Brett

The SMW Overworld theme is almost exactly like the interlude in the middle of Scritti Politti's Perfect Way. Much closer than this Green Green. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cLxIB_lrwk0
Listen at 2.24

Though the singer's name is Green...

This is easily my favorite Kirby game and we'll worth the $60 to me (or 50 with the game coupon).

Remaster or not, it's just a great game. I don't know any other media where age is expected to lower the price. Most odd.

I'm not thrilled, but video games have had virtually zero inflation for decades, so fair enough. There are people who paid $70 for Chrono Trigger 30 years ago. That was real money!

Somewhat high-falutin prose for a shmup review!

I'm loving it! I have the feeling the reviewer didn't quite get the game and is unfamiliar with the series.

Between the Hellena Taylor Clown Show and the great reviews, I had to cave and use a game coupon on this. Can't wait!

As for Kamiya, he seems lovely to me. He's very appreciative of fans, and seems like kind of a softie when you play Wonderful 101. You should see the abusive comments people make to him! His persona didn't come from nowhere.

@Otoemetry

Well, recognizing when one is being manipulated and lied to does not make one a sociopath. Not recognizing when one is being manipulated and lied to--and having an apparent disinterest in changing that--does kind of make one a rube.

@PinderSchloss 50 hours for $200 sounds terrible. $15,000 for 16 hours sounds at least okay-ish

@Otoemetry Sorry, but there's nothing "gross" or "vile" about choosing not to be a rube and instead practicing skepticism in the face of implausible claims or impossible economic proposals.

Boasting of complete credulity in the face of all victim claims, though, is not clever. Seeing the world through emotional generalizations is utterly childish. It's a path to being demonstrably wrong, as you've been here.

@Otoemetry I was quick to judge her because she opened with an absurd claim about the value of the franchise, she compared her 'plight' to people who actually have something to complain about, and she was happy to throw others under the bus and talk crap about her replacement.

It was not hard to find out how much time this gig would take, and it was not hard to see that her claims didn't make sense. Why would they try to underpay her only to replace her with the most expensive possible alternative?

You referred to me pointing this kind of stuff out as 'vile', although it was removed by admins.

The kneejerk reactions were from people who are prone to accept any emotional story that confirms their childish, dystopian view of all corporations.

If I were publishing a game, I'd be doing everything I could to try to get Hellena Taylor to call for a boycott.

@nocdaes People believe all kinds of stupid things that they make up themselves. You're not the first!

@PinderSchloss If someone can't get enough work in a year to live off $250/hour for the work they get, they might be in the wrong business.

I mean, it's cool and all that you want a class of people who only have to work a few dozen hours a year because of their unparalleled talent at voicing video game avatars, but the market will not sustain that.

@nocdaes No, it's pretty much thin air.

Also out of thin air is the idea that $450 million is Platinum's big headline to drum up hype, which they are sharing with the world exclusively through a disgruntled liar not in their employ, but who is nonetheless privy to internal sales data and financial forecasts.

(Using the word 'whilst' doesn't make you sound less ridiculous)

@nocdaes No, comments are inane because they're based on made up numbers and have nonsensical ideas like companies sharing financial forecasts with voice actors. You've provided your 'workings' and they are silly.

@nocdaes

"It's likely from the marketing plan as a statement of the franchise's value."

"Likely"

Wondering if your inane comments are mere trolling is an act of charity, by the way. I'm suggesting that this foolishness is performance art, satire, or at least intentional.

@nocdaes Yes, all of this is nonsense. This is you making up numbers on the basis of no knowledge whatsoever, and adding it all up. This is not unlike what Hellena did. Nobody is impressed or takes it seriously. This entire discussion has been full of deeply silly people saying things like "$15,000 still seems low to me" or "Maybe Platinum was using yen and Hellena was thinking dollars" all based on nothing whatsoever and it's all stupid. Going from $200m to $450m via merchandise with "relative ease" is stupid. Conflating revenue (especially made up revenue numbers) with the "value" of a franchise is stupid.

@nocdaes No, it is a crazy figure, and it is a stretch. The only people talking about $450m like it's not a crazy figure are junior executives advertising their cluelessness in comments sections.

