Bayonetta 3 Thread

[Worgen]

15k is pittance, really.

It's a bit misleading to boil it down to a per-hour wage, because that's not how gig work like acting functions. A per-hour wage is only a good benchmark when we're talking about continuous, reliable hours. But a gig worker like a VA will get 15k for one job, then might not have another VA engagement for months.

It should bear some relation to the income of the product. Bayonetta 3 will make many millions. Someone making a major contribution (and VA's do) should be paid proportionally to that. Besides, its not just those hours in the booth they're paying for-- it's the years of training.

Then you don't take the offer. The issue here is you also need to justify here is her trying to sink the company by calling for a boycott.

$15-$20k, 5 sessions at between $3k and $4k.

 

[Silvanus]

Then you don't take the offer. The issue here is you also need to justify here is her trying to sink the company by calling for a boycott.

$15-$20k, 5 sessions at between $3k and $4k.

I'm not justifying that, it was a really bad idea-- though I don't think it constitutes trying to sink the company, because any reasonable person would know the company won't sink.

I also don't really think there's much wrong with publicising dissatisfaction if a company chooses to make an insultingly low offer.

 

[thebobmaster]

My problem isn't Taylor being upset, really. Everyone has the right to determine how much they value themselves, compare it to the value their employers are placing on them, and determine if the two are in line with each other or not. Even claiming dissatisfaction publicly would be understandable. Demanding a boycott with (apparently) misleading information, and throwing shade at her replacement, though, does not make for a good look.

 

[Worgen]

I'm not justifying that, it was a really bad idea-- though I don't think it constitutes trying to sink the company, because any reasonable person would know the company won't sink.

I also don't really think there's much wrong with publicising dissatisfaction if a company chooses to make an insultingly low offer.

The games industry is notoriously volatile with developers coming and going. Doesn't take much to sink a dev and if her boycott was as successful as she wanted, that could do it, unless Nintendo decided to pull them out of the fire. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time Platinum almost went under, the cancelation of Scalebound almost destroyed them, Nier: Automata is what saved them, plus they already have one big failure this year, Babylon's Fall. If Bayonetta 3 doesn't perform then... well who knows what would be left.

Nothing wrong with publicizing dissatisfaction, but calling for a boycott goes too far and have you read her tweets? She goes off on Hale for taking the roll and kinda claiming ownership of the character.

Want to see something interesting.

https://www.sagaftra.org/files/2020InteractiveRateSheetFinal.pdf

That is the SAG pay rate for schedule B, which includes voice actors, sounds like Taylor was already being offered over what she would have if she was union.

 

[BrawlMan]

Heads up everyone, I paid off my pre-order earlier last week, and will probably get it a day earlier. If not, Friday afternoon and I will be off that day.

 

[Worgen]

Heads up everyone, I paid off my pre-order earlier last week, and will probably get it a day earlier. If not, Friday afternoon and I will be off that day.

Cool, let us know how you like it.

 

[Silvanus]

The games industry is notoriously volatile with developers coming and going. Doesn't take much to sink a dev and if her boycott was as successful as she wanted, that could do it, unless Nintendo decided to pull them out of the fire. Besides, it wouldn't be the first time Platinum almost went under, the cancelation of Scalebound almost destroyed them, Nier: Automata is what saved them, plus they already have one big failure this year, Babylon's Fall. If Bayonetta 3 doesn't perform then... well who knows what would be left.

Nothing wrong with publicizing dissatisfaction, but calling for a boycott goes too far and have you read her tweets? She goes off on Hale for taking the roll and kinda claiming ownership of the character.

Want to see something interesting.

https://www.sagaftra.org/files/2020InteractiveRateSheetFinal.pdf

That is the SAG pay rate for schedule B, which includes voice actors, sounds like Taylor was already being offered over what she would have if she was union.

I'm not justifying blaming Hale (who's blameless in this), nor calling for a boycott. I'm specifically objecting to the idea that 15k is a reasonable offer for a significant contribution to a multi-million dollar project.

We need to separate the different issues at play here. There's the public relations clusterfuck, the possibilities of untruthfulness, the very bad way she's gone about it. But that shouldn't distract or dilute the case for better pay. VAs are still underpaid; 15k is still pittance.

It doesn't really change anything for me if the "going rate" is even lower. Just means pay throughout the industry doesn't value its talent.

 

[Silvanus]

 

[CriticalGaming]

One thing that people should put into perspective is that this is 15K for 16-20 hours of work. The contract states that the voice over job takes 4 or 5 total sessions, each session no more than 4 hours.

