The Bayonetta Situation

 Another sore spot in the Industry has the centre stage.

Video games are one of the most profitable entertainment industries in the world as long as you're not the consumer... or a voice actor... or a freelance programmer... or a games tester... or a lower rung developer... or an indie developer... or anyone who isn't a publisher. Yes, if you're a publisher than there's a good chance that video games are the most profitable grift you've ever muscled into, and that's why bottom-feeders like Phil Harrison attach themselves to it's underbelly for life despite being terminally incompetent at any and everything gaming. As such it's always a bit of a kick to the balls when some key personnel flops out of the woodwork to reveal some dire financial injustice visited upon their person in such a stark manner which just makes us go "Wait a minute; what are we spending all this money on? How can gaming be switching itself up to £70 per game, with microtransactions and DLC packs, and opt-in subscription models and season passes slapped on top of them, and still the people making the damn things can't be given a fair wage?" Which is just another reason why you should spit in the face of all the scumbags begging for floor prices to be raised on new games.

But that's beside the point today. Today we're looking at a very specific question of what in the earth is happening to voice actors and denigration of the worth of their talent by major industry players. Specifically, we're looking at the injustices apparently visited upon Hellana Taylor, a fellow brit and the iconic voice of the classic action adventure game star, Bayonetta. Over the space of only a few entries Bayonetta managed to worm her way into an, admittedly under-served, subsection of gaming and cement herself as a legend alongside the likes of Dante and Castlevania-games-protagonists-sometimes. In large part due to the gameplay fronted by experienced talent in the field of making games like this curtsey of Platinum Games, but in another part due to the unique character of Bayonetta herself, with her very... particular... personality... look, I'm trying to find a softer way to say that she comes across as a 'dommy mommy'; because that's only a quarter of her whole being, there's more going on there... alongside the piquant sexual appeal. 

What I'm trying to say is the character of Bayonetta is an achievement of performance and design as much as of implementation and gameplay; if not more so, actually. The personality and character of Bayonetta are key marketing traits that summon the image of the character, more so than what she can actually do, which is stark considering the fact her clothes are made out of her hair and she can turn those clothes-hair into whacking implements. As such, when it came around to bringing Bayonetta to her highly anticipated third entry, you'd expect every person involved in creating the personality and image of the protagonist, artists and actors and the like, to be treated like the integral parts of the operation that they are. But according to her iconic voice actress, Hellena Taylor, who was recently replaced with the legendary Jennifer Hale as the voice of Bayonetta, that was absolutely not the case.

In a series of video tweets (Oh god, you know it's serious when we've evolved past the twitlonger!) Hellena Taylor was unflinchingly transparent about her work as a voice actor and the reality of trying to make a living through it, especially in today's financially strained times. Actors, as you well may know, are essentially jobless between gigs and so have to rely on the income of their working months to supplement them until their next role; which is a very hand-to-mouth way to try and live your life. That can become especially galling in the times when you've scored the leading role of a popular character who is coming back for her vastly anticipated third outing, and make no mistake Bayonetta is a beloved franchise at this point, and the company offer you no more than 4000 British pounds for your entire performance. That's not per session, that's the whole package. £4000. Good thing Hellena has her theatre work to make up the difference... oh wait, the British theatre's are hurting too... well that's just dandy, isn't it?

So okay, it's not as though they we offering to make poor Helena here destitute; she was offered a rate close to the market standard and she would be free to book another job to back up her income. Afterall, she's only reprising her fan favourite leading role in a mulitmillion dollar franchise; why on earth would that be worth more than the absolute bear minimum pay? I'm being sarcastic, of course; it's simply laughable that Platinum games were unwilling to reasonably negotiate a higher wage with their leading star in a reoccurring role and sought to replace her the second she got lippy; and the apparent fact that they didn't appear to see the issue in this probably means that it's ingrained in their company culture to try their hardest not to pay rolls their worth. I wonder how much the developers are making? Are they meeting rent? These are the sorts of thoughts that shouldn't really be even entertained in when talking about a successful game's company.

The actress in question was quite upset about her offer and turned down the role, but stepped a bit further to voice her feelings out to the world in order to start a larger conversation. Really lighting a bit of a match, which she could only do by potentially breaking NDA. When the voice of Zero was recast in Metal Gear Solid, that actor also spoke about getting an insultingly small offer, but couldn't go into details like Hellena did and so it was harder to make that real in fan's minds and have that spark the hornets nest like this has. Hearing the vague statement that a role's pay is 'not worth their talent' isn't quite as real as hearing 'I make so little I have to seriously consider if I'm going to be out on the street sometime in my near to mid future.' Of course there are many sides and perspectives to consider in a situation like this but one thing is for certain; voice acting in the games industry sounds like a bit of a raw deal; doesn't it? Maybe they should consider becoming room-mates with a anime artist, together they'll be able to make enough to rent out a shared capsule apartment to live out of.

What I find interesting in all this is the reaction of the game director, who is one half of the childish duo of action game developers who have spent their career's drooling menacingly at each other like a pair of lobotomised fighting dingos. I'm serious, the two of them have the cattiest and most embarrassing rivalry this side of the game's industry; and that attitude infects just about every situation they address. As such, the game director of Bayonetta took to Twitter to harshly lambast some unspecified 'untruth' like he's Magnus Carlson flinging cheating accusations, and then promptly reminded everyone on this public social media platform he willing chooses to engage with, to abide by the insular set of posting rules he hides behind like a coward or face being banned.  Really grabbing the situation by the horns there, huh? (This is why people hire media managers.)

But then there's another dimension to this story to consider... Jason Schreier, a respected and typically on-the-ball, source has refuted the pay claims. He has two sources that claim Hellena was offered 4000 per session over four sessions, which she turned down in favour of a six figure overall sum and residuals. (A simply ludicrous offer by this industries standards that would never be so much as entertained by even the biggest in the industry.) Afterwards Helena was offered a cameo role over one session for 4000, which she then refused. Further evidence for this being in the fact that Bayonetta, surprise surprise; is a union gig, meaning that a lump sum of 4000 over several sessions is, in fact, breaching the terms they signed up to. Hellena denies this categorically, obviously, but the seeds of doubt has been sown. Not by the game director however; he was too preoccupied being childish on Twitter.

So why have I intentionally not highlighted the potential misrepresentation as a key of this blog? Because Hellena has started a conversation that is genuinely important to a lot of people in the industry, even if she did it dishonestly if we're to believe the journalists over her. (I'm not sure who to believe; inside sources would certainly be inclined to lie if they broke union rules.) At the end of the day, voice actors in the games industry have been fed raw deals for a very large part of their collective careers, to the point where some find the work unrewarding for anything over than filling a spot in their CVs. It makes no sense for the most profitable industry in the world to be the least rewarding for actors; and though one might argue that performances are perhaps on the lesser scale of the skillsets needed to make solid games, an honest scaling of that work's value needs to be evaluated, other then the seriously weak status-quo that a lot of the industry are brainwashed into being happy with. The current state of Anime artist pay shows how easy it is for naked injustice to become the 'unconfrontable standard'.