The Great Video Game Business and Financial (In)Stability Thread

How does it work if different jurisdictions make different determinations about "allowing" the acquisition?

BRA and UK say No. US and other countries say Yes?

GTA6 gameplay footage may have just leaked. I'm just glad no one posted a story about it on GWJ's front page. We know how that goes.

Rat Boy wrote:

GTA6 gameplay footage may have just leaked. I'm just glad no one posted a story about it on GWJ's front page. We know how that goes.

Confirmed:
https://www.polygon.com/23359292/gra...

SpacePProtean wrote:

ActiBlizz

Think you mean this?

fenomas wrote:
SpacePProtean wrote:

ActiBlizz

Think you mean this?

...Yes, great site engineering they have over there.

Stealthpizza wrote:

Guess I am skipping bayonetta 3
twitter update from the voice of bayonetta Hellena Taylor

TL;DR version, Platinum Games stonewalled her with an insulting $4,000 USD offer to voice the entire game. As someone who has worked with and occasionally been a voice actor, that's an insane low-ball figure for the main character in a major video game.

Platinum then went on to imply that Taylor was unavailable due to scheduling conflicts when announcing replacement Jennifer Hale.

The situation doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. She’s saying that the decision was an example of higher-ups cutting costs at the expense of the rank and file workers. Wouldn’t Jennifer Hale cost a lot more than her, as the more prominent actress?

Absolutely.

Guaranteed they came to her with this offer with platitudes like, "Oh, it would be such a shame if you didn't voice Bayonetta in 3, everyone loves the series and you. Also we can't afford to pay you more than $4,000. But wouldn't it suck if you weren't here, you know?"

Pure speculation on my part, of course, but that's exactly what they tried to do to Terry Farrell in the final season of DS9 when they low-balled her, and she told them to f*ck off.

Blind_Evil wrote:

The situation doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. She’s saying that the decision was an example of higher-ups cutting costs at the expense of the rank and file workers. Wouldn’t Jennifer Hale cost a lot more than her, as the more prominent actress?

Who knows. Hale gets a *lot* of work. Some actors are that prolific because they're just that good and so are in demand, and Lord knows Hale is talented; but some actors are that prolific because they're willing to work cheap and make it up in volume.

I doubt she's doing the job for four grand, but she might not be as expensive as you think.

I dunno, I’m reserving judgment for now. Kamiya doesn’t strike me as a liar and he’s kind of vaguely disputed it on Twitter.

The timing also seems kinda weird? The voice casting must have been done at least a year ago, so I wonder if speaking about it now shows that it’s sour grapes over not getting the part.

I also don’t think a swap in VA is worth boycotting, unless the studio pulled something really heinous.

It is odd timing but given the state of gaming companies and the last game Babylon fall I am not sure I trust leadership at platinum that much. She must know that saying this means no platinum or nintendo jobs ever again.

I am happy to not buy unless platinum comes out with a good reason. After all its not like this story is too different from many others recently.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I dunno, I’m reserving judgment for now.

Exactly. We're hearing only one side of the story. Which was shared via a series of Twitter videos. We don't know the full story (or even if what she says is true), don't know what kind of person she is, don't know what her relationship is and has been with Platinum... Etc. etc.

When corporations clash with artists, it's not always the artist who is in the right. See: Marty O'Donnell and Halo.

Blind_Evil wrote:

I dunno, I’m reserving judgment for now. Kamiya doesn’t strike me as a liar and he’s kind of vaguely disputed it on Twitter.

His reply, in its totality as far as I can tell:

Kamiya wrote:

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

Hard to know what to make of that, keeping in mind that there are language and cultural barriers at play.

When in doubt, give every benefit to what Omni Consumer Products has said and remember to be very, very skeptical of individual worker complaints.

After all,

Dick Jones wrote:

Because no matter what happens, this corporation will live up to the guiding principles of its founder: courage, strength, conviction.

There is no plausible explanation that I can think of which involves them even asking her unless there was a contract.

If she had a contract for the Bayonetta voice but it didn't stipulate minimum compensation, it was a bad contract.

If the contract was weak enough that she could just say, "no thanks," without paying a penalty for not fulfilling the contract terms, it was a bad contract.

If there was no contract and they didn't want to bring her back for whatever reason, why ask her with a lowball offer? Why not just hire someone else?

That leaves only a few options.

  • The story is true; Platinum lowballed her and she declined.
  • The story is partially true; Platinum lowballed her for a reason neither side is disclosing.
  • The story is false; Platinum didn't lowball her at all.

Kamiya's behavior in all of this isn't the best, either - he's apparently got a hair trigger on blocking people wanting to know more.

