The Industry - Lifestyle and Wages

[MeoTwister5]

And in the process she kinda went to disparage, of all people, Jennifer Hale herself. I doubt one of the most famous voice actors would even ask rates at that level.

[Last Sinner]

Jennifer Hale is purely about the business. But she does meet her obligations and acts professionally. Probably the only person in this situation that actually did. Attacking her is beyond stupid. She got offered to do the role - she certainly didn't ask for how anyone else acted.

Pretty similar to how Laura Bailey was harassed to no end for her VA work in Last of Us 2. I am no fan of Last of Us 2 at all, but Laura Bailey is one of the best VAs, full stop. She voiced a character in it - she didn't write it or tell people how they should think, she didn't ask people to make that character their hill for their arguments to take their last stand on.

Both sides have claimed what the offer really was. Some actual proof would help, but that is doubtful unless this goes to court. As Ben Diskin said, people tend to lie/omit on both sides and that both sides of a story need verification from an independent source. Details/nuance matter. Schreier got sources but whether they're being 100% truthful can't be proven until someone actually shows a document of what the offer was. Heresay has been around since the dawn of time.

If Taylor really did only include the post-Hale hiring offer in her video, her goodwill is cactus and she had better be able to rely on her theater work because she won't get VA work again. And if her actions affect the saga of 'most' game VAs being underpaid, people will never forgive her, especially Michael Hollick.

[Sides]

Well, as it turns out Hellena Taylor kind of admitted, that she deliberately misled people and tried to used "underpaid voice actors" as a riding platform for her own purpose.
I am not going to link to any of those articles about the latest development, because non of those "reporters" actually did any kind of journalistic work. It is crazy that only Bloomberg and VGC staff bothered to investigate the situation. All those other reports on popular news outlets were just opinon piece by "gaming journalist" or contributers, which is crazy, if one considers that computer and videogames are a multibillion-dollar industry.

[Last Sinner]

She effectively expelled any doubt now. And ruined things for others in her line of work long-term.

As for video-game reporting, the only source worth believing in regularly is Jason Schreier. He calls it as it is and isn't a paid opinion or going for clicks.

[stray]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

He calls it as it is and isn't a paid opinion or going for clicks.

Uh... is this the same Jason Schreier who was at Kotaku for a decade? I can't take that line seriously.

I guess we'll see what the fallout is but its definitely true that western VA reprising roles is undervalued in the dubbing market.

[Last Sinner]

Originally Posted by stray

Uh... is this the same Jason Schreier who was at Kotaku for a decade? I can't take that line seriously.

I guess we'll see what the fallout is but its definitely true that western VA reprising roles is undervalued in the dubbing market.

Jason Schreier was as respected when he worked there as he is at Bloomberg. And yes, I get where you're coming from given what Kotaku generally is. Schreier is not atypical of those there.

[stray]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

Schreier is not atypical of those there.

I've never been particularly fond of him but I'm sure he's connected. The feud he instigated with George Kamitani from Vanillaware over the tig ol bitties in Dragon's Crown was fucking legendary for a clickwhore.

I actually am pretty fond of Forbes gaming and anime reporters if you happen to want to read your gaming news on a financial news site.

[Last Sinner]

And I'll still give him the benefit of the doubt for what he said about Blizzard, Riot, Rockstar, etc. If you make it big as a VA, you can make a heck of a living. But plenty are underpaid and the devs have it as bad if not worse. Taylor has made a mockery of these issues with her shenanigans. Now anyone claiming being underpaid or abused will have a bigger hill to climb to get credibility.

[stray]

Originally Posted by Last Sinner

If you make it big as a VA, you can make a heck of a living.

Hmm... Taylor's numbers may have been deceptive but but one thing that's becoming apparent from outspoken VA is that the majority of them seem to be skirting poverty. From what I've seen a lot of people can't grasp that even if a single (lead) role pays well there's no guarantee of a steady stream of roles -- not everyone can be Troy Baker or Laura Bailey or whoever. I guess I should append to that steady union work, since especially among those involved with anime or anime games very few are in that position.

