Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Nik Hasta]

See it's a piss offer but at the same time, like... assuming a standard four sessions/days to shoot all the VA work, were in line with the standard pay for unionized workers of $1,000 day/session via the Global Voice Acting Association figures. It's only around $250 per day/session for non-union. Then it becomes a question of how long would it have taken, etc, etc.

Which is an issue in and of itself, because holy hell that's low compared to what these productions bring in... But isn't solely a Nintendo/Platinum issue.

Is it a lowball? In my opinion, yea... but it's still in compliance with the basic rates for union work (which is its own issue, see above). Is it rude? In so far as she deserved more for repeat work, I suppose, she helped make Bayonetta, Bayonetta... But if they had her audition like everyone else, it's somewhat clear to me that they weren't set on her reprising the role for the third time; so she auditioned, offered her industry standard, she turned it down... and they went with Hale.

I have one friend who works as VA Director on video games, done a couple of triple A projects so he knows the industry pretty well, and another who is a voice actor of like 10 years experience and I asked both of them about the story, they had the following things to offer.

VA Director friend - based on her playing the central character in a game which would likely contain several hours of dialogue centering on her plus all the various in-game sounds, grunts and other sundries that need to be picked up for an action game he comes to the following conclusions; Either they were massively lowballing her rate or were expecting her part in the project to be completed in an unreasonably short time and were attempting to force crunch conditions. He said $4000 is absolutely not what he'd expect for a role of that scale on a project like this.

VA friend - he says his experience is that the video game voiceover world is among the bottom end of the payscale for VA work generally, that there is a lot of bad culture about "the prestige," of the work and a lack of consistency of experience because it's a lot more dependent on how a game dev studio chooses to treat actors rather than working for like an advertising production house which is held to more rigorous consistent standards. He also pointed out that he got paid the equivalent of $2400 for a day's work doing voiceover for a washing powder commercial quite recently so $4000 for what would be, at minimum, weeks of intensive work was a bad look to him.

[Sharpandpointies]

OK, so after watching Werewolf by Night,

spoilers:

I am hype. For two reasons. Neither of them are about Jack himself, though they did manage to make him interesting, which I thought might be a struggle. 1. Man-Thing 2. Elsa is great. And since Monica is already a thing in the MCU, and Marvel suddenly out of nowhere this year teased a Nextwave reunion in Spider-Man for the first time since… ever… then, man, if they do MCU Nextwave I may lose my mind.

end of spoilers

Wait, wait.

spoilers:

Man-Thing is in this? Is it similar to the comic book one in motivation and everything?

end of spoilers

Damn. Might need to take a look.

[Sharpandpointies]

I have one friend who works as VA Director on video games, done a couple of triple A projects so he knows the industry pretty well, and another who is a voice actor of like 10 years experience and I asked both of them about the story, they had the following things to offer.

VA Director friend - based on her playing the central character in a game which would likely contain several hours of dialogue centering on her plus all the various in-game sounds, grunts and other sundries that need to be picked up for an action game he comes to the following conclusions; Either they were massively lowballing her rate or were expecting her part in the project to be completed in an unreasonably short time and were attempting to force crunch conditions. He said $4000 is absolutely not what he'd expect for a role of that scale on a project like this.

VA friend - he says his experience is that the video game voiceover world is among the bottom end of the payscale for VA work generally, that there is a lot of bad culture about "the prestige," of the work and a lack of consistency of experience because it's a lot more dependent on how a game dev studio chooses to treat actors rather than working for like an advertising production house which is held to more rigorous consistent standards. He also pointed out that he got paid the equivalent of $2400 for a day's work doing voiceover for a washing powder commercial quite recently so $4000 for what would be, at minimum, weeks of intensive work was a bad look to him.

This makes sense to me. Sounds not so great.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

This is injustice replacing Milly with some rando..

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

I have one friend who works as VA Director on video games, done a couple of triple A projects so he knows the industry pretty well, and another who is a voice actor of like 10 years experience and I asked both of them about the story, they had the following things to offer.

VA Director friend - based on her playing the central character in a game which would likely contain several hours of dialogue centering on her plus all the various in-game sounds, grunts and other sundries that need to be picked up for an action game he comes to the following conclusions; Either they were massively lowballing her rate or were expecting her part in the project to be completed in an unreasonably short time and were attempting to force crunch conditions. He said $4000 is absolutely not what he'd expect for a role of that scale on a project like this.

VA friend - he says his experience is that the video game voiceover world is among the bottom end of the payscale for VA work generally, that there is a lot of bad culture about "the prestige," of the work and a lack of consistency of experience because it's a lot more dependent on how a game dev studio chooses to treat actors rather than working for like an advertising production house which is held to more rigorous consistent standards. He also pointed out that he got paid the equivalent of $2400 for a day's work doing voiceover for a washing powder commercial quite recently so $4000 for what would be, at minimum, weeks of intensive work was a bad look to him.