I don't know if people think voice acting is on the same timescale as Hollywood or what, but these actors aren't doing a game for months and months. These jobs are often barely a week long unless they are big motion capture jobs like TLOU, or GoW.

But for in studio work, even for anime's, the jobs aren't that long. So I don't understand why people think 15K isn't enough for less than half a working week's hours of work. It's like people have no concept of money anymore.

 

[Silvanus]

One thing that people should put into perspective is that this is 15K for 16-20 hours of work. The contract states that the voice over job takes 4 or 5 total sessions, each session no more than 4 hours.

I don't know if people think voice acting is on the same timescale as Hollywood or what, but these actors aren't doing a game for months and months. These jobs are often barely a week long unless they are big motion capture jobs like TLOU, or GoW.

But for in studio work, even for anime's, the jobs aren't that long. So I don't understand why people think 15K isn't enough for less than half a working week's hours of work. It's like people have no concept of money anymore.

You can't compare gig work to an hourly wage. Hourly pay is predicated on the assumption it will be reliable and constant. But a gig worker may not get another VA gig for months.

 

[BrawlMan]

One thing that people should put into perspective is that this is 15K for 16-20 hours of work. The contract states that the voice over job takes 4 or 5 total sessions, each session no more than 4 hours.

I don't know if people think voice acting is on the same timescale as Hollywood or what, but these actors aren't doing a game for months and months. These jobs are often barely a week long unless they are big motion capture jobs like TLOU, or GoW.

But for in studio work, even for anime's, the jobs aren't that long. So I don't understand why people think 15K isn't enough for less than half a working week's hours of work. It's like people have no concept of money anymore.

You can't compare gig work to an hourly wage. Hourly pay is predicated on the assumption it will be reliable and constant. But a gig worker may not get another VA gig for months.

I highly recommend you all watch this. I already posted it earlier, but I'm posting it again for a good reason. How voice acting works in the process goes deep, and it's not an everyday gig unless you're working for a super big studio and doing motion capture. Not to mention you don't get paid for rehearsals. Then you have to waste time on wondering if you're going to get casted and picked and there's a long process. @Silvanus already knows what's up, but I think you should still listen to it as well.

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[BrawlMan]

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[Worgen]

I'm not justifying blaming Hale (who's blameless in this), nor calling for a boycott. I'm specifically objecting to the idea that 15k is a reasonable offer for a significant contribution to a multi-million dollar project.

We need to separate the different issues at play here. There's the public relations clusterfuck, the possibilities of untruthfulness, the very bad way she's gone about it. But that shouldn't distract or dilute the case for better pay. VAs are still underpaid; 15k is still pittance.

It doesn't really change anything for me if the "going rate" is even lower. Just means pay throughout the industry doesn't value its talent.

Being paid $500 an hour is pretty fucken good. She's not an employee, she's not owed a million dollars for doing a weeks worth of voice work.

 

[CriticalGaming]

You can't compare gig work to an hourly wage. Hourly pay is predicated on the assumption it will be reliable and constant. But a gig worker may not get another VA gig for months.

If the gig worker is not getting enough gigs, that's a problem with them. That what you sign up for when you make gig work your primary job. From musicians, to actors, and really anyone working in the arts that isn't a big name. All these people know the drill, which is why people who do gig jobs know the importance of being professional and networking. Because most gig jobs, come from other gig jobs you've already had.

For example Helena Taylor does a bang up job at Bayonetta, the VO producer leaves Platinum to go work for Square Enix and he needs someone for the next Dragonquest game. Helena was great so he'll contact Helena to see if she's available for the job. This happens with studio musicians and voice actors all the time.

The bigger VA's also have agents constantly tossing their names at jobs to get consistent work.

So yes, you can't compare it to an hourly wage, but if you are trying to argue that Helena needs to be paid enough money to get to her next gig, whenever that gig might be, that is NOT the studio's responsibility that is HERS. The gig worker is responsible for doing enough gigs to get by based off the contracts offered for the work.

And quite frankly 15K is like four-months of pay for the average person, paid out in less than a week. If you are a professional gig-worker and can't get a job within four-months, frankly that says more about you than about the pay rates.

 

[CriticalGaming]

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This video showcases why I can't watch Jim anymore. His statements are genuinely false or otherwise misleading.

At 5:40 in the video he talks about how VA's should be paid more money AND should get residuals like every other actor in media. This however is misleading, because other actors, namely Hollywood actors, are names that bring people to movies. You go see a movie BECAUSE an actor is in it, the movie makes money BECAUSE of the actors within. Video games and cartoons do not work that way.

