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.

 

[Guacaholey]

She could be trying to imitate Taylor´s voice. Or she could be using the same cues as Taylor received when voicing Bayonetta for the first time. We simply don´t know unless you have more info.

No, they try to match voices. In Kingdom Hearts II Crispin Freeman voiced Will Turner from Pirates of the Caribbean and in interviews even said he had to imitate Orlando Bloom for it. This means both getting the voice close enough that the average person can't tell and also closely mimicking inflections. This is done any time they don't want to pay a certain actor to do it, or if they want to replace someone for another reason. Jack Black doesn't voice in most of the Kung Fu Panda TV series, Antonio Banderas doesn't voice in the Puss in Boots series, Danny DeVito doesn't voice Phil in Kingdom Hearts, and Billy Crystal doesn't voice Mike Wazowski in Kingdom Hearts. The production staff doesn't want to pay them what they'd ask so they get people who will work for cheaper to get as close as possible.

wow, how petty can you be?
4k is a pretty high offer for a no-name VA and a couple of voice lines.

You don't know how negotiations or unions work, do you?

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

The production staff doesn't want to pay them what they'd ask so they get people who will work for cheaper to get as close as possible.

Or Bond in Nightfire.
But this is different. The original voice actress was offered less (apparently).

 

[Guacaholey]

Or Bond in Nightfire.
But this is different. The original voice actress was offered less (apparently).

Not relevant to the concept of voice matching. It's just frequently done to either save money OR replace somebody without it being noticeable, both of which were in my last post.

 

[UltraDolphinRevolution]

Not relevant to the concept of voice matching. It's just frequently done to either save money OR replace somebody without it being noticeable, both of which were in my last post.

But how do you know she is imitating the original?
Maybe both were imitating Platinum´s specific wishes. Just something to consider.

 

[linuxares]

The new VA have responded:



EDIT: I don't think it was about the money you guys....

 

[Hells Malice]

She seems like a nightmare to work with. They likely offered her the same rate she always got paid, but she wanted more. For the projected hours she was going to be making a very fair rate. Bayonetta doesn't exactly have many voice lines in 1 and 2.

The fact she threw a shit fit, dragged them in the mud publicly on twitter and then snarkily told the new VA she'll never be Bayonetta and shouldn't call herself Bayonetta is...beyond psychotic and unprofessional.

 

[VartioArtel]

And if not for the already-existing VO, Hale could've and very likely would've interpreted those "pointers" in a completely different way than Taylor did. That's the entire purpose of an actor's job, to bring to life something that previously only existed as a couple notes on a piece of paper.

Y'all act like $4,000 is acceptable pay for a creative role, but by doing so you're siding with executives who make $100,000+ in a role completely outside of and disconnected from the creative process. This is why AAA gaming in particular is hitting a wall in recent years, and becoming more and more soulless.

The idea that since "similar" roles pay that low, that makes it acceptable. Absolutely laughable.

$4000 for a role you can record in a day? I don't like how much Executives pocket, but if she was a Normal Actor, or they used her for the MoCap, this would be a whole different discussion. But all she is is a voice. A voice that just needs to fit an archetype that is not a unique range. An Actor who seemingly is known to be problematic in the community.

Voice actors are also not perpetual existences at the office, unless the company has an in-house voice acting group (usually). They are often outsourced. They are expected to do work effectively semi-freelance, and only called in if the company has specific ideas for voice work that a certain VA is known for. "Sultry Mature English-accent Female" is not a specific voice.

And it isn't even that the prices the VAs work at aren't their own doing. They formed the Union, then as a Union they agreed to the universal standard of $250 an hour, per hour, with 2 hours minimum for non-union and 4 hours minimum for Union. THEY could have kept fighting for higher, but the workers agreed to that. Don't attribute your own naive sense of how much these workers are worth to what they feel they're worth.

The issue at hand here is everyone's looking at "$4000" and acting like that it's some absurdly huge project that deserves way more. If she was working on a story based game, I would be all for the complaints. But this is Bayonetta. The game where the first game's total plot is over in about 2.5 to 3 hours and 2nd's was 2 to 2.5. Not all of that voice acting is Bayonetta, either. (Edit: And not all of that 2.5 to 3 hours is voice acting either, but action sequences, spaces between talking, etc! So saying it was that much is still not right)

Presuming she carried about half the voice acting in either game (which is a GROSS overestimation. Villain monologues ftw, I'd say closer to 1/4th), that was about 2.75 (or 2 hours 45 minutes) across both.

