character in media due to it

@Arawn93 Jennifer Hale has no obligation to get involved in other people's drama, or share anything about her employment.

The 4K is insulting, but wow, talk about airing your dirty laundry. In my mind this situation is Platinum effectively firing her by making such a low ball offer. Voice acting actually takes a ton of work and is physically demanding. Can take days of someone's time. Also, her abilities, talents, and being "the voice" of a particular character all have a value attached. This was Platinum, for whatever reason, telling her they didn't want her anymore by offering that low ball figure.

For comparison, although a different industry, the going rate in my area is between $2500 to $3500 for a representation in a first offense drunk driving case where the client wants to "plead it out" (i.e. not incur the expense of a trial and trial preparation). The reality of this is probably 8 to 10 hours of actual work, which itself is fairly routine. That's for your average lawyer, not those of us who are more experienced and/or prominent.

So, yeah, she's being insultingly low balled.

@Would_you_kindly Yeah because I’m SURE Chris Pratt isn’t a much bigger household name with a more wide known resume or anything. Also the characters Mario and Bayonetta are definitely in the same league

What next? Comparing Jack Black to Yuri Low?

@Fazermint I'm curious why she turned down the job if she needed the money. Seems like Bayonetta was her most consistent role and her only real VA job outside of some additional voices in the odd Disney/Bioware game. I'm sad she does not get more roles.

@Would_you_kindly different thing entirely. Pratt's salary has nothing to do with Bayonetta outside of Nintendo's funding. This was a P* decision. But, Pratt has been known to take massive pay cuts to make sure his fellow cast mates get their due.

Sorry for Hellena. But I've waited years for this game and I''ll buy it.

That's waaay too low. I'm better off as a "mere security guard", and someone who sells her iconic voice to millions should expect more.

On the other hand, I can't help but cringe at her comment about another person not having the right to play Bayonetta. As long as it's their IP they have the right to do whatever they want to with their game, even letting Bayonetta get voiced by a Chihuahua if that's what they want. That part just sounds like a diva

I sense some greed and pointless anger, and I won't be taking part in the boycott that she's calling for. She's whining because she was going to get paid FOUR GRAND (!!!) just to record a bunch of voice lines--and instead decided to take none of it. And on top of that, she believes the character should have died with her employment at Platinum Games; that Bayonetta's new voice actress shouldn't have success with the character in a role that she herself literally turned down.

I'm sure her former co-workers don't miss her greed, arrogance and self-entitlement. And if she turned down returning to that job purely out of retaliation for what she believes is not a living wage, then she'd better have found herself a much better job. She's going to need it, especially if she did (or does) break any NDAs in case her former employer decides to come after her for it.

I just can't feel sorry for the original voice actress the way she is coming across.

@ketrac Of course she doesn’t, but it would give us a vital “other side” perspective we sorely lack.

@Arawn93 so you think people should be paid based on how popular they are & not the quality of their work ?

@Arawn93 The other side is Platinum Games.

So she wants people to boycott a game she didn’t work on, because they didn’t offer enough money? She rightfully refused, but stop whining about the fact that you refused the job. You also don’t get the right to decide if a character exists just because you did voice lines for her. I’m sure if she is as good as she says she is, she would have plenty of voice work for other companies.

LOL gotta love how the gaming community cherry picks which bad business practices to boycott. I've never bought or played any of these games and it looks like I won't be buying and playing the 3rd. I'm so sorry Helena, I make 4 thousand in 4 weeks, you deserve much more than that. This is a highly acclaimed game, not some indy game, frickin pathetic. I suffer from extreme anxiety and I feel her pain. She was the voice of Bayonetta and helped make what it is today, I'd say she is worth more than $4,000 but people don't seem to agree. All this talk about mental health awareness is a joke.

@cainswo
Did she code the game, do the art, or pay for the marketing? No, all she did was voice one, singular character. It’s not like she was the only person who worked on the game.

I mean I am usually in the whole if a company f's up in some way or treats their employees unfairly you should hesitate buying products from them camp but in this case I just don't see it sorry. If she went on twitter and complained about this low offer that would be one thing, but like including this stuff about her mental health which the company is not really at fault (I assume at least) and then asking fans to boycott the game just feels kind of vitriolic to me. And of cours the comment about the new VA. Like make it known you got a really bad offer and then people themselves can decide if they want to boycott anything, but this...

And i dont know nintendolife could you maybe have included like the usual payrates for voice actors or something? There is absolutely no point of reference here

@SilentHunter382

That's another aspect of the job I often forget about. Yes, there are a lot of roles out there, but there is also a lot of talent. It's contract work, so you never really know when you'll have work, even worse for lesser established voice actors than the small handful most people know.

I'm sure they don't get health insurance either, which is not cheap.

What’d she get paid for Bayonetta 1 + 2?

@zleeven I’m sorry but a ton of jobs can be classified as “hard and time consuming”. That isn’t something close to unique for voice actors despite how some of them act like self important divas.

The programmers and artists working on Bayo 3 for instance would still fall in that category yet they are not complaining about their wage a few weeks before the game drops hmmmm.

I would argue they are more important then the Bayo voice because you can still have a game without voices [Hi Pokemon and many others] but you can’t have a game without the programmers and artists.

Taylor selfishly demanding the fans boycott the entire game because she didn’t get a wage to match her self reflected worth [yet Jennifer strangely did hmmmm] is a big middle finger to all the hundreds of employees that worked countless hours for Bayo 3 especially with how long that project was with the intention of screwing them over because Taylor is pissed Platinum didn’t meet her figure and has to lash out her own personal financial issues [I can’t afford car] on others.

