Voice actress Hellena Taylor, known for playing Bayonetta, has taken to Twitter to dispute a claim made by PlatinumGames. Earlier this month, it was revealed that the role of Bayonetta had been recast, and that Jennifer Hale would be taking over for Hellena Taylor, because of scheduling conflicts making it difficult to reprise the role, at least according to PlatinumGames. However, shortly after that announcement, Taylor posted a series of video messages on Twitter, explaining that the decision had nothing to do with any difficulties in regard to timing or scheduling, and instead was due to the fact that Platinum offered only $4,000 for her to voice act the entire game. She then asked for Bayonetta fans to boycott the game, and instead take the money they would have spent purchasing the game, and donate it to a charity.

I understand that boycotting this game is a personal choice and there are those that won’t, and that’s fine. But, if you are someone who cares about people, who cares about the world around you, who cares about who gets hurt with these financial decisions, then I urge you to boycott this game.

Taylor says she only wanted a livable wage for her performance and fair payment for the time and effort that voicing the protagonist of a video game franchise that has sold over $450 million dollars. PlatinumGames had made Taylor reaudition for the role of Bayonetta, because "sometimes voices change with time", but she was once more chosen to voice the title character in Bayonetta 3. After she was given the part, though, she was given "an insulting offer" by the company. This prompted Taylor to send a letter to the director of Bayonetta 3, Hideki Kamiya, who sent her back a "final offer" of $4,000 to voice all the lines in the game.

Friends, Worldlings, Bayonutters. Hear ye!#PlatinumGames #Nintendo #Bayonetta #Bayonetta3 #Bayonutters #Boycott #NintendoEurope #NintendoAmerica #NintendoJapan pic.twitter.com/h9lwiX2bBt

— Hellena Taylor (@hellenataylor) October 15, 2022

She also spoke about Jennifer Hale, who will be the voice of Bayonetta in the upcoming game, and that she wishes her well, but that she also believes that Hale "has no right to say she is Bayonetta". Taylor mentioned that speaking up about this was a breach of her non-disclosure agreement, but that she has nothing of monetary value to be taken, so she decided to speak up.

Hideki Kamiya responded to the claims with a chain of various Tweets, and a wave of blocking people who Tweeted at him--something he is known to do--to the point that it got him temporarily restricted on the platform. His main reply to Taylor was, "Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That's what all I can tell now. By the way, BEWARE OF MY RULES", and while the latter half of the message sounds like a threat, it is moreso likely referring to Kamiya's tendency to block Twitter users for breaking his "rules".

People online were upset by this, and some even were blaming Jennifer Hale for taking the role at all. Hale has not yet made any comment on the matter, though she has notably liked numerous Tweets that claim she can't speak on the matter due to NDAs, or that she was unaware of the drama in the first place when she was cast. Other voice actors in the video game industry offered their input, such as Sean Chiplock, who said the $4000 appeared to be "union rate", and that he was paid "approx 2,000-3,000" for his work voicing Revali, Teba, and the Great Deku Tree in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Meanwhile, he says his two offscreen lines in the film Detective Pikachu earned him more money than his work on BOTW, and that even voicing characters in the indie game Freedom Planet was worth more than the voicing roles in BOTW, because unlike video game voice acting work, he was given sales royalties from the role.

 

[DSpider]

I don't think you guys understand how many lines are in a AAA game, how much time it takes to record them. There are many retakes, many changes post-recording. There are approval processes, feedback. For a large game you're brought in multiple times a day. Sometimes you have to record 3-5 different versions of the same line.
Even for a relatively small game, there are thousands of lines. You can't imagine what it's like for a big game.

Red Dead Redemption 2: 500k lines of dialogue!
The Witcher 3: 450k
Skyrim: 60k
Oblivion: 50k
Fallout 3: 50k
Fallout 4: 110k
Fallout New Vegas: 65k
GTA IV: 80k
GTA V: 160k

Of course, there are multiple actors, but still. It's insane when you think about it. And the main character usually has the most lines. After the second game was successful, yeah, they should be paid more. Definitely.

 

[City]

I don’t even know where to begin on how wrong those who say that she deserves to be paid millions for a VA role are. Let me just say a few things:

- voice actors say lines the way the creators want them to. Someone mentioned the VA of The Simpson and that’s entirely different, considering how the characters revolve around their VA a lot more. They didn’t hire a VA based on the creator’s ideas and worked the character around her.
- If you’re a VA, not only you don’t have to work as many hours as (almost) everyone else does, but you also have no risks of any kind if the game doesn’t go well, or is received poorly, unless your specific role was terrible. But VA mistakes are easily fixable 4 sessions of audio recording.

