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Hellena Taylor (Voice of Bayonetta) Describes How She was Offered only $4,000 USD to Voice Her Again in Bayonetta 3.

Hardensoul

Member
I'm not saying there can't be different interpretations of the character but this is the third game in a trilogy,not a remake or a reimagining.It's like switching Kevin Conroy and Mark Hamil in the Batman Animated series mid-season.
Bayonetta games are not really a true trilogy! Sure there’s connections but not true continuation!

Changing actors mid season is not same as changing mid game but on some tv shows we’ve seen it done Bewitch, Three’s company! Movie Hulk(Edward Norton) got switch, supposed to be same Hulk in Avengers.

Either way this is not like they are changing a face but voices and that is easier to change and can sound similar! In a new game!
 

Needlecrash

Member
For Hellena to only get $4,000, and that's the HIGHEST rate Platinum would give her, is a fucking travesty. Not only that, Jennifer Hale and Hellena Taylor are in the same union too. To me, it seems that Platinum lowballed Hellena on purpose to get her to refuse, only to get Jennifer Hale for a much undisclosed higher rate. Refused to pay a penny to pay a quarter.

Platinum swept this shit under rug initially, saying Hellena had "other obligations and wasn't available." She clapped back saying, "I've been here the whole time."

Something is definitely amiss here. I feel for Hellena, real talk. She is Bayonetta in my eyes.
 
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Needlecrash

Member
It is very odd that she is using these strange, exaggerated examples to support her victim complex:

-Nurse going to pantry because she can't afford food for herself (Helena is not a nurse who saves lives, and UK's economic conditions has nothing to do with Nintendo)
-She spent years majoring in theatre and perfecting her craft. If anything, her star voice role in bayonetta would have propelled her in other cartoon, video game, movie roles. Is she not auditioning?
-Her depression, anxiety and suicide attempt was based on Nintendo not giving her enough money on the bayonetta 3 role?
-It was her choice not to accept the low pay and walked away
-Could not infuse or include royalties for her role? How was this not put on the table?

I would wait and hear from the other side before making a solid opinion on this matter
Well, Kamiya will block ANYONE on Twitter who asks about it, so....:\
 

Hardensoul

Member
Shameful. The lead voice actor of a big budget AAA game is only offered $4000 to reprise her role. According to the video we are talking about a franchise that has made in the region of ~$450 million worldwide.

The director is a disgrace. Referring to non-Japanese speakers insects and cockroaches. Seriously, that guy can go fuck himself.
🤣Bayonetta a big budget AAA game!😂
 

Killer8

Gold Member
This is nothing like David Hayter. Bayonetta is nowhere near Metal Gear Solid status. Metal Gear Solid is 50% story, it's a different scale.

You're confusing the amount of story in the games and the size of both series for how beloved the voice actor in a role is. Yes, obviously David Hayter had more lines in his story heavy games than Hellena had in story light Bayonetta. But to a large proportion of fans, Hellena Taylor as Bayonetta had a similar level of cultural significance as David Hayter as Solid Snake. Hence the outpouring of support for her.

If you want to somehow quantify what that looks like as a number, her tweet now has 145k likes. Bayonetta is trending with 165k tweets. Small role my fucking ass.

I can't understand your logic at all with this other nonsense. Should PlatinumGames consider her life circumstances and alternative incomes? Should PlatinumGames give her 20k because she says in a tweet she might find herself on the street? or analyze the energy prices and base their salary on that? WHAT????

If that is a week or two of work, that is NOT pitiful money.

You originally said: "She also tried to use everything from mental health and poor people and everything in between to somehow justify her decision."

So basically: you belittled her financial position (which is very common in her country), how the project would not address that in the way in which she hoped it would; as well as the poor mental state which resulted from not only that, but also the realization that she's an expendable part of a multi-million dollar project funded by a multi-billion dollar publisher. You just painted all of her concerns as one big boo-hoo.

Everything I said in response to your unsympathetic bullshit was an explanation of why she felt that way - it was not an instructional about why Platinum Games necessarily ought to pay her more money. It goes without saying that everything she is upset about is happening as a downstream consequence of Platinum's decision to pay her so little. What they should be paying her is a fair amount for the work which she is bringing to the table, which $4000 absolutely is not by several other voice actor's accounts.