I don’t see this boycott taking off at all despite no doubt news sites such as this one will sensationalize the one sided account for another “bad company hurts honest little person” type story for clicks

So I've not played the Bayonetta games and don't plan to and I also have no clue how much a voice actor should be payed for the lead role in a lengthy video game, but with that out the way, $4000 sounds a low amount to me. Especially with the profits PlatinumGames and Nintendo are making. (Not talking about her figures, just know the games give a huge profit). So this does sound really unfair for her. I might be ignorant on something, and therefore wrong, but otherwise, yeah, I don't think that sounds good. I'm not going to boycott any of the games or this 3rd one, but this certainly sounds like greed from the company... but I might be wrong? I don't know.

I do think the way she called this out could be a lot better handled, but if she's angry and has the right to be, and mental health issues on top, I suppose that is one way a person would respond. As long as I understood right, anyway.

Sounds like she is butt hurt about getting paid money. Pathetic attitude. It's funny that she thinks Bayonetta made $450 million hahahahaha

Lack of royalties is perfectly understandable. VA are far from the most important people that work in games. On AAA games there is thousands of people involved. Everyone would deserve royalties, which would not be financially sane.

@Wexter That is also true with them earning more from convensions. But still I still think that VA should get paid more overall and if they did mocap then that should increase more.

@Would_you_kindly "so you think people should be paid based on how popular they are & not the quality of their work ?"

IMO it is a bit of both. Yes talent is more important the someone's popularity but to the average person who doesn't know the name of the VA over a well known actor or actress then popularity is going to win majority of the time.

Platinum made an offer, she refused, they hired someone else.
Nothing to see here, just business as usual.

@Captain-N
Greedy? Well it's proof right there you don't know what you're talking about.

@Fath I was jokingly saying a million because she herself didn't mention how much she actually wanted for the job. I don't know what the industry standards are tho. But what strikes me as odd here, and correct me if I am wrong (never played bayonetta), she has voiced B. in the first two games and I would suspect her earning was on a similar level. I guess she must have checked how much money the franchise has made over the years and now wanted to get more than usual. The 450 million she mentioned btw, its a huge difference if thats pure profit or general sales, I doubt she has checked into that.

Kamiya: no speaking English on my Twitter
Also Kamiya: responds to a heated situation in English, thereby drawing in English responses

@JaxonH @aaronsullivan She sounds pretty broken to me right now. I once got fired by a female boss and when I plead my case w/ the higher ups they basically told me not to take it personally, she's going through a really bad divorce and just taking it out on all men. I was still fired, but glad to know it wasn't personal. 😝

It seems obvious to me this is in response to PG saying that the voice actress couldn't find the time to do the work. Had PG said "We offered her the job but she declined our offer" maybe she doesn't say anything, maybe she does. There is so little to go on here. At this point it's just a she said - he said. Mostly she said.

She did lose me at that last part though, that she's Bayonetta. That's not how media works. Ask Goku. I hated his new voice actor for so long after the original, forget what the original sounds like now though.🤷‍♂️ The newer Akira dub, where the guy screams "Canada!" rather than "Kaneda!", is just wrong. 😝 That's the part that made me think, maybe she's having a breakdown? So now I feel bad for her. Not bad enough to boycott a game or a voice actress, she turned down the offer, but she seems like maybe she's going though some stuff. Covid put us all through some stuff, lot of broken people out there. 😢

This seems like it's missing half the story.

@SilentHunter382 I'm just saying I bet he's being paid 200X + what she was offered & it hardly seems fair

Well, i have some Questions:
1. How much do other normal Voice Actors earn per Game / Movie
2. How long do they work for one Game as Bayonetta? One Month? Two? Three?

If this is true it's an ***** move on Platinum's part, but man this Twitter drama is the last thing I wanted days before the game released.

Either Kamiya needs to give the full story or reconcile with Taylor because this is just a huge ass headache for everyone.

Also that 450 million figure definitely is gross revenue [lifetime out of many platforms Bayo 1 was on/ported]. If that was actually profit then Platinum wouldn’t be close as poverty as they were lol.

Platinum struggles to make their own games without an outsider publisher [Nintendo, SE, MS, etc] helping out as a frame of reference as they mentioned many times in interviews. They are similar to Arc Sys in ways. Dev group mercenaries getting commissioned for games for X group.

I am not a fan of the series (Like the character though) but while i do feel bad she isn't paid for more being the lead in a multimillion dollar series, boycotting the game is just being petty on her and fans' parts. I wouldn't want the game to fail since there are the programmers and artists and other VAs too. Plus Jennifer Hale is one of my favorite VAs so I wish her the best in succeeding Hellena.

So again, scummy Kamiya did this, but a whole game shouldn't go under just because.

Wasn’t going to buy it anyway even if she was in the game and paid well.

But I won’t let such a request from someone in a similar situation dissuade me from buying a game I do want to play.

Meanwhile.. as someone who prefers japanese dub.. 👀

Good luck getting gamers to boycott. The ones who do boycott are people who didn't plan on buying the game anyways and just like to look the hero online. And the ones that buy the game will use the excuses like "I'm supporting the game developers" spiel.

I don't understand how people can defend this low pay. Yes, the game couldn't exist without the work of programmers and artists to actually generate the logic of the world and the character models, but voice actors bring these characters to life. That said, Hellena definitely shouldn't have attacked Jennifer as that undermines her points.

@Would_you_kindly oh I agree it isn't fair but if you are a big star and are offered jobs left, right and centre then companies are going to offer you more money to make sure that they can get you vs someone who doesn't have much work.

but still.. attacking new VA... asking people to boycott a game where it could be hundreds of people working on it is too much and unprofessional.

No one can be Bayonetta without her? Really? Is this another first world problem or self entitlement?

