Bloomberg was told by sources that the actor who claimed she was lowballed received at least $15K. That is a fabrication, she claims.
Performer Hellena Taylor said over the weekend that Bayonetta developer Hideki Kamiya had made her a lowball offer of $4,000 to return as Bayonetta’s voice in the upcoming Bayonetta 3—a lowball that she said she rebuffed. Taylor’s claim was already refuted by two unnamed sources who talked to Bloomberg(opens in new tab), which claims to have also obtained documentation related to the negotiations.
Platinum Games wanted to hire Taylor for at least five sessions, each paying $3,000 to $4,000 for four hours at the studio, according to Bloomberg’s sources. If that were the case, the overall cost would have been at least $15,000. Taylor allegedly rejected the offer and “asked for a six-figure sum as well as residuals,” according to Bloomberg’s sources. The role was eventually filled by Jennifer Hale, a very well-voice actress best known for playing Commander Shepard in Mass Effect.
Bloomberg’s sources are providing “an absolute lie,” according to Taylor, who added that Platinum Games is trying to maintain its calm. Taylor’s allegations have not received an official reply from Platinum Games. (Unless you count Kamiya, who briefly deleted his account after calling Taylor’s videos “sad and terrible” on Twitter.)
Hale was one of the SAG-AFTRA union’s voice actors that went on strike in 2016 to seek higher pay for videogame acting roles. They hoped to obtain residuals in the form of bonuses when the games in which they feature are very successful, according to Bloomberg. They lost that battle, but they managed t earn benefits based on the number of sessions a role asks for. The contract between SAG-AFTRA and nine major game publishers was extended until November 7 of the current year 2020.
According to three sources quoted by Bloomberg, Platinum Games hired union actors for Bayonetta 3 and paid at least the union minimum wages for those actors (opens in new tab).
The conversation—by which I mean what people are saying on Twitter—has now moved to the fundamental problem, which is that voice actors don’t get especially large sums of cash even when they voice well-known characters. This is due to disagreement regarding the offer made to Taylor. Whether Taylor is proven correct or not, the scenario she outlined is not unusual. Bryan Dechart, another actor, said that he got a $4000 offer to play the “main character of a triple-A game.”
Uninformed individual people may be surprised to learn that apart from TV actors who financially benefit when one‘s shows are syndicated or made accessible on Blu-ray, voice actors for video games do not receive extra compensation for games that sell a lot of copies or are later distributed on new platforms. John Schwab, who played Dandelion’s voice in the Witcher video games, acknowledged to The Guardian that he shared the actors’ anger.
The videogame makes $7 billion after you get a few thousand pounds to represent the main character, he said. When you create the role, how does that make you feel?
Fans who were watching Taylor’s videos approached Hale, the new Bayonetta voice actor, with comments. She stated on Monday(opens in new tab) that an NDA prohibited her from talking about the issue in public, but she has since retweeted several replies in support of Bloomberg’s reporting.
Although “Bayonetta 3” does appear on the leaked Nvidia list from a while back, there is currently no PC version of the October 28 Switch release. has been announced officially. Even though some of the titles on the list have already been revealed on PC, Nvidia essentially said that the list had no relevance. However, given that Nintendo is the game’s developer, it would be a massive surprise if it did.