Oh I'm not gonna argue that it's not a terrible offer. Just pointing out that it's consistent with the 'baseline'. Also don't necessarily disagree that it's a bad look.

I'm just leery of hopping on this particular bandwagon before full context is out, because I don't know enough and what little I do know indicates that Nintendo is just being the 'industry average' level bag of dicks it has always been... And unfortunately this isn't even the most ludicrous slap in the face this year, considering the Chris Pratt Mario Movie is a thing that exists, and it's not the guy that's been Mario for literally 30 years.

So like... I already boycott Nintendo for shitty practices.

I just like full context before I call Gondor for aid.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

I guess part of my hesitancy to hop on this immediately too, is also like...

I don't like the way she attacked Hale? That's a red flag, and it just... Rubs me the wrong way, when the focus should be the **** treatment to VA's and not her talking **** about another VA.

[Nik Hasta]

Undead Unluck really selling this sequence very well. Good desperation, love to see it.

[Len Ikari145]

I guess part of my hesitancy to hop on this immediately too, is also like...

I don't like the way she attacked Hale? That's a red flag, and it just... Rubs me the wrong way, when the focus should be the **** treatment to VA's and not her talking **** about another VA.

Same. That made me quite uncomfortable, especially since Hale is quite a vocal advocate for VAs getting better treatment. I also don't want to leap into this mess without full context about what's going on since Kamiya indicated that there's more to the story.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Same. That made me quite uncomfortable, especially since Hale is quite a vocal advocate for VAs getting better treatment. I also don't want to leap into this mess without full context about what's going on since Kamiya indicated that there's more to the story.

Who (Hale) has a much larger presence in the industry and a much bigger/more noteworthy portfolio of work. So she has more bargaining power when it comes to negotiating prices.

Maybe shouldn't be a factor in all of this, considering she's been Bayonetta for fifteenish years but, they shat all over Charles Martinet who's been Mario, Luigi, and I think done some Wario/Waluigi work for 30 years; so I'm not surprised.

[BitVyper]

Re Bayonetta: Hale's twitter has liked a decent number of posts that suggest Hale didn't know anything about this and that Hale can't make a statement because of an NDA

As for Hellena saying anything uncomfortable about Hale stepping into the role, like she's a human being who got 100% stepped on by an abusive company to hand off a job that should be hers to someone they are definitely going to pay considerably more. I think it's pretty unfair to expect her to be corporate PR perfect in her response.

Especially when the entire world is like one shade away from openly trying to assassinate Chris Pratt over a situation in the same ballpark right now.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Black Clover: Huh, I wasn't expecting Yami to be this series spoilers:

Itachi

end of spoilers. Except... you know... he's a likeable character.

One Piece!

spoilers:

Blackbeard VS Law! Place Your Bets!

end of spoilers

spoilers:

Even if was just Law and Blackbeard in a one on one I'd back Teach. Not just because Teach can shut down Law's DF powers (and Law isn't that strong without those). But he also has most of his old crew with him, and they've all gotten stronger with all their new DF powers. Law just has Beppo, Jean Bart and the rest (I'm sure they have names that can be looked up in the One Piece wiki). There's just quite a significant difference in raw strength here. But Law is a smart dude. He can probably figure out a way to get away.

end of spoilers

[Beadle]

Wait, wait.

spoilers:

Man-Thing is in this? Is it similar to the comic book one in motivation and everything?

end of spoilers

Damn. Might need to take a look.

spoilers:

Yep. Although slightly more comedic. Slightly.

end of spoilers

[The Dog]

Death Battle: spoilers:

Spongebob wins. In a ridiculous curbstomp that they couldn't even pretend was fair. They made Homelander vs. Omni-man seem closer than this one.

end of spoilers

And next time: spoilers:

Jason Voorhees vs. Michael Myers

end of spoilers

[Jcogginsa]

Wait, wait.

spoilers:

Man-Thing is in this? Is it similar to the comic book one in motivation and everything?

end of spoilers

Damn. Might need to take a look.

spoilers:

I'd need to know more about the Comic version to answer that

end of spoilers

[Crunkula]

Re Bayonetta: Hale's twitter has liked a decent number of posts that suggest Hale didn't know anything about this and that Hale can't make a statement because of an NDA

As for Hellena saying anything uncomfortable about Hale stepping into the role, like she's a human being who got 100% stepped on by an abusive company to hand off a job that should be hers to someone they are definitely going to pay considerably more. I think it's pretty unfair to expect her to be corporate PR perfect in her response.

Especially when the entire world is like one shade away from openly trying to assassinate Chris Pratt over a situation in the same ballpark right now.

You also had Hideki Kamiya go on Twitter saying some ill-advised things about the situation and offering not a lick of evidence to dispute Hellan's claim.

What a way to bring down heat on a game right before release.