@BrawlMan is not buying Bayonetta 3 because of the voice actors in the game. He is buying it because the gameplay and the developers are both things that he really enjoys in games. So that destroys the residual argument as well as the replaceable argument because by and large, most voice actors are easily replaced. And while people might have preferences, for the most part a new actor isn't going to make or break the game's experience.

Think about it this way. If a game fucking sucks, the voice acting doesn't matter (See Saints Row, or TLOU2). However if a game is great, but the voice acting is dumb (like Trials of Mana or Strangers in Paradise), then it gets overlooked for the most part. Gameplay makes a game fun and good, everything else is window dressing.

Jim also goes on a minute later to say that people are eager to stand for corporations, and I don't think that's quite accurate. I don't think people are rushing to the defense of the corporation, but rather the developer or director of Bayonetta themselves. They are defending the person the same way people defend Yoshi-P at Square, or Miyazaki at FromSoft. And that's the nature of fandom in general to give the people you are fans of the benefit of the doubt, and people in this case are perfectly in the right to give that benefit to the Bayonetta devs because Taylor was lying her ass off because she was mad about not getting what she wanted....You know, like a child.

Another thing I'd like to mention is that while being short paid is something many of us can sympathize with, when true, there does become a point in which the sum of money you are complaining about becomes unrelatable and people stop feeling sorry for you. Maybe 15k for half 1 weeks working hours is that. Or maybe it's when some movie star complains that they only got $3million while the other guy got 10 million. At some point the average person is gonna just tell you to shut up because you made an embarrassing amount of money compared to them.

 

[BrawlMan]

This video showcases why I can't watch Jim anymore. His statements are genuinely false or otherwise misleading.

Sterling has actually been more than fair and has even made quick updates to videos where they have outdated information, or made a mistake.

Edit: I'll still take Sterling any day over these douchebags: Clownfish TV, Lauren Chen, Yellowflash, and YoungRippa.

You go see a movie BECAUSE an actor is in it, the movie makes money BECAUSE of the actors within. Video games and cartoons do not work that way.

Which many other than Sterling have pointed out before. It's a big problem inherent with the system. Residual still exists for even medium actors. Especially if a product does well or beyond great. Certain voices are iconic for a reason. Doesn't matter if it's animated, radio, or video games. Voice actors should still be recognized for the talents, even the product does come out crap in the end. Especially if they put effort into it, after this working with either a bad script or story. They're usually not in charge of that stuff. Seriously, watch that video I had with Simmons up earlier before the Sterling one.

@BrawlMan is not buying Bayonetta 3 because of the voice actors in the game. He is buying it because the gameplay and the developers are both things that he really enjoys in games. So that destroys the residual argument as well as the replaceable argument because by and large, most voice actors are easily replaced. And while people might have preferences, for the most part a new actor isn't going to make or break the game's experience.

This is the part where you don't know me fully and don't speak for me (nor many other Platinum/Bayo fans). I'm there for all the above. I'm there for the gameplay, the developers, and the people voicing the characters. I want Hellena Taylor to come back. Jennifer Hale has done more than a good job from what I'm hearing, and it's not her fault all this crap happened. Rodin and Luka still have their same respective voice actors. The voice actor for Enzo sadly passed away in 2021. The new guy sounds close enough that I barely noticed a difference.

Jim also goes on a minute later to say that people are eager to stand for corporations, and I don't think that's quite accurate

Certain individuals on YouTube say otherwise. I'm not saying names, cuz I can't even bother to remember their crappy usernames. While some may not be exactly defending the corporations, they're still jumping on bandwagons for clicks and views, it couldn't care either way, or will end up defending corporations incidentally because of their flip flop changing in stances for convenience.

At some point the average person is gonna just tell you to shut up because you made an embarrassing amount of money compared to them.

And the problem with the "average person" is that they got their own crap to deal with, yet you got plenty of act like they know everything or experts on the business. But most of them don't even know the most basic thing/process or what goes behind the entertainment industry.

 

[CriticalGaming]

This is the part where you don't know me fully and don't speak for me (nor many other Platinum/Bayo fans). I'm there for all the above. I'm there for the gameplay, the developers, and the people voicing the characters. I want Hellena Taylor to come back. Jennifer Hale has done more than a good job from what I'm hearing, and it's not her fault all this crap happened. Rodin and Luka still have their same respective voice actors. The voice actor for Enzo sadly passed away in 2021. The new guy sounds close enough that I barely noticed a difference.

But the point stands in that you are not holding off of Bay3 because the voice actress is different. It's one thing to prefer the OG, and another to outright skip a game because the voice actor has changed. And usually replacement actors do a pretty good job at the role regardless, and once you're used to it it doesn't even matter. Which shows my point of how replaceable VA's typically are beyond maybe a couple of names. MAYBE.