@nocdaes A good theory has already been presented: she added up numbers on a dodgy website and multiplied by 60. Your theory, that Platinum expects a half-billion profit from Bayonetta 3 and shares this info with uncontracted voice actors, is absurd, as is the one about Platinum talking to British voice actors in terms of Japanese currency.

@nocdaes You, or perhaps your executive secretary, spelled "privy" wrong.

Thank you for repeating your bizarre, evidence-free theory though!

@nocdaes Well, it's just a lot of nonsense you're making up. All of it. You don't seem to have any idea what you're talking about. In your opinion, game publishers share marketing plans and financial data with voice actors, including ones they have no contract with. Okay, interesting opinion, but it's based on nothing at all and doesn't make any sense.

Or "$450m is the franchise value at the end of 2023. That sounds about right to me." It sounds about right to you, but it's important to remember you have no idea what you're talking about and you're just making stuff up.

@nocdaes Ha! Where does this nonsense come from?!

But...but...but I was assured by very clever commenters that the lying corporate media and the evil money-printing Platinum Games had made things up through their fake anonymous sources?!

Is St. Hellena in on the conspiracy now? I'm so confused

@MarioFan432 No, I just didn't want to sound like I was simply trying to dismiss or insult Hellena by referring to mental health issues, because that wouldn't be cool.

But I will say there's a limit to how far I'm willing to parse this stuff out. Donald Trump is clearly not well mentally, and he might believe some fraction of what he says, but I'm not going to preface every comment about him being an obvious liar. Kanye West very clearly needs serious help, and that should be taken into account when he's criticized, but at the end of the day, he says some awful stuff that doesn't need to be balanced out completely because of compassion.

Those are more extreme examples of course (!), but it's the same general principle. And in any case, the only reason I'm so active in this discussion is the somewhat distressing lack of interest in what's true or what's likely to be true.

@Wexter Indeed, and I'm not trying to be snarky, this ridiculous episode serves better as a springboard for a conversation about mental health and media literacy than it does for one about VA pay. No aspect of this has done any favors to the latter discussion.

@EriXz “It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he never was reasoned into.”

Of course, I'm trying too.

@Wexter Great, great comment

@MarioFan432 Such sources have to be anonymous though. And it's not just one. And Jason Schreier is not anonymous and he said he saw documents and that his sources are not Platinum Games.

You don't have to be certain though--there are folks who aren't sure about climate change or vaccines.

@MarioFan432

Those possibilities are not equally likely. "If you hear hooves, think horses, not zebras." Why not claim that Hellena's Twitter account was hacked by people who posted deepfake videos?

Hellena's story was never credible to any thoughtful person, and when more believable accounts came out, she suddenly wanted to stop talking about it. "Both sides" arguments suggesting that Kamiya didn't handle being lied about (!) well enough, or it's just too doggone hard to figure out what happened are intellecually dishonest.

@Geit_de Platinum, not Bethesda, made an ambiguous statement about "overlapping circumstances". They're not going to get in a food fight or embarrass Hellena for no reason, obviously.

I suppose they could have come out and said, "Hellena wanted a six-figure sum and residuals, and that's not doable", but the same keyboard warriors would have taken issue with it, and it probably would have drawn Hellena out to tell her lie anyway.

@Otoemetry I don't doubt that you are on some level passionate about economic inequality, but it's odd to see people fighting against 'capitalism' while arguing that this woman should be paid vastly more than the other workers on the game based on a very spurious claim of merit. It's just not a coherent position.

You seem to be, on some level, arguing with math, not capitalism. There's no economic system where goods like Bayonetta 3 are not largely priced on the basis of costs. A vast rise in costs leads to a rise in the price, and we're back where we started. There's a reason people over a certain age don't wonder why the government doesn't just print a bunch of money and hand it out.

And in the type of system you would likely advocate for, even if something like Bayonetta 3 were to exist at all, Hellena (or Jennifer) would be getting paid less, not more.

@Otoemetry We've come far by not always listening to the dumbest ideas in a discussion. For example, if a person with zero understanding of basic economics suggests that every person on Earth should get a massive pay rise, even slightly sensible people tend to ignore them.