Now anyone claiming being underpaid or abused will have a bigger hill to climb to get credibility.

The misconceptions about the industry are probably more dangerous, though NDA make it difficult to really shine a light on the industry as a whole.

[kj1980]

Damn it's like reading a time capsule when this thread was started by folks 20 years ago when people were in their 20s and now the same people still linger around with much more better perspective in life and the industry in their 40s

How many people here who are in the industry right now one way or the other reflect back to what was written 20 years ago and see what changed, what hasn't changed, what's pretty much ended up becoming more like what Japan is crushing you former optomistic dreams of what life as an industry member was like back then?

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by kj1980

Damn it's like reading a time capsule when this thread was started by folks 20 years ago when people were in their 20s and now the same people still linger around with much more better perspective in life and the industry in their 40s

How many people here who are in the industry right now one way or the other reflect back to what was written 20 years ago and see what changed, what hasn't changed, what's pretty much ended up becoming more like what Japan is crushing you former optomistic dreams of what life as an industry member was like back then?

I dont think we expected foreign fans who used to do just fan animations ending up getting hired for some freelance job in the industry. Kay Yu is one of those persons. And that's one of the things that come in mind. Industry changed in some ways (studios using social media to reach out skilled fans for some jobs) and stayed the same (the issues of pay for animators). And while we believe that streaming ended piracy, fans have come to embrace it again (while zoomers learns how to use torrents) when it becomes known that western publishers have been censoring content to fit whatever political agenda (Maid Dragon subs comes in mind).

[Last Sinner]

Even if there's some jaded feelings of the narrowed scope of anime in recent years, it's nothing compared to what a joke Hollywood has become. Western animation is branching out a bit - emphasis on a bit - but the stranglehold of Disney is still heavily hindering it.

[serenade_beta]

Originally Posted by kj1980

Damn it's like reading a time capsule when this thread was started by folks 20 years ago when people were in their 20s and now the same people still linger around with much more better perspective in life and the industry in their 40s

How many people here who are in the industry right now one way or the other reflect back to what was written 20 years ago and see what changed, what hasn't changed, what's pretty much ended up becoming more like what Japan is crushing you former optomistic dreams of what life as an industry member was like back then?

The changes in trends of what get animated
The changes in humor
Evil Crunchyroll trying to ruin fansubs
Netflix using industry resources to make anime and releasing them in stupid ways
And probably some other moneygrubbing Western companies

[Blaat]

YouTube

https://youtu.be/iExwO1v_V-s

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Toshio Okada explains the screwed up practises of production committee.

ANN article

Okada claimed that animators are so poor even though the industry attracts more money than ever because the production committee caps the budgets on individual anime titles. This is apparently because of a culture of corporate collusion, where the lead investing company determines beforehand the highest amount every other company in the committee can spend proportionally.

Okada elaborated that because control over the copyright is proportional to the amount of investment, companies will bid to become the highest investor (this is usually 40%). Once they attain this status, they have the power to determine the budget. For example, if the lead investor spends $4 million, the budget would be capped at $10 million.

After the budget has been determined proportionally, production committees will not accept larger investments from outsider (usually foreign) companies. A large investment would be split into separate projects to keep those companies lower down in the production committee. For example, Okada said that if a Chinese company offered to pay for an entire $10 million budget, the production committee would turn their investment into $50,000 chunks across 20 different projects. In other words, to maintain control and profits, the Japanese companies on anime production committees are incentivized to use the surplus from foreign investment to fund other projects instead of increasing an individual title's budget.

[Marcus H.]

tl;dr: The big guys (Aniplex, Kadokawa, etc) force the entire industry to dance to their rhythm, at the cost of the rest of the industry.

[Last Sinner]

Article also depicted a real meat grinder scenario for those doing the animating. Most will lose their passion and want something worth the time and pay. The odd person gets high enough to have some control. New lot comes in, cycle continues.