Honestly, "Game Company Undervalues Talent" is hardly a story that is difficult to believe. If that was a headline on any gaming news website right now, the number of companies you could list as the subject of that story is nearly as long as a comprehensive list of game companies in existence.

I get cautious skepticism, but also, it's probably just that.

EDIT TO ADD:

There are two other videos below her first one. The third one is a pretty short recounting of how the process worked. They made her audition for Bayonetta again, which signals to me there was no contract. She also stipulates that this is quite normal, as voices can change over time. She then says that they came back with an offer, which from later context you can deduce was not the $4000 USD offer, but apparently still not sufficient for her. She wrote directly to Kamiya with her offer, after which he wrote back with effusive praise for her and the character she helped create, and the attached $4000 offer.

Presuming this is true, there could be no clearer way of saying "f*ck off" besides directly saying "f*ck off."

NSMike wrote:

Honestly, "Game Company Undervalues Talent" is hardly a story that is difficult to believe. If that was a headline on any gaming news website right now, the number of companies you could list as the subject of that story is nearly as long as a comprehensive list of game companies in existence.

I get cautious skepticism, but also, it's probably just that.

Yeah, that’s the conclusion I ultimately reach, without further info. And that’s the rub, in terms of her request for a boycott: I don’t see anything egregiously immoral, just a difference in what she thinks her time and talents are worth vs. the studio. And to be frank, as a huge fan of the franchise, she’s made the wrong bet. I like those games for the action and animation, not the narrative and definitely not the voiceover. I don’t mean her any ill, but the appeal she’s making is meant to be emotional, and I’m just not attached to the character in that way.

It would be great if voice actors were better paid. They’re underpaid, I’m sure. So am I, being a government worker. Most people are. It sucks. I hope when my daughter enters the workforce in 12-18 years, it is better for her. I just don’t think this is the cause worth boycotting over, for me.

Yeah, $4k doesn't even seem too outside the norm. If anything, that might even have been a generous offer.

link1 link2

Blind_Evil wrote:

It would be great if voice actors were better paid. They’re underpaid, I’m sure.

This.

I don't play Bayonetta at all, but it did suck when they didn't bring back the female Russian voice actor from Saints Row 4 for SR4. I still bought and played it, though.

For me, a change in voice actor seems very jarring, but I'm not sure it's "skip the game" jarring, if the gameplay and everything is there.

Voice acting for games is a weird thing. Fandom tends to pick out the VA as the person most singly responsible for making a character distinctive - maybe by analogy to how fans feel about movies? But when you think of all the people who work on a game character, the writer, artist, designer, animator, etc, I've always felt like the VA is one cog in that machine. With very few exceptions, I feel like a good VA (who's been well-casted) will find a way to sound right for the role, even if the character was previously voiced by someone else.

So there may be a thing here where some VAs buy into the fandom view and see themselves as the soul of the character, or as the star of the game. But studios are more likely to see them as one member of a large team - who, like all the other members, gets paid for their time contribution and not their star power.

I think it’s cultural too. When creators envision their character, they are usually only really picky about the voice actors in their own language. Other languages are an afterthought, and really not anything they are thinking about until the end, if at all. Oftentimes, those decisions are outsourced to companies with not a lot of particular oversight.

So when someone in a foreign language starts to make a ruckus, they usually get cut very easily. Because the creator doesn’t really care since it’s not in their language. All they see is some foreign nobody trying to act like they own a character that never belonged to them in the first place.

See: David Hayter and MGS

Kamiya has deleted his twitter account. Not sure what that says for the whole situation. It's something I advise everyone to do, tbh.

Kinda surprised (or maybe not) by some of the responses here. Disappointing.

.

TheGameguru wrote:

Kinda surprised (or maybe not) by some of the responses here. Disappointing.

Yup.

Support the Corp! Labor? f*ck 'em.

I just found out G4TV was still a thing.

It wasn't. Then was again. Now it no longer is again.

jamos5 wrote:

When creators envision their character, they are usually only really picky about the voice actors in their own language.

I was thinking this as well. The VA here presumably sees herself as "the voice of Bayonetta", but the studio probably thinks of her as "the person who does the English dub for Tanaka Atsuko, the voice of Bayonetta".

NSMike wrote:

Kamiya has deleted his twitter account. Not sure what that says for the whole situation. It's something I advise everyone to do, tbh.

It's back now; he apparently deleted and reactivated it a couple of times to see what would happen. Personally I love twitter, but browsing Kamiya's feed it looks like half his tweets are about blocking people, so it's hard to imagine what he gets out of it. But I suppose it's a very different website if you're famous enough to get tagged by strangers all day long.

Top_Shelf wrote:

Support the Corp! Labor? f*ck 'em.

"Everyone who doesn't 100% support my view must 100% support the opposite view! Yarrrr!"