Let's keep with that half, let's say compared to Bayonetta 2 where the plot shrunk, they go back to a Bayonetta 1 sized plot. 3 hours. Let's say Bayonetta's still the main focus of the game. 1.5 hours. (Let's say the difference between the actual story and the 'voice acting' that is actually made up of onomotopeia which they just make a mass of noises and they pick what works ultimately keeps to the following differences).

Now let's say that she needs 4x that time to make all the necessary voice acting left work. 6 hours. $250 * 6 = $1500.

She was offered $4000 tops, for a role that at most would need her to receive $1500. In short, the reality is she was being paid well over the suggested price (hilariously, about $666 dollars an hour).

Let that register for you, under assumptions she makes up HALF the total Voice acting in the entire game, she is being offered well over Twice the industry rate, and she denied it.

Let's use my same example. Let's now say she was ALL the voice acting in the game using those same conditions. 3 hours * 4 times the amount of time spent recording = 12 hours of voice acting .

12 hours * 250 = $3000. At $4000 she still would, in the end, get offered over industry rate. ($332.50 an hour if I got this right).

No matter how you cut this, she was not happy with any reasonable amount for a no-name (yes, she's a no-name). She has no credits in any major role outside of Bayonetta. She also barely gets roles at all. Excluding that this screams "Troublemaker", it means that she doesn't have the leeway a big name VA would to make massive negotiations. She's "the Voice of Bayonetta" (Edit: Which hilariously, she isn't. She's the original English Voice, but the voice they wanted wasn't what she created, but what the Developers asked of her, she really didn't make a darn thing about her), but she's not an irreplaceable voice. Many people never once noticed she was exchanged until this whole kerfluffle.

Let that all settle in. She is a nobody, who was lucky to negotiate a better deal than the Union she DOESN'T work with had negotiated for her. That alone shows Platinum wanted her, but that her role was NOT that large. Don't let 'it's $4000' distract you from the fact she's paid by the hour, and that her expected hours were low - moreso because of the extension of the protagonist roster for B3.

 

[ChiefReginod]

I'm not usually a fan of making these kinds of pay disputes public, but 4,000 to voice act the main character in such a high profile series seems way too low. Voice acting is such an important part of AAA games now, surely they deserve more than that.

I'm reminded of the time THQ hired some bootleg voice actors to replace the utterly irreplaceable VAs from Destroy All Humans for the third game in the series. The original voice actors were open about their unhappiness with the situation, the third game ultimately flopped. then THQ had the sense to rehire the original voice actors for the fourth game. So at least in that case it worked out.

 

[TrophyHunter]

I'm not usually a fan of making these kinds of pay disputes public, but 4,000 to voice act the main character in such a high profile series seems way too low. Voice acting is such an important part of AAA games now, surely they deserve more than that.

I'm reminded of the time THQ hired some bootleg voice actors to replace the utterly irreplaceable VAs from Destroy All Humans for the third game in the series. The original voice actors were open about their unhappiness with the situation, the third game ultimately flopped. then THQ had the sense to rehire the original voice actors for the fourth game. So at least in that case it worked out.

According to another VA, William Salyers (Regular Show, Mordin Solus in ME3, Doc Ock in Marvel's Spider-Man, and many others), $4,000 is very, very in line with the standard rate for this kind of work in the industry (if not higher).





I get that people WANT "the lead VA in the third part of an ICONIC (TM) series" to earn a ton more money, but unfortunately the industry doesn't work like that.

Now, is 4K too low in absolute terms and VAs should earn more for their work, especially considering how much money video games make? Yes, probably. I don't know, really, since I'm not a VA. That's what unions are for: to fight for better working conditions. But that is a completely different issue altogether from whether 4K, given the current framework, is an inappropriate offer for the work you're being contracted to do in this particular case... which doesn't seem to be.

Way more, and that's the issue. In place of a "you're fired," they gave her an extreme lowball offer instead, and will be paying Hale at least five times as much to IMITATE Taylor's voice acting for the character. Just another example of why the whole industry needs to unionize.

Vast majority of users on this site were likely to pirate the game regardless, which is why it's hilarious all the conservative NEETs are claiming they'll be "buying ten copies" in light of this news.

... both Taylor and Hale already belong to SAG-AFTRA, the biggest VA union in the States, which not only represents video game VAs, but also film and series VAs. The whole project was done with union VAs.