Both Platinum Games and Nintendo (since it is funding some, or maybe all of the game) have to respond to this with more than just a tweet about 'untruths.' I won't be boycotting the game but there are others who will and that's their right and I do think, now that we know one side of the story, the other parties involved owe people some type of explanation. Don't know for sure if this is an issue of being cheap or not. I can't imagine it would cost less to get Jennifer Hale to do the voice work as she is a big name in the game industry and has a longer list of credits recently. If they felt a bigger name might lead to more sales I could see going that route, but there should've been a better answer at the start than overlapping circumstances as to why the original voice actress didn't return. Companies sometimes really don't think this PR stuff through.

@Olliemar28 Well most of those "this is horrible buts" you're referring to are just people saying they still intend to buy the game; they're not trying to justify what happened to the voice actress.

Whatever Taylor's endgame was, she will most likely be blacklisted out of the industry for violating NDAs here. Best of luck to her in the future.

Not even in the gaming community is voice work respected. Terrible.

But there are always two parts to a story. Remember that everyone.

@Captain-N "4,000.00 USD? Depending on how she gets it, whether once, or over a period of time, I'd say she's being greedy. Especially, if she gets royalties, in addition to the 4 thousand."

That's the problem, it was flat, with no royalties, not even from merch. The issue is that Platinum treated her as if she was replaceable, even though she had spent 7 years before the first game training to hone in on her voice acting work. It would be like if you got a doctorate of surgery from Yale, to then receive a £23K a year contract with a hospital. That's where you say screw that, find work elsewhere. That's what Hellena did.

I wonder if this was for a days work, weeks work, months work? $4000 a month is still a $1000 a week. That’s more then I make and I’d love to be paid that much even if it was for a limited time. Any more work, I’d say she was under paid. But if she needed to do a weeks work in recording, little practice, then I’ve got 0 sympathy for her and I’d be more likely to boycott any future games, movies, etc, that she is involved in. a game developer making 50k a year makes less then we talking she could have been making.
I’m still getting this game day 1.

On the one hand, $4000USD for what is very likely a few hours or days job at most seem very worth it but on the other hand, they are seriously underpaid when compared to celebrity “voice actors” who probably get hundred thousands if not millions to just lend their ***** voice.

@Jiggies Nlife is not an unbiased news site. It's a fan site first, news site second. Every editor here has their own diverse opinions. Ollie, Kate, or any other editor, can speak their mind as long as it's not offending, even if it's against a game that will come to a Nintendo system.

@SepticLemon
the problem is, it looks like she doesnt have any gigs besides Bayo(according to her IMDB, no other since 2014), which makes her standing is very weak, and clearly P* thinks so too

Hey folks, know your worth and don't accept anything less than you deserve.

Also, and this part is just as important, don't sh*t on the person who took the job you didn't accept and SUPER DON'T DON'T sh*t on all the other people attached to a project you turned down.

Hold Nintendo and Platinum accountable, but boycotting a game that hundreds of people, who had nothing to do with this, spent years of their lives working on is incredibly petty.

Yeah, I lobe Bayonetta and sadly will probably boycott this game because of this. Had a feeling there was some stuff going on when she didn't do the voice. That pay is absolutely unfair & just goes to show how far gaming still needs to go when it comes to payments & royalties for voice actors. Not cool!

@Tober VGChartz is a useful source, but not an authoritative one, largely because (if memory serves) they have no insight into digital sales, just physical units shipped to retailers. For comparison, the Grand Theft Auto series is reported as having made about $8 billion in revenue since the release of GTAV in 2013, yet VGC only shows that game as having shipped 170 million copies (with 380 million for the series as a whole since 1998).

If we take a rough 40:1 ratio for revenue to sales number from that data and apply in to Bayonetta's 3 million, that puts us at $120 million series revenue. Doesn't perfectly line up with Ms. Taylor's number, but it's in the same order of magnitide. With fuzz factors of VGC's inherent inaccuracy handling different sales patterns over time, potentially different methods of accounting (especially for very different national cultures), and Taylor being a VA, not a CPA, it's totally plausible, at least.

More importantly, though, Brett was latching onto this number in order to try to discredit the entire story, which is completely unfair. Even if Bayo 3 was a no-name Kickstarted indie, they'd get laughed out of the room for trying to pitch professional, multimillion-seller voice acting as a mere $4000 stretch goal.

Will buy 5 copies to compensate for whoever decide to not buy

@Miu I know right. I feel like Atsuko Tanaka is wondering what the heck is going on right now since she at this point is THE voice of Bayonetta since she has done the character for more roles than HT has.

I know a lot of people wont care, hell, for a bit I was here sitting thinking "this is bleeped up but I'll still obviously get the game"... but you know what? 4k is [bleeped] up... This is total [bleep]... I don't know if this was on Nintendo or on Platinum, but [bleep] this... I just canceled my preorder.

I do hope we get more information on whom was actually making the call to just pay 4k for this.

@HxRaider Charles Martinet does side gigs too. But I'm pretty sure that Nintendo gives him royalties for playing the voice of the most iconic video game character ever.

@HxRaider that is almost a decade ago. If she really didn’t do any high profile voice work since then she really didn’t have much leg to stand on for salary negotiations. Not to mention she has other issues to worry about if she is bringing up that she can’t afford her car. What has she been doing in that giant resume gap?

@Fath Er, no. Brett latched onto this number because it's one of the first things she said in her video, and it is certainly not true or close to true. It's a number you can laugh out of the room.

It's so completely made up that I question everything else she says, including even that she was offered $4000 flat. In any case, she has been easily replaced by a vastly more successful voice actor who I bet knows what she is doing and is getting paid more than $4000 and more than Hellena would have been paid.

Is it just me, or does the person in these videos not immediately seem like someone you don't want to have working for you? The bizarre pauses between sentences, the megalomania, the bitterness toward her replacement?