She was offered $4k for EACH session and you don’t think it’s enough because “she’s the voice of the main character”? She can be replaced, as it was demonstrated. You know who’s harder to replace? All the poor bastards crunching to get the game to work. Hell, even the not as important people like the ones WRITING the lines for the VA to say, because you need someone that understood the vision of the original writer perfectly. For a different VA, all you need to have is someone who can make her voice close enough.


I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed because it feels like she thought that it was fine to shit all over a project where many people literally put months and years into making (and millions of dollars in investment) over the company rejecting her request, a request that, dare I say, it wasn’t bad at all.

I really hate this, because it was SO unnecessary. She could’ve said “ok bye” and have “Bayonetta” in her resume and she would’ve definitely turned some heads when applying for other roles. But no, burnt bridges all around. Now you have people harassing those who worked on the game, because hey, female in distress so the redditor goes ooga booga, but there’s also SO MUCH IGNORANCE about what she actually does for the game.

Also, if you harass her for this, you’re an asshole. She got called out, (hopefully not) killed her VA career and the game will come out regardless. There’s no need to be uncivil about this.

 

[xdarkx]

I don't think you guys understand how many lines are in a AAA game, how much time it takes to record them. There are many retakes, many changes post-recording. There are approval processes, feedback. For a large game you're brought in multiple times a day. Sometimes you have to record 3-5 different versions of the same line.
Even for a relatively small game, there are thousands of lines. You can't imagine what it's like for a big game.

Red Dead Redemption 2: 500k lines of dialogue!
The Witcher 3: 450k
Skyrim: 60k
Oblivion: 50k
Fallout 3: 50k
Fallout 4: 110k
Fallout New Vegas: 65k
GTA IV: 80k
GTA V: 160k

Of course, there are multiple actors, but still. It's insane when you think about it. And the main character usually has the most lines. After the second game was successful, yeah, they should be paid more. Definitely.

It took Helena Taylor four 4 hours sessions to finished recording all the dialogues for the first Bayonetta game, and quick the recordings are. Here's the interview where she said mention this


Also, wth are you bring up those games that have nothing to do with Bayonetta? If you want to make your point, should you try to find out the number of lines for the Bayonetta games or games that are actually of similar genre?

 

[linuxares]

Bayonetta atleast 1 and 2 wasn't a really heavy game of dialogs.
The guy playing Niko in GTA 4 got shafted imho compared to Taylor. But he accepted the pay and so be it.

Also I don't get why people should get paid more just because a game is successful? Do you ask your boss for more pay because the company is doing great? Do you also ask your boss for less pay if your company is doing poorly?

It's a salary or contract work. You should be proud if your game do better and if you work on a contract, you negotiate. If you can't come to terms? So be it. Part ways.

 

[urbanman2004]

I told that stupid bich to throw in the towel (like the Rocky movie, lmao ), but she was too stubborn to concede, smfh. That bich just burnt all her bridges w/ anyone worth their salt in the game industry, sheesh .

Post automatically merged: Oct 25, 2022

She should have gotten at least $100k. They made hundreds of millions! $4k is outright insulting.

Movie actors earn considerably more per movie. Voice actors are kind of like that, except behind a microphone. They're just as important to bringing characters alive.

Definitely not gonna buy it. Arr me mateys! Arrrr!

You seem out of touch w/ reality.

 

[pedro702]

I don't think you guys understand how many lines are in a AAA game, how much time it takes to record them. There are many retakes, many changes post-recording. There are approval processes, feedback. For a large game you're brought in multiple times a day. Sometimes you have to record 3-5 different versions of the same line.
Even for a relatively small game, there are thousands of lines. You can't imagine what it's like for a big game.

Red Dead Redemption 2: 500k lines of dialogue!
The Witcher 3: 450k
Skyrim: 60k
Oblivion: 50k
Fallout 3: 50k
Fallout 4: 110k
Fallout New Vegas: 65k
GTA IV: 80k
GTA V: 160k

Of course, there are multiple actors, but still. It's insane when you think about it. And the main character usually has the most lines. After the second game was successful, yeah, they should be paid more. Definitely.

bayonetta doesnt have that many lines... its a simple action game that is a couple of hours long and not an rpg or open world game that lasts 100+ hours...

you are comparing totaly diferent games, and if you take a look at nintendo AAA games then its even less lines lol.

 

[ChiefReginod]

The guy playing Niko in GTA 4 got shafted imho compared to Taylor. But he accepted the pay and so be it.

Did he? That's too bad. I remember that Rockstar had some issue with Ray Liotta after Vice City, though.

Which leads me to wonder... how much more do Hollywood stars get paid for voice work in video games? It's got to be more than the industry standard, otherwise I couldn't see many actors doing it.

 

[MetoMeto]

15,000 for a 4 hour job is underpaid where?

4k.

 

[Snintendog]

4k.

Incorrect go find the Updated Story She outright lied about the 4K