But after your appearance in that "muh Steam Deck emulation is devaluing Nintendo's ecosystem" thread, i'm not sure why i'm still even responding to someone with the corporate cock so obviously wedged deep inside their ass.
 

Bragr

Banned
You're confusing the amount of story in the games and the size of both series for how beloved the voice actor in a role is. Yes, obviously David Hayter had more lines in his story heavy games than Hellena had in story light Bayonetta. But to a large proportion of fans, Hellena Taylor as Bayonetta had a similar level of cultural significance as David Hayter as Solid Snake. Hence the outpouring of support for her.

If you want to somehow quantify what that looks like as a number, her tweet now has 145k likes. Bayonetta is trending with 165k tweets. Small role my fucking ass.

You originally said: "She also tried to use everything from mental health and poor people and everything in between to somehow justify her decision."

So basically: you belittled her financial position (which is very common in her country), how the project would not address that in the way in which she hoped it would; as well as the poor mental state which resulted from not only that, but also the realization that she's an expendable part of a multi-million dollar project funded by a multi-billion dollar publisher. You just painted all of her concerns as one big boo-hoo.

Everything I said in response to your unsympathetic bullshit was an explanation of why she felt that way - it was not an instructional about why Platinum Games necessarily ought to pay her more money. It goes without saying that everything she is upset about is happening as a downstream consequence of Platinum's decision to pay her so little. What they should be paying her is a fair amount for the work which she is bringing to the table, which $4000 absolutely is not by several other voice actor's accounts.

But after your appearance in that "muh Steam Deck emulation is devaluing Nintendo's ecosystem" thread, i'm not sure why i'm still even responding to someone with the corporate cock so obviously wedged deep inside their ass.
Are you still crying about the Steam Deck? dude, take a pill, take a walk, and move on with your life.

Most people never heard of Hellena before this, the reason why she gets likes is that people love drama. Very few of them actually played the games.

Hellena is trying to use the irrational Twitter mob as a weapon. Like a social justice warrior. You have NO idea what her mental state comes from. At all.

You seem to think that the "multi-million" dollar project and the "multi-billion" dollar publisher employes her every week. In fact, she gets hired once in a blue moon to say some lines, like every third year. That's it. You have no idea what she should be paid. None of us do unless she gives out more details.

I didn't belittle anything. That she brings her external concerns unrelated to Platinum into this and tries to blame it on Platinum, is amateurish and childish.
 

K2D

Banned
Sucks for the whole industry and it's probably not fair.. but it's weird response on her part.

Won't something like this close a lot of doors on her? She's one person out of a very large team worldwide and calling for a boycott seems stuck up and self righteous.
 
Helena’s video! How would she know that? Platinum or Nintendo would divulge that to a VA? If you just going by the video then you know nothing about Bayonetta or AAA budgets.

No! Bayonetta is not a big Budget AAA!

Please educate me. It sounds like you are an authority. What does constitute big budget AAA in your view? Why wouldn’t you consider Bayonetta AAA?

Is it the size of the team working on the game? The overall budget of the project? The development cycle I.e. how long the game has been in development? The technology utilised? By which metric should we consider Bayonetta 3 not AAA? Do other games you consider AAA meet the same criteria? I’d love a detailed response.
 

Killer8

Gold Member
Are you still crying about the Steam Deck? dude, take a pill, take a walk, and move on with your life.

Most people never heard of Hellena before this, the reason why she gets likes is that people love drama. Very few of them actually played the games.

Hellena is trying to use the irrational Twitter mob as a weapon. Like a social justice warrior. You have NO idea what her mental state comes from. At all.

You seem to think that the "multi-million" dollar project and the "multi-billion" dollar publisher employes her every week. In fact, she gets hired once in a blue moon to say some lines, like every third year. That's it. You have no idea what she should be paid. None of us do unless she gives out more details.

I didn't belittle anything. That she brings her external concerns unrelated to Platinum into this and tries to blame it on Platinum, is amateurish and childish.

"I didn't belittle anything."

But also:

"Most people never heard of Hellena before this, the reason why she gets likes is that people love drama. Very few of them actually played the games.

Hellena is trying to use the irrational Twitter mob as a weapon. Like a social justice warrior. You have NO idea what her mental state comes from. At all."


Amazing.
 

Fuz

Banned
Happen when someone achieve a professional role in the jobs world...if you want that name you pay...or you use some recent graduate or an intern..