@SugarKane I can’t believe how these same people think activision ea Microsoft are evil yet are here thinking this is OK. Actually I can believe it.

Pretty unprofesional of her honestly, Platinum games is doing nothing illegal, she only felt insulted because she think she deserved more, but Platinum games never violated any of her rights and she was totally free to decline the contract and seek for jobs in other projects.

There is no reason to ask for boycotting the game that you weren't even involved, she is free to complain off course, but trying to organizing a boycott is pretty lame.

Platinum games isn't even one of those western companies where an insane amount of money goes to the Director/Ceo's pocket.

@rjejr
That’s reasonable assessment.

At the end of the day, I get it. She feels shafted. But that doesn’t justify slandering Jennifer Hale and telling fans they should skip the game just because she refused an offer she didn’t like.

She clearly accepted the offer for Bayonetta 2, and I guarantee they didn’t offer less than that game. So… it’s just a case of her demanding more than the going rate, then getting upset they said ok fine, we’ll hire someone else then.

I can sympathize with her, but it irks me that she’s bad mouthing the new voice actress. I would never in a million years boycott a game over something so frivolous as someone refusing an offer they didn’t like, but even if I was, bad mouthing the new voice actress would cause me to do a complete 180.

Man, I was going to write something on Reddit about Nintendo, but will say something here. This company has changed big time after Iwata died. I dont know if thats the case but it feels like it. I haven't owned a Switch since 2019 after suffering with drift on three pairs of joy cons and cracks that mysteriously showed up on the backplate of the console. Not only that, but the eshop is awful, along with the online service. I love Bayonetta, but Kamiya sounds like a self centered a-****. Dont really care for Furukawa aswell, as he only care about money and not the fans. Iwata would take a price cut in his salary during the dark days of the Wii U. He would make several appearances in the direct. The famous one with the banana and Luigis mansion with Miyamoto is my favorites.

Yeah, I'm gonna boycott it alright... And by boycott, I mean my preorder is staying.

While that figure seems low at face value if it's true, there are a few things here that come off as really obnoxious on her side, leading me to believe she is not telling us the whole story at least.

First off, the unprofessional attitude on Twitter. I know I certainly wouldn't ever want her on my project. Financial details are private. If she doesn't agree with them, that's fine, she can walk away as she did. Complaining on Twitter and calling for a boycott is a bad look.

Second, the self entitlement for a fat paycheck, at a time where many other people are struggling to even get a living wage. I'm sorry I don't feel bad for her at all. She can boycott the game on her own with her army of Twitter followers for all I care.

Welp, this is disappointing. I really liked platinum games, but ***** them for this.

@Arawn93 yeah, it feels a bit weird because most of VA have also dub Anime or Cartoon, but Hellena only have Bayonetta in her most recent resume

@Arawn93 The Bayonetta franchise definitely didn't even come close to 450 million in revenue. That's the equivalent of 7.5 million full priced $60 copies sold.

@Brett It is just you; your reply backs up exactly what I said your point was (it's the rhetorical equivalent of saying "I didn't steal that car, I just smashed its window and drove off with the keys tucked into the visor"); and I've already amply demonstrated why the number she put out is, if not perfectly accurate, at least entirely unremarkable for the series' sales.

@Exerion76 Bayonetta is a niche franchise. That mentioned revenue number is BS and most of the actual revenue went to Sega and Nintendo.

@Fath. You make good points, but the GTA comparison is not a representive one because of GTA online. Most of their revenue is micro transactions and games of a service nowadays with that series. Bayonetta does not have something similar. Given the claim is 3 times the best estimate, I would not say it's in the same ballpark, let alone the difference between revenue and profit.

That said though, no she is probably not a financial expert and certainly would not know the real numbers behind the series. It is known though that the franchise has not been particular profitable. Nintendo essentially saved it to diversify its line up, not because it's a money maker. Reports of Platinum games not doing so well financially have been resent over the years.

Is $4K reasonable? I do not know. How much where the previous contracts? How much does the Japanese VA make? Or any other language VA's. I have no idea. I'm irked though she waited to voice her anger publicly only days before Bayo3 release. Essentially feels like a revenge move. In my book that is not ok.

Good for her for not accepting a job that's not paying her worth, but asking for a boycott is a bit... extreme?
She may be in a bad place if she's going through those lengths.
To me it just sounds like negotiations didn't pan out and both parties moved on (sort of)

@Liam_Doolan
It appears that Sean Chiplock has addressed this on Twitter due to an explosion of questions directed to him, and he explained what he currently experiences in his own work. Maybe should consider throwing it into this article?

She is the VA of one character out of many in one language out of many. Replacing her wasn't even that hard and the other VA accepted probably the exact same amount of money.

A game that has been in development for over 5 years by hundreds of employees who put thousands of work hours into it should not by any means be boycotted by anyone because one VA thought that she deserved more than what is most likely an industry standard offer. Boycotting the game because of something that petty would mean ***** on the heads of hundreds of developers who put a lot of love and passion into the project.
It's stupid and petty and she clearly believes that she's more important than she really is.

I heard Chris Pratt humbly accepted $4000 for the privilege to be Mario

Sorry , but this person is acting like an whinny brat in my opinion. As A while I enjoy the bayonetta franchise it is not an big seller as it an rather niche audience that buy the game as bayonetta 2 barely made an million sales.

Secondly to earn 4000 usd for about an week worth of work is something I would happily sign up for.

@Fath Well, I got a couple little hearts on my comment from someone, so it's not just me!

You have no idea what you're talking about. Using figures you can't be sure of to come up with a made-up revenue quote that's about 30% of what Hellena is suggesting is profit and saying that's good enough is not amply demonstrating anything at all.