Sterling has actually been more than fair and has even made quick updates to videos where they have outdated information, or made a mistake.

Okay so what about the misleading information presented in this very video? It's not that they wont admit wrong or incorrect information because most of the problems stem from their opinions regarding the information like the residual argument in regards to actors when they specifically mention film, tv, and radio.

Gig actors do not and never will get residuals because it doesn't make sense to provide that. At best stage performers might get a bonus for sold out shows during a production run, but nothing beyond. The big names from FRIENDS get royalties but none of the extras or one-off guest stars do. Studio musicians going on tour with Taylor Swift, get paid for the gig and do not make money off Swift's album sales. That's what a gig job is. Hell even contractors for construction get paid by the job, period.

Certain voices are iconic for a reason. Doesn't matter if it's animated, radio, or video games. Voice actors should still be recognized for the talents, even the product does come out crap in the end. Especially if they put effort into it, after this working with either a bad script or story. They're usually not in charge of that stuff. Seriously, watch that video I had with Simmons up earlier before the Sterling one.

I am watching that video but im at work and it's long, so I need time to see whether I agree to those points or not.

A voice can be iconic and still be replaceable. Kratos, Solid Snake, bot saw replacements from their original iconic voices. But time and refreshing the series (if whatever MGSV was could be refreshing) sometimes means that studios can't continue with the same actor. Hell even age changes the voice too much and it no longer fits or works.

Hell Final Fantasy 7 replaced EVERYONE deliberately because they wanted a refreshed cast to be those characters for the entire project. Lance Bass no longer suited Sephiroth, Mandy Moore no longer suited Aerith. And while some people still prefer the original voices, everybody pretty much agrees that the new cast nailed it.

 

[Silvanus]

Being paid $500 an hour is pretty fucken good. She's not an employee, she's not owed a million dollars for doing a weeks worth of voice work.

See above: hourly wage is not a useful metric for gig work at all.

If the gig worker is not getting enough gigs, that's a problem with them. That what you sign up for when you make gig work your primary job. From musicians, to actors, and really anyone working in the arts that isn't a big name. All these people know the drill, which is why people who do gig jobs know the importance of being professional and networking. Because most gig jobs, come from other gig jobs you've already had.

No, hang on, stop: it's not a problem with the individual, it's the nature of the work. There are simply not enough VA gigs for VA actors to reliably be getting a new one every couple of months. I'm assuming you don't want to limit voice acting to those who're already well established or stinking rich.

You make a comparison with musicians and actors in other fields. But in almost every other artistic field, gig work is paid a lot more. Meaning people in those fields are able to live between gigs for months. VA work is specifically not even close to the same level seen elsewhere in the artistic media.

"They knew what they were getting into" is also not an excuse for refusing to make it any better.

 

[FakeSympathy]

Wait, so if Hellena initially turned down the 15K? Wouldn’t that make being offered flat 4k on her, since it was due to her decision?

Isn't 15K a standard rate as it's been discussed? Given how Bayonetta isn't a mega multi-billion dollar franchise, I think 15K is more than fair

Also, not a single mention of apology to Jennifer Hale. I certainly don't think Hale is replacing Taylor per se, but it's more of a different take.

IDK, I'd love to know if there's more to this story, but as it stands Taylor is just salty about not being offered more

 

[CriticalGaming]

No, hang on, stop: it's not a problem with the individual, it's the nature of the work. There are simply not enough VA gigs for VA actors to reliably be getting a new one every couple of months. I'm assuming you don't want to limit voice acting to those who're already well established or stinking rich.

Not true, there is constant VA work. Sometimes it's just fluff dialog like Npc's talking shit when you walk past them. Just because a STARRING gig is harder to get doesn't mean VA's are not getting smaller jobs regularly. That's also why people diversify their income, especially when their income isn't steady.

You make a comparison with musicians and actors in other fields. But in almost every other artistic field, gig work is paid a lot more. Meaning people in those fields are able to live between gigs for months. VA work is specifically not even close to the same level seen elsewhere in the artistic media.

15K isn't enough money for months? Really? How expensive do you live? Because I live in one of the most expensive states in the country and 15K would keep me set for four months, maybe a little more. At what point then should I be expected to have another job? Surely 4 months is enough to get another gig, and if it isn't that's not Platinum's responsibility, it's YOURS!

A gig worker cannot expect a company to pay until they get a new gig because, like you said, there is no telling when that next gig may come. So they write out a contract and pay what the job is worth, it's then up to the gig-worker to make that money last until their next gig.

I don't know why you are trying to remove responsibility off the VA.