As for the piracy part... I used a Nintendo Voucher to get this game and Pokémon Scarlet in pre-order. Do I need to show you the receipt before my opinion becomes valid? Or my employment contract to prove I'm not a NEET? Or my community work for social justice? Or my voting history?

Dismissing the opinion of the "vast majority of users on this website" because you created this narrative in your mind that they are pirates and right-wing nuts and, therefore, the enemy is, frankly, ridiculous. If you don't want to engage with the discussion, don't. But don't come swooping in, dropping a "UNIONIZE!" when the project was union in the first place, and leave giving the middle finger to anyone who wants to counter-argue you.

 

[Stwert]

We’ll never know the whole story, there’s always at least two sides. While I’m all for people getting a fair wage for the work they do, from what I’ve been seeing from other people in the industry, it’s not necessarily an unfair amount of money.
Indeed some voice actors have received a lot less for their work on significantly larger franchises.

If I were offered 4 grand for a few days voice work, I’d be happy to accept it - and if anyone needs a voice actor, I have a wide range of voices, accents and I’m told, a very good speaking voice, then f’k I’d do it for less

 

[Veho]

I have a couple of questions.
A lot of people in the thread keep mentioning voice acting "rates" but can someone explain what work those rates are for?
"Voice acting" covers a wide range of work, ranging from Disney feature films to reading the side effects of erectile dysfunction medication in late night infomercials. Does the "rate" apply to both?
I seem to remember Simpsons' voice cast got paid $400,000 per episode at one point. That's a minimum of $1.8 million per hour. How does that fit in?

How much did Hellena Taylor get paid for Bayonetta 2?

Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?

 

[Deleted member 194275]

I have a couple of questions.
A lot of people in the thread keep mentioning voice acting "rates" but can someone explain what work those rates are for?
"Voice acting" covers a wide range of work, ranging from Disney feature films to reading the side effects of erectile dysfunction medication in late night infomercials. Does the "rate" apply to both?
I seem to remember Simpsons' voice cast got paid $400,000 per episode at one point. That's a minimum of $1.8 million per hour. How does that fit in?
How much did Hellena Taylor get paid for Bayonetta 2?
Why do we drive on parkways and park on driveways?

Simpsons voice actors do act, stuff is dawned before and after their acting, so they really take part on the character creation process, they're very close to be co-authors.

For Bayonetta is different, who do the acting is a lady named Atsuko Tanaka and she do it in Japanese. The twitter lady is just an English voice-over of Tanaka's acting, it is dubbing, not voice acting, so she is not payed as such.

Back to your Simpsons example. The guy that do the voice of Simpsons that is aired here probably gets, let's put this way, a regular person payout.

 

[Blavla]

I heard something about "turf"
Definitely gonna buy the game

 

[mspy]

4k is certainly not enough for the voice of an iconic character in their own game. People are buying and playing Bayonetta for the character, not just the game. Should get 1% royalty at least.

The VA is just a cog in a wheel. People will buy the game for the gameplay not the VA meaning that a game can do really well with bad VA and good gameplay but not the other way. Why should she get 1% while 100s of devs that work on the game everyday don't?

Also one is worth not what one thinks but rather what others are willing to give you.
I'd even argue that a shit plumber should be worth 4k/h but that is just me because in the end he will get poor pay because people are not willing to give more and if he doesn't want the job someone else will take it instead. That's the harsh reality we live in.

 

[Minox]

Not a fan so I wasn't going to buy it, but I also would not boycott the game. It's not her game - she does not get to hold it hostage.

 

[urbanman2004]

3 words... "Fvck dat b!ch" (in my Yung Dro voice)

Post automatically merged: Oct 18, 2022

Not a fan so I wasn't going to buy it, but I also would not boycott the game. It's not her game - she does not get to hold it hostage.

Same here. If I ever decided to play the game, I'll just download the ROM and emulate it. Hell, I own the first game on Steam which wasn't exclusive to Nintendo, but couldn't get it to run properly for the life of me when I wanted to play it at the time due to some resolution conflict issues from what I can recall.

 

[MetoMeto]

So the story goes like this:

"Boycott a game because the employee offered me a lower payment than what I want for my job, and if I don't get what I want they're doing harm to the less fortunate people all around the world".

If she's doesn't agree with the payment, she's completely free to decide not to take the job, afaik no one forced her to take it accepting the -according to her- low payment.

The gaming industry -even if we don't like it-, moves around offer and demand of services and goods, if I'm not willing to do a job, nor take a specified payment for it, there are thousands of people that will, even for less.