What we can be sure of is that a vastly more successful voice actor has taken over the role, and she's probably not being screwed. There is simply no reason whatsoever to think Hellena was not offered a fair rate.

@Dr_Luigi The official sales figures of Bayonetta 2 on Switch alone are over 1m copies sold. Even if the game was sold $20 a pop, which it is never that deeply discounted, that would be $20m in revenue.

I am not arguing that Platinum is a mega corporation AND I am not saying Bayonetta is a half a billion dollar franchise like the voice actress claimed, but even if the game's didn't turn profits, $4k is a substandard pay rate for your leading lady.

Also, Nintendo IS a mega corporation with tons of money in its coffers. They aren't a charity and wouldn't keep Bayonetta afloat if it repeatedly lost money. Someone could have paid her a fair wage.

Lastly, if Bayonetta isn't a money maker, and even a small one, why did Sega port it to last gen and PC?

Woah! Wasn't expecting some of these comments

Every year nintendo life is on their high horse about video game crunch and how people need to be paid fairly. And here we are justifying why we empathize but must play this game.

Just accept facts that games are all about money and Nintendo is in the same game here as ea, activision, and naughty dog.

@RudeAnimat0r Do you think Jennifer is being paid a fair wage? I mean, if you had to guess?

@Tober I can respect your points too, because I'm not a financial expert either, and I think we're both acknowledging similar levels of ambiguity. Whether we personally agree on whether or not that amounts to reasonable or plausible differences is mostly academic, because your annoyance is rooted in a fair grievance instead of ad hominem attacks on the VA's credibility and talent like Brett insists on continuing to make. Cheers .

@Fath I did attack her credibility because she implied that the people paying her wage had a half-billion profit from this series, which I find slightly less plausible than you do.

I don't think I've attacked her talent.

But I'd ask you the same question I asked the other fellow: if you had to guess, do you think Jennifer Hale is probably getting a fair wage?

To be frank, it is not my duty as a consumer to ensure that the people working on the project get compensated fairly. We are talking about adults who can make their own decisions. PG offered her a wage for the job and she declined because she wasn't content with it. That's the end of it.

And to be honest, I am really tired of all the Twitter drama of people being unhappy with working in the gaming industry. If her breaking the NDA doesn't come back to bite her she can count herself lucky. And that also doesn't leave a good impression for potential future employers.

@Friendly So you mean the employees who worked 5 years on the game should suffer, because one person did refuse a offer?

It's her own fault, and you shouldn't blame all employees who spent years on making the game. It's not the employees who offered her the money.

I'm getting it on day 1 to support those who spent years on making it.
Bayonetta 3 is the main reason i ever bought Switch.

THis iS wHy jApAnEsE VoIcE AcTiNh iS SuPpEriOr.

I mean, it doesn't matter how "ranked" Ikue Ohtani is for voicing Pikachu, you can still count on her to voice a character she hasn't voiced in a decade for your cashgrab mobile game (e.g. Gash Golden Memories)

Firstly it's really ignorant of people to say that voice acting is an easy job and even more ignorant to say that $4k is plenty for the Voice actor's line of work even considering how iconic she made the series because of it, glad those people were called out on their bootlicking. If it was that easy so many other people would be doing it, this career deserves a lot more respect than people are giving it credit, especially looking at this comment section.

Secondly while I understand Hellena Taylor's frustration it was wrong for her to trash on her replacement voice actor.
The minute she chose to step down and protest she was inevitably going to be replaced.
Furthermore that $450 million figure she pulled out is definitely false seeing how Bayonetta is considered niche and it's combined sales for the series are only 3+ million, however they are not low enough for Platinum Games to pay her such a measly amount of money like she's a newcomer to the voice acting industry.

Third this has made me lose respect for Platinum Games as a company even more, especially towards Hideki kamiya, whose response to this is to act like a man child on twitter, it's satisfying seeing people call him out on it. I never liked that dude and his attitude anyway.
But I doubt getting ratio'd on twitter is going to change his mind or the company he runs sadly.
All I can do is wish Hellena Taylor the best, for the record I wasn't going to get Bayonetta 3 anyway so I guess thats in his favor no matter how miniscule of a difference I'm making.

So I am not educated enough on the going rates of voice actors and such to comment on this offer. It sounds low, but I genuinely have no idea.

But to all the people saying “it’s just reading a few lines how hard can it be” or “it’s just voice no mo-cap or acting involved”… what the heck is wrong with you? Just belittling someone’s profession like that? Their livelihood, the thing they have trained and perfected for years. Honestly, how dare you? That’s the height or ignorance and rudeness!

Goodness knows half of you probably got upset when Mark Hamill stopped voicing the Joker for example. And I can bet that you’ve all experienced a game or dub with poor voice acting and commented on it.

Whatever your stance on the pay situation is, just have some respect for the craft and the people who perform it will you?

@pneumaticgnosis Amen. How disgusting.

Boycotts- the most meaningless and useless of threats.

I was on the fence about buying this game, but now.... I'm going to buy it day one.

I know that the VA industry is saturated with people, but $4000 is pretty low considering that the game is likely going to be $60 cheapside and move at least a few hundred thousand units. Offer better pay, or royalties and such on the back end. Corporations need to get away from this focus on money above all else and start remembering that without people to make their products and sell them, they (the Corporations) don't exist.

Some of these comments.

I would not do it for 4K and I’ve never done VO acting.

A lot of you need to give your head a wobble constantly standing up for these massive companies and their dodgy behaviour.

@Dr_Luigi Doing a Raid Shadow Legends advert on YouTube pays over $4k.

