“What they did was legal…but it was immoral.”
The release date for Bayonetta 3 is just around the corner. The third installment in the Bayonetta franchise has been one of the most highly anticipated games since it was first announced in December 2017. In September 2021 the first trailer was revealed during a Nintendo Direct and was met with excitement and joy from fans worldwide. However, one crucial detail left us confused and disappointed. In October of the same year, the director of the game, Yusuke Miyata, confirmed that Baynoetta’s English voice actress, Hellena Taylor would not be reprising her role from the first two games. Instead, she was replaced by Jennifer Hale (Mass Effect, BioShock Infinite). The reason for this was, supposedly, due to “overlapping circumstances” and schedule conflicts that made it impossible for Hellena Taylor to reprise the role. Or so Miyata said.
Now, a year later, Hellena Taylor has taken to social media to speak on the matter. Her side of the story is shockingly different. Told in a three-part video series on Twitter, Taylor explains who she is, her career background, the education and voice training she went through for the sake of being a voice actor, and comments on how the Bayonetta franchise has currently grossed approximately $450 million (USD) on game sales alone.
You can probably already tell where this is going. The real reason Hellena Taylor is not voicing Bayonetta for the third time is money.
“I did not want the world. I didn’t ask for too much. I was asking for a decent, dignified, living wage.”
So how much was she offered to voice the main character of a 450-million-dollar franchise? For the entirety of Bayonetta 3? The final pay that Platinum Games offered her after all negotiations was a mere $4,000. That’s approximately 0.00089% of the franchise’s current total earnings (on game sales alone, excluding merchandise). No royalties. No bonus. Nothing else. Part 1 of her video series is below.
Friends, Worldlings, Bayonutters. Hear ye!#PlatinumGames #Nintendo #Bayonetta #Bayonetta3 #Bayonutters #Boycott #NintendoEurope #NintendoAmerica #NintendoJapan pic.twitter.com/h9lwiX2bBt
— Hellena Taylor (@hellenataylor) October 15, 2022
In the two additional parts that follow, Taylor goes into detail about the negotiations. After the first offer (amount not stated), Taylor asked a friend to help her contact Hideki Kamiya, the franchise creator and scenario writer. Sure enough, she did get a reply with high praise for her past performances and him saying he greatly valued her contribution to the series… and the final offer of $4,000 dollars. Taylor went on to call out Platinum Games for lying about their disagreement to the public with the excuse of “schedule conflicts,” saying that she had absolutely “nothing but time” on her hands. Exactly how much money Taylor asked for was not revealed.
“I decided to do it to stand up in solidarity with people all over the world who do not get paid properly for their talents.”
In another segment, Taylor brings to light that low remuneration rates aren’t just an issue for voice actors, but even vital occupations such as nurses are often paid what can be called poverty wages. Despite the non-disclosure agreements she has with Platinum Games, she goes on to say that she is “not afraid” of any legal trouble because she has nothing to lose. No car. No house. In a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor, Taylor wishes the company luck if they wish to take her clothes.
In other parts of the videos, Taylor explains how the issue of low wages has impacted her mental health, which at some point got so severe that she was suicidal.
“Bayonetta always stands up for those with less power and stands up for what is right. And in doing this you stand with her.”
Hellena Taylor asked fans of the franchise to understand that she is fighting for liveable wages. She asked that, instead of buying the game, fans donate the money they would have spent to any charity of their own choice.
An Industry Underpaid and Overworked
This isn’t the first case of unpaid creatives within anime, manga, or the game industry taking to social media to bring attention to unfairness. Recently, the translation teams at Seven Seas Entertainment (a popular manga localizer publication) have been working to unionize for similar causes, as have several voice actors and translators in protests directed at Crunchyroll.
At the time of writing, Platinum Games and Nintendo have not responded publically to Taylor’s claims. However, in response to a number of comment requests, Hideki Kamiya has been suspended from Twitter, apparently due to blocking so many people that his account was automatically flagged as a spam bot. The account was then either temporarily deactivated or Twitter’s security system deleted it.
How much Bayonetta’s new voice actress, Jennifer Hale, is being paid is also unknown, but given her past connections to various unions and said union’s price listings as of 2020, it is possible that Hale was paid significantly more than what Taylor was offered.
Bayonetta 3 is set to release exclusively for Nintendo Switch on October 28th.