I met a thermohydraulic engineer with whom I had a chat and he told me that for less than 6000 € a month he did not accept jobs.
Oh, really? How many hours does he work in a month? How easy is it to get those qualifications?
 

Draugoth

Gold Member
So average is $37 an hour. A game like bayonetta that doesn’t have much talking probably takes like 2 work days so around 16 hours. So if she is not lying she was offered well over the average.

There is a lot of information on VA on the net so instead of being stupid and doing a REeee blind rage… go look it up. VA is a not some prestigious high paying career. You have to build it up. Get some tv series work to really make some money.

voice-actor-salary.png

There's a lot of things we dont know about this.

Im inclined to believe they didnt want her to voice her anymore, so she got pissed.
 

Megatron

Member
It's the low balling that's insulting, whether it's an object you're selling, or for the work that you're doing. As an IT professional, I refuse propositions for doing jobs that I judge are underpaid for the work done. On a multi-millions dollars franchise, I believe $4000 for lending your voice to the main protagonist is ridiculous.
And after you refuse the jobs do you then go to social media and encourage people to boycott the company that made the offer?
 

Bragr

Banned
"I didn't belittle anything."

But also:

"Most people never heard of Hellena before this, the reason why she gets likes is that people love drama. Very few of them actually played the games.

Hellena is trying to use the irrational Twitter mob as a weapon. Like a social justice warrior. You have NO idea what her mental state comes from. At all."


Amazing.
And here we go making dumb contrasting illogical comparisons like everyone does when they lose discussions.

Do you think I am wrong in that most of the Twitter people didn't play the games? do you think they are all Bayo fans? do you know how niche Bayo really is?

Are you saying you know her mental state? I reaffirm that statement. You or anyone on this forum has no insight into her mental state.
 

Lucke

Neo Member
I just checked Kamiya’s twitter and the harassment he’s getting is INSANE.

Please if any on this thread is going after him there, keep in mind this whole story was probably not his sole decision.

For sure more staff at Nintendo and Platinum games were decision makers for the 4k offer… and I’m more inclided to think (like others in this thread) that this was on purpose to get her out…

Anyway, please don’t harash the guy for this.
 
I just checked Kamiya’s twitter and the harassment he’s getting is INSANE.

Please if any on this thread is going after him there, keep in mind this whole story was probably not his sole decision.

For sure more staff at Nintendo and Platinum games were decision makers for the 4k offer… and I’m more inclided to think (like others in this thread) that this was on purpose to get her out…

Anyway, please don’t harash the guy for this.

Didn’t he refer to non-Japanese speakers as insects and cockroaches?
 

Hardensoul

Member
Please educate me. It sounds like you are an authority. What does constitute big budget AAA in your view? Why wouldn’t you consider Bayonetta AAA?

Is it the size of the team working on the game? The overall budget of the project? The development cycle I.e. how long the game has been in development? The technology utilised? By which metric should we consider Bayonetta 3 not AAA? Do other games you consider AAA meet the same criteria? I’d love a detailed response.
When we talk about Nintendo funded games we won’t ever know their budget. Nintendo keeps a tight lip and even tighter NDA. Out of Nintendos main IP Zelda/Mario/MKart/Smash are the true AAA only because those are the games they push marketing for! Recently Animal crossing and Splatoon are now their new AAA.

Those games sell over between 10-30 million copies and some over 30 million. I will not guess their development cost since Nintendo has never divulge the cost!

Bayonetta 1 has only sold around 2 million on 2 consoles but a lot of those copies were heavily discounted because it sold bad at launch. Bayonetta 2 sold 300k on WiiU and just over 1m on Switch.

Sega said no to Bayonetta 2 was shopped around to everyone including Sony and MS before Nintendo said yes.

Knowing the sales are niche, Nintendo would likely not throw big money and certainly we have not seen big marketing for Bayonetta 2 and now Bayonetta 3 deoesnt seem to have a big marketing.

AAA games are normally big development budget, big marketing and big sales! Bayonetta doesn’t hit either of those notes!
 

Lucke

Neo Member
Didn’t he refer to non-Japanese speakers as insects and cockroaches?
Yes, it’s on his pinned tweet from 2019. Seems like no one cared for 3 years?

While that is not the nicest attitude, still the guy should not be harassed for the VA topic.