Sucks to know that this was the situation Hellena Taylor was placed in, but ultimately, because she broke NDA and explicitly said she's unafraid of doing so, this implies she's willing to burn every bridge she made with PlatinumGames and Nintendo; in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if she left voice acting entirely because of this, knowing she intends to effectively burn all other bridges in the entertainment business (not just video games). Meanwhile, I'd understand if her attack against her replacement was someone new to voice acting or hasn't had the roles to really back up her reputation as a voice actress, but since this is a veteran like Jennifer Hale, this only lowers Hellena's own reputation.

Also, no amount of "boycotting" will truly affect Bayonetta 3 sales on an exclusive platform that has over 111 million systems sold.

Platinum Games has said in the past how much they love Nintendo pays them lots of money to develop Bayonetta their way. Might be time for Nintendo buy the IP from SEGA and Platinum. Would imagine her voice had something to with them being interested in the franchise

If this news gets to Nintendo (which it should), I wonder what could they do? They're just the publisher, but if it was developed in-house Hellena Taylor would've been in the game and they probably would've negotiated with her. Haven't heard of Nintendo putting the screws to VAs in their video games.

$4,000 doesn't seem like a whole lot money for the kind of work she has put into Bayonetta. Platinum is starting to get pretty shady these days and it's sad Bayonetta is now added to their downturn.

@Brett
"In any case, she has been easily replaced by a vastly more successful voice actor who I bet knows what she is doing..."
"What we can be sure of is that a vastly more successful voice actor has taken over the role..."

And I couldn't even begin to speculatively answer your question about Ms. Hale unless you first define what "fair" means in your context.

@Fath This is the first time you've hestitated before speculating on the basis of zero knowledge. What changed?

Like you, I know next to nothing about what a fair wage for a voice actor on a game like this should be. I suspect Ms Hale has a good idea though. And she's doing the part. Can we extrapolate anything from that?

@RudeAnimat0r Bayonetta 1 were originally a Xbox 360 exclusive.
Then Sega decided to quickly make a port to PS3 which had bland washed out graphics and stuttered from start to end even from HDD, making it nearly unplayable like so many other ports to PS3 back then. Red Dead Redemption on PS3 were equally bad as Bayonetta, while it were proper on 360.

360 version had better graphics and didn't stutter even running from disc.

@Norwegianguy I agree about Kamiya, but he doesn't work for Nintendo. They paid Platinum and SEGA to develop the game, they're just publishing the title. They have zero say in the decisions Platinum Games makes for any of them since they allow them free rein on how to do the game.

Wouldn't be surprised if this changes Nintendo's position on the franchise going forward? I think they were in the dark as much as the fans. Again, I hope Nintendo buys it and moves it in-house. Because if they DEVELOPED it, more than likely they would've paid Hellena what she was asking since they would see as the voice and part of the sales equation.

People seem to be hanging on the $4000, when it seems pretty clear to me that the $4000 was only offered as a classic Kamiya troll move, and was not a serious offer.

Skipping channels to contact one of the higher-ups directly is clearly a last resort on her part, so it seems like Kamiya thought negotiations had broken down enough to pull a stunt like that. Not to mention he thought it was a stunt being pulled privately while under the relative safety of an NDA. Everyone already knows how... quirky he can be.

Nah, I'll be playin day one.

@pneumaticgnosis
''Voice work takes months''
Hah, she has stated herself that voicing a whole Bayonetta game took less than a weeks worth of work. ''I recorded for four days.'' She usually repeats a line 3 times and that's it. Her own words.
Edit: I realized I probably should back up what I say lol. Look up her interview with Nintendo Players UK on Youtube, timestamp is around 7:50. There she talks about how much work voicing Bayo was.

The only BS I see is your ignorant response. Just because it's not of big as an industry as others doesn't mean that the individuals practicing it don't deserve even the most basic respect. Voice actors are constantly underpaid worldwide and exploited by the companies they work for and getting overworked.
That's why you see so many characters voiced by a single person whether in the west or Japan alone.
If voice acting was as easy as clocking in, recording all my lines in a couple hours and receiving my pay then we wouldn't even be having this conversation, heck I would be voice acting myself then, but that isn't the reality of this profession.

And even then, to call it hard is so ****ing offensive that I'm gobsmacked.

That just sounds like you need to get over yourself.
Try putting yourself in other shoes for once.

You know what's hard labour? Working in a mineral mine or an understaffed emergency department.

Now you're just diving in to mental gymnastics, just because I said that X is easy doesn't mean I'm saying it's harder than Y, this is basic reading comprehension.
Sure there are harder jobs than voice acting but that doesn't mean what I'm defending shouldn't be respected.

It isn't a good look but it looks like there is something else going on as I imagine Jennifer Hale got a lot more money for the role so the money was there.

I hope Hellena Taylor well and I hope she gets over her issues both personally and professionally however I will still be getting the game as there will have been many people who worked their arse off over the years to actually make this game and they should not be punished for actions that had nothing to do with them.

@Edu23XWiiU It's Jennier Hale, one of the most prolific and sought after VAs in the industry. There's no way she's only doing this role for $4k.

There's something more going on behind the scenes that we don't know about. The whole situation is strange.

@BartoxAbrasiveness
I like your argument here, this could be a role that takes a bit longer than most but even then voice actors often find multiple roles a year or other work to do.

I'm not going to comment on whether $4000 is good or not for her work simply because I have zero idea and if I did I'd mostly be spewing BS, but Hellena Taylor lost me on "she (Jennifer Hale) has no right to sign merchandise as Bayonetta".

You just don't do that.

Imagine, in Sonic's case who has had many different actors across different media:
If Jaleel White threw a fit towards Martin Burke
If either of them threw one toward Ryan Drummond
If Drummond threw one toward Jason Griffith
If Griffith threw one toward Roger Craig Smith
If Mr. RCS threw one to Ben Schwartz
If either of them threw one to Deven Christian Mack

All of this simply because each one took on the role of Sonic at least once.