Obviously an irrational increase in all labor costs for everything will lead to vastly higher prices and your new inflated wage isn't going to go much further than it did before. I mean, if Hellena's 250-1000 per hour isn't enough, what about the hundreds of other folks who did significantly more work than she did? How much do you think this game should cost in the end? Why do you want a special class of people who only have to work 16 hours a year?

Virtue signaling feels great (apparently), but economics isn't magic, and such dumb ideas are best left to the side.

By the way, Hale's original statement suggests she at least had a rough idea of what had happened. The people speculating that she was totally in the dark are not using any common sense. It's hard to imagine Hale replacing a well-known voice without asking some questions about why the change was happening.

Nowadays there are many people on the left and the right sides of everything who have zero interest in allowing facts or reason to disturb their ideology or storytelling. Especially online.

It's obviously irrelevant to some people here how much Hellena was actually offered. It should have been more, no matter what. Platinum hired probably the most expensive VA they could have, but she's probably not paid enough either. These folks aren't engaged with reality at all: they just like typing out histrionic gripes like "Pay. Voice. Actors. More."

It's hard to do, but everyone is better off when we just roll our eyes and move on from these people. They'd hate the comparison, but their "input" is as valuable as that of my Trump-loving uncle, who also rants about "fake news" and conspiracies and is entirely immune to reason.

I'm not referring to anyone specific here, but "The truth is always in the middle" is something fools say when they want to sound wise. Sometimes the truth could be in the middle, when you're listening to a couple of honest brokers who have different interpretations. Sometimes one person is lying to you.

I'm still disappointed that so few people were able to muster any sort of skepticism about Hellena's videos. She made a bogus claim about the value of the franchise, she crapped on Jennifer Hale, and she had an entitled tone throughout. It didn't make any sense either. Yet some of the folks who mobbed up and polished their pitchforks still seem to want to have a fight, I guess because they like to fight?

If you can't detect a difference in plausibility between Hellena's claims and what Schreier and his multiple sources claim, I really encourage you not to gamble or invest or open your spam folder ever.

@Fath And here:

Do you mean fair as in "able to support a living wage, absent independent wealth?"

A couple hundred dollars an hour is definitely that, provided one works more than every four or so years.

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?"

Well I believe there's a union, so we can be pretty sure of that, right?

Fair as in "sufficiently safeguarding the legacy and continued development of a character beloved by millions of fans?"

This isn't quantifiable at all, and Bayo 3 will probably outsell the previous two anyway.

Fair as in "in-line with Ms. Hale's going rate for her other most recent jobs?"

I think we can be sure that will be the case.

Fair as in "sufficiently progressive for the healthy evolution of an industry plagued by notorious undervaluing of its work?"

I dunno, again, a few hundred dollars an hour sounds alright. Especially when you can be so easily replaced, as has been proven here.

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?"

No, I'm definitely not defining 'fair' as 'what Hellena wants'.

Fair as in "all Platinum could reasonably be expected to have afforded to pay for the work?"

I don't see why Platinum should be expected to pay as much as they can afford?

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?

Obviously this has been met.

@Fath "I do find Ms. Hale's public position on VA rights pretty incongruous with her acceptance of this role"

In what way? Does she have a public position like 'voice actors should get whatever amount they want'?

Your concept of 'math' seems to be that '$120 million series revenue' 'doesn't perfectly line up with Ms. Taylor's number' of $450 million implied profit but is apparently close enough because it's within the same order of magnitude (!). This is a load of crap.

So you think Platinum lowballed Hellena, because Hellena wanted more and therefore she should get it. Okay. And then when she wouldn't take their lowball offer, they offered a bunch more money to Ms Hale. This makes me think that Platinum are even weirder about math than you are, or maybe they didn't want Hellena back, or maybe your theory is just exquisitely stupid. I'm leaning toward three, but option two is a possibility.

@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?

@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?

@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?

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

@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.

@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?

@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!

@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.

@Fath No, it is not plausible.

The Bayonetta games have earned $450 million? Really?

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