The same goes when we buy a video game or a console, prices are set and we decide if we take or leave. It's kind of stupid to buy things when we already know they're overpriced just to whine afterwards about it.

No one is forcing you to boycot.

Post automatically merged: Oct 18, 2022

I believe people here are becoming less intelligent.

Voice acting is not only the sessions she makes for the game. It's the trailers that will appear later, with dialogue that she won't re-record, as it will be spliced from past sessions.

It's the possibility of the game being released in future platforms, remastered/remade and using the same audio bites.

Damn, people, she knows how the industry rolls, and wants to be compensated while protecting the work done for the future.

This isn't something new, and the Bayonetta team should be smarter and make a different kind of contract, where she could have been more part of promos, adverts and be a state for the character, like some said, correctly as what happens with Michael Ironside.

I feel people in HR in artistic mediums are retarded. With social media, we know in a second who voices the characters and from their on, they become ingrained in our minds and are hard to dissossiate.

Very poor management, I'd say. It would be preferred they coming up and state that they wanted a new voice and move on, instead of asking the original voice to audit for the part she done previously multiple times.

I'll boycott the game. Like the two before.

Thats why we have intelligent you here.

 

[VartioArtel]

I'm not usually a fan of making these kinds of pay disputes public, but 4,000 to voice act the main character in such a high profile series seems way too low. Voice acting is such an important part of AAA games now, surely they deserve more than that.

I'm reminded of the time THQ hired some bootleg voice actors to replace the utterly irreplaceable VAs from Destroy All Humans for the third game in the series. The original voice actors were open about their unhappiness with the situation, the third game ultimately flopped. then THQ had the sense to rehire the original voice actors for the fourth game. So at least in that case it worked out.

Voice Acting is a Pay-by-Hour System.The Union has a minimum wage of $250 an hour.

This means they suggested she'd take a (max) of 16 hours to record what is likely 1.5 hours max of selected (aka put in the game) voice acting. It's likely they expected it to take less than 16 hours, because in her words they offered less. Nothing will change they were bound to a $250 minimum. So it's only a matter of how much time they expected recording to take.

That means, for example as I used in an earlier post, they expected closer to 6 hours to 12 hours (using Bayonetta 1's runtime of 3 hours of dialogue/cutscenes and halving it to make a very broad assumption Bayonetta's half the total dialogue, then multiplying that by 4x/8x to assume Taylor required 4 to 8x the time to voice all the dialogue including retakes). In which case she was being paid closer to $666 an hour (6 hours) or $333 an hour (12 hours).

We don't know how long they exactly said they expected Taylor to take, but what the game is (btw, Bayonetta's considered a minor, niche game. Surprising no?) rarely matters. I would expect AAA titles likely pay more, but Bayonetta's a VERY niche title. It's developed by a company that doesn't handle its own publishing, too. It's a matter of the total time it takes to record a voice, with a minimum expected amount of 2 hours.

But here's the most important thing here: You and I have no say in what the Voice Actors themselves consider they're worth. The Voice Actors do. They formed a Union, they lobbied and held strikes, with Hale as one of the ones who fought for the Non-Unionized (as a Union-associator herself). They successfully lobbied for what they felt they were worth because there's no way in hell a company could continue to keep paying them for work they don't do. And they agreed to the $250/h terms, with a 4 hour minimum for Union workers, and 2 hours work non-Union.

There's some leeway, and clearly, platinum gave that to Taylor. But Taylor thought about her ego. She assumed she was unreplaceable and tried to push her pay way higher than she was worth. But she pushed too hard, and they cut the deal.

 

[VinsCool]

Simpsons voice actors do act, stuff is dawned before and after their acting, so they really take part on the character creation process, they're very close to be co-authors.

For Bayonetta is different, who do the acting is a lady named Atsuko Tanaka and she do it in Japanese. The twitter lady is just an English voice-over of Tanaka's acting, it is dubbing, not voice acting, so she is not payed as such.

Back to your Simpsons example. The guy that do the voice of Simpsons that is aired here probably gets, let's put this way, a regular person payout.

Dubbing very much requires voice acting however.
It's not a soulless text-to-speech translation being slapped over the original voice, but a full voice act in a different language being performed, otherwise I would agree with you there.
Just because it was not voiced in the original language makes no difference, it shouldn't invalidate the efforts put into the voice performance.

 

[Working_Goose]

Well...