Most of the VA work in videogames is dreadful. Sorry, but it's true. And I don't just mean Final Fantasy X.

Perhaps the games industry should pay a bit more... they're not exactly short of funds.

Storytelling is another area that is generally poor compared to the film industry. Pay for a decent writer and guess what... you don't end up with terrible stories that make no sense!

@BartoxAbrasiveness you know, you're right about the programming and developing side too. Those guys ARE NOT making anywhere close to that kind of money hourly.

@Sora181 It's the same in the movie industry.

Why do you think American TV Series and movies is dominated by actors from UK nowadays?
They are very low paid compared to famous overpaid American actors.

Well, the form how she takes this out on social media is not very profesional....
And well I have no idea how much a voice actor in the sector of AA Video Games can earn, Bayonetta is famous, but it is not a BIG AAA Franchise and I am pretty sure that in total there are not "so many" lines of text to speak, I mean yeah, some shout and of chourse dialogues but it is not a Xenoblade Chronicles....

Maye it is one week of work in total and therefore 4.000 $ seems pretty decent and not sooo shabby.

And when she says: ""I am not afraid of the non-disclosure agreement, I can't even afford to run a car, what are they going to do? Take my clothes...goodluck to them"
-> That sounds like this person has "other personal problems" inher life right now... not because she has no car, but breaking NDAs and not taking a 4.000$ Job... besides having financial problems...
Maybe she is in a artist crisis or something but it seems like there is a bit more to it and de Platinum Games response was "a polite answer" not putting her in a bad light... but what she makes now seems wreid and pretty unprofessional.

@nocdaes "Storytelling is another area that is generally poor compared to the film industry."
You probably haven't noticed how much the blockbuster film industry has regressed the past few years and simultaneously how much the video game industry has progressed in that department. I've experienced far more interesting stories in games than anything Hollywood has to offer lately, that's for sure.

@bluemage1989 Same here. Getting it on day 1.
Bayonetta 3 is the reason why i bought Switch over 3 years ago.
Would be stupid to boycott the game then.

Also remember that all "floor people" who made the game for years is innocent here.

Anyway. Hellena have clearly proven that she is not a professional, but a troll. Probably why she were offered 4K.

she declined platinum offer so what is their to complain about?

@Brett You know nothing about me or how much effort I do or don't put into any of my comments; don't presume you do.

I'm refusing to walk blindly into your blatant gotcha question both because its a blatant gotcha question, and because the definition of "fair" is actually at the core of the question you're skimming the surface of. Do you mean fair as in "able to support a living wage, absent independent wealth?" Fair as in "appropriate market value for the job being performed, in a transparent market with balanced power between employers and employees and prices set by supply and demand?" Fair as in "sufficiently safeguarding the legacy and continued development of a character beloved by millions of fans?" Fair as in "in-line with Ms. Hale's going rate for her other most recent jobs?" Fair as in "sufficiently progressive for the healthy evolution of an industry plagued by notorious undervaluing of its work?" Fair as in "enough that Ms. Taylor would've taken the job, avoiding this whole mess, if they'd just offered it to her in the first place?" Fair as in "all Platinum could reasonably be expected to have afforded to pay for the work?" Or do you just mean tautologically fair in that both parties to the agreement find it acceptable enough to have agreed in the first place?

@Eagly
That would have been 4000$ for a few days of work, does not seem too bad if you ask me. Definitely more than I make haha.

You know what, the 28th can't come soon enough, there's no way I'm missing Bayonetta 3 just because the old voice actor wasn't happy with what they was offering. They made her an offer take it or leave it and she made her choice just like so many other business decisions out there, but that does not mean she has the right to convince people to boy-cott the game. A game that another few hundred people have worked on, and lose players because of one sore individual.

That's like working at Tesco/Walmart and because they didn't give you the wage you wanted, you went round trying to convince people to avoid that store.

Maybe she should you know, look for other work elsewhere.....

Well you saying that Voice Actors are the most sheltered, privileged and overpaid people in society already tells me of your ignorance.
You won't be missed.

@SepticLemon Then she deserves more.

@pneumaticgnosis Not simping. A co. does whatever they please, until unions get involved, or until laws were broken, there's proof of it, and somebody brings attention to the problem. In this instance, Hellena is vocal about not thinking it fair. So, she's got the ball rolling, so to speak.

@HappyFuzzy Fair enough. I'm not an expert, and apparently I'm wrong. (I'm not being sarcastic.)

@demacho Again, fair enough, because I'm not an expert, so I'm wrong. (Not being sarcastic.)

@Herachi Again, I'm wrong then. (Again, I'm not sarcastic.)

@BabyYoda71 Maybe both parties could work something out, provided cooler heads prevail.

@Everyone My comment was wrong, now that I think about it, and have read the responses. Plus, my original comment was incomplete. I meant to say that my logic was on the assumption that she had other work simultaneously, in addition to her being Bayonetta. I thought something was off, back when it was revealed she wouldn't be returning for the threequel.

@PepperMintRex Not necessarily - she made her comments in response to them publishing misleading information about why she wasn't returning. NDAs are hardly bullet-proof at the best of times and their comments would make it difficult to go after her for breaching it.

The more I learn about voice acting, the more it sounds like one big glorified gig economy, which is acting in a nutshell.

Acting in general has become pretty inflated. Almost everyone wants to be an actor and demand a lot of money for their "talents," but the reality is that there's a huge glut of people who all want to be treated like stars.

Movie stars and now TV stars for too long have gotten away with demanding outrageous payouts for a single role. And their exploits seem to inflate the value people try to put on acting, when it's nothing more than a gig economy.

I just don't think it's realistic for her to demand a single role to sustain her financially. And being "the voice of Bayonetta" doesn't suddenly make her some big VA star who can demand large sums of money.