This is a video game forum and I’m sick of cancel culture screwing video games, he is one of the few good japanese developers remaining…
 
That's why she did this. She got vengeful because she lost a role she identified with
Yeah, no; she already talked about not voicing bayo a year ago, and kept silent all this time after that, until PG recently came out with a statement as to why, which she clearly thought was bs and it clearly pissed her off.
 
Yes, it’s on his pinned tweet from 2019. Seems like no one cared for 3 years?

While that is not the nicest attitude, still the guy should not be harassed for the VA topic.

This is a video game forum and I’m sick of cancel culture screwing video games, he is one of the few good japanese developers remaining…

I agree with you. I am no fan of cancel culture.
 
If this gets people talking about the value voice actors bring and the importance of their work when it comes to the finished product, then I'm glad. I wish good voice actors and writers were respected and valued more in general. Instead, they're largely treated as inconsequential.
 
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Bragr

Banned
Yeah, no; she already talked about not voicing bayo a year ago, and kept silent all this time after that, until PG recently came out with a statement as to why, which she clearly thought was bs and it clearly pissed her off.
Or, she regretted not taking the role, mulls over it for a year, needs money right now, sees Jennnifer Hale take her role, and uses whatever she can to direct her frustrations towards her former employers.
 

JimRyanGOAT

Member
Using social media for attempts at shaming. She should just be professional and move on.
Might as well

Tik Tokers make 1000x she does making 30-second videos lip syncing over babies laughing


There's so much money circulating in this world, might as well fight for your equal share
 
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Buggy Loop

Member
Kind of understand why platinum wanted to break ties now.

Calling on Hale lowballing
Saying nobody but her should voice Bayonetta
Bayonetta wouldn’t exist without her
Nobody should sign merch but her

… yeah, imagine if that’s how she’s “professional” in public, what happens during a recording session?

Season 8 Nbc GIF by The Office
 
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TheKratos

Member
Please educate me. It sounds like you are an authority. What does constitute big budget AAA in your view? Why wouldn’t you consider Bayonetta AAA?

Is it the size of the team working on the game? The overall budget of the project? The development cycle I.e. how long the game has been in development? The technology utilised? By which metric should we consider Bayonetta 3 not AAA? Do other games you consider AAA meet the same criteria? I’d love a detailed response.
You answered yourself already. If you consider Bayonetta AAA, what would God of War be, AAAAA?
 
Or, she regretted not taking the role, mulls over it for a year, needs money right now, sees Jennnifer Hale take her role, and uses whatever she can to direct her frustrations towards her former employers.
"We couldn't come to an agreement" would be the truth. "Various overlapping circumstances made it difficult for Hellena Taylor to reprise her role." was a complete lie, and I would be furious as well if I were her.

There are definitely several aspects of how she went about this that I don't agree with, and I'm concerned that she likely has hurt her future in the voice work industry, but if this starts a conversation that leads to developers paying the people appropriately who are responsible for giving their protagonists a voice and personality, then I'm all for it. This is a conversation that should be happening.
 

Bragr

Banned
"We couldn't come to an agreement" would be the truth. "Various overlapping circumstances made it difficult for Hellena Taylor to reprise her role." was a complete lie, and I would be furious as well if I were her.

There are definitely several aspects of how she went about this that I don't agree with, and I'm concerned that she likely has hurt her future in the voice work industry, but if this starts a conversation that leads to developers paying the people appropriately who are responsible for giving their protagonists a voice and personality, then I'm all for it. This is a conversation that should be happening.
What do you know about voice work and pay? we can't make judgments without details.

I took it as Platinum being kind to her, they probably thought she was nuts for refusing, even after she got a raise, so they came up with some random comment that wouldn't demean her.
 

Kagoshima_Luke

Gold Member
So basically, boycott the game and help put everyone else that worked on it out of the job because you didn't get offered the amount of money what you wanted? gtfo with that bs
chris-tucker-friday.gif
Put who out of a job? The work is done. The devs got paid a salary for the 4 years or whatever it took to make it. They are likely on new projects already.
 

daveonezero

Banned
She just doesn’t have the leverage to negotiate for more.
because it is a market that has a pretty low barrier to entry.

Most people can talk.

Games were better when the developers and team members were doing the voices.
 
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Hardensoul

Member
Put who out of a job? The work is done. The devs got paid a salary for the 4 years or whatever it took to make it. They are likely on new projects already.
Maybe not out job now but it certainly would hurt Platinum if the sales are lower than a what they expect. Like sales bonuses if it sells well?
 
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