From her own words, it sounds to me like she began believing that Bayonetta was a large enough role for her to be treated like some sort of star, and that's honestly delusional to begin treating merchandising as her property.

People ignore that Hellena were harrassing the voice actor who took over.

Hellena seem to be hard to get a long with, and also have anger issues.
She also proved that she is not a professional.

Don't trust anything she says until Nintendo/Platinum made a statement.

@Ventilator preferably not, no. But do they suffer though? For all we know they also got paid per hour or one lump sum.

Not many will get royalties when a game succeeds as far as I know.

That said, I probably overreacted. I just hate it when big cooperations treat their employees like garbage. We only heard one side of the story though.

Platinum make amazing games but they’re a ***** company. I backed that wonderful 101 kickstarter, got utterly shafted on import tax that was never mentioned and then they released it as a budget title anyway! Utter scumbags. I’d love to play bayonetta 3 but I’m not going to enjoy it because of the company that made it so It’ll be a hard pass from me.

@DannZan Day 1 buy for me now.

@Fath A living wage? Like hourly wage? Hellena was almost certainly offered a couple hundred dollars an hour. That is a living wage, to put it very mildly. If Hellena only works a few hours every several years on Bayonetta games, that's probably gonna be a problem for her personal bottom line, but Platinum was paying a living wage.

Anyway, are you able to answer any of your questions? That would be fascinating. You can surely at least pull some from the same place you pulled your estimate of the profitability of this franchise, right?

I'll try to put it more pedantically for you, though: do you suspect that a vastly more successful voice actor like Ms Hale, who is a vocal advocate for voice actors, feels she is being treated unfairly or taken advantage of by Platinum?

@TheCrabMan get back in the sea

I hate to break it to this VA, but Bayonetta is in fact one of the most niche franchises around, and hardly anyone would bat an eye if the whole IP was scrapped.

The only value Bayonetta brings is PlatinumGames' name stamped on the corner. And even that value is beginning to wane with their recent missteps.

@Kienda That 450 million number is clearly false. It doesn't add up. None of the games ever topped 2 million in sales with the first game being considered a flop by Platinum and the second game needing two releases and many years top reach 1 million copies sold. 450 million in revenue would be if the franchise sold 7.5 million copies all at full price.

Do we have any hard evidence that her claim is true? I'm not saying that it's not true, but I also don't think it's wise to always just take random people at their word when, in reality, there might be multiple other reasons for her departure that have nothing to do with her amount of pay. It could be that she's presenting that one because it would be the one that's most publicly palatable and/or the one that would be the most difficult to disprove.

Odds are, she's telling the truth, but I don't like this trend towards bypassing due process and jumping straight to an automatic, evidence free guilty verdict.

i'm really not interested on that person. i play japanese games with japanese audio

@steely_pete 4 days, 4 hour per day. 20 hours in total. No idea if that contract was also 4K or not, but assuming Bayo3 would be a similar amount of time $200 an hour does not sound that bad to me.

@Friendly Yes, but if people didn't buy it they wasted years on it for nothing.
I don't know if Platinum pays bonuses or not.
Bayonetta isn't exactly a huge franchise, but still a well known one. Especially since Bayonetta 2 on Wii U were a GOTY contender.

I can't take Hellena seriously, because she were harrassing the actor who replaced her too and also proved that she is a ego with anger issues. Hellena seems hard to get a long with.
Her rant sure weren't thought out and it's making her look like the villain.

Like you say. We need to wait for another side of the story.
Meanwhile i'm getting B3 on day 1.

@Spookles Import taxes are different depending on your country, and is your own responsibility.

@Ventilator yeah, we don’t know much of the story indeed. I just said I cancelled it because I now have a sour taste in my mouth about this company that made this game. The suits should have asked their mum how to treat a lady.

I still hope the game’s good and hope you’ll enjoy it though! I probably will too, but a 2nd hand copy at a later date. Not a new copy.

Preorder cancelled. This is ridiculous for a series of this caliber, I guess I'll just wait a bit longer and go straight to GOW: Ragnarok

@Brett Of course I could answer my own questions if I wanted to, but I'm under no obligation to, because they're my questions, not yours. I even gave you an invitation to adopt one of them as your own, and you declined.

To answer the question you chose to ask, I do find Ms. Hale's public position on VA rights pretty incongruous with her acceptance of this role, and it seems like something doesn't add up there. Giving her the benefit of the doubt, though, I would speculate that she might've been unaware of Ms. Taylor's tribulations when she took the job, which in turn suggests that Platinum's offer to Hale was significantly higher than what they offered Taylor, avoiding any obvious red flags. Would make sense, since losing their longtime star VA due to penny-pinching would be a PR red alert, even in Kamiya's mercurial orbit, and the prudent thing to do to avoid hemorrhaging hype would be an emergency spend to bring in the biggest, best-reputation VA in the industry to protect their own (a strategy that seemed to be working until today).

So then no, my guess would be that Hale was being paid well enough by P+ that she didn't feel there was anything sketchy going on - until now, at least. It'll be interesting to see if she has anything to say on this matter going forward.

Oh, and to get back to your ongoing derision, the "place" I pulled my estimate of the revenue of this franchise from was a combination of the former lead VA's public statements, historic video game sales data, and math. I think you're confusing it with your own "place," which has come from nothing whatsoever besides your gut.

@Rykdrew . Not sure how much more goes into it, but she answered the question in an interview regarding the first game:

In her interview with Nintendo Players UK on Youtube, timestamp is around 7:50. There she talks about how much work voicing Bayo was. She says it was 4 days, 4 hours per day.

Now offcourse could be that Bayo3 would require 5 half days of work, who knows.

See link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1k7Cwr66O0

@ketrac sound. Thanks for that informative piece of information.