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Exactly. It's only what's right. All I can do is hope they respond and they actually do what's right.
There is no doubt about it that it is true. You are also correct in voice-actors being underappreciated and undervalued. This is part of the reason why. Companies, for some odd reason, think voice-acting should be a free or cheap asset to a game, when it's actually the opposite. The voice-over community is probably one of the kindest and most supportive communities out there and I am so very tired of seeing them getting burned over and over. I love voice-actors because they add a magic to a game that nothing else really can, especially if done well, it also isn't an easy job!
I've also reblogged your Tweet: https://t.co/pQCMeMUVLb
You dodged a bullet. It is absolutely not worth the hassle.
No where on the thread did they specify when exactly they were going to release payment and they also did not specify how many lines or what the workload was. Most of the voice-actors I spoke to were originally hired to do 6 or so lines, depending on the role, which is fair. However, they did not know they were going to be doing 100+ more later down the road and would have to wait for their money if they get it at all which contradicts what they originally did. They started off pretty good, paying most actors who was cast their money right after their lines were submitted, however, they did not mention or tell the actors they were going to do 100+ more lines of dialogue and after the actors submitted those 100+ lines, they did not pay them after the lines were submitted like they previously had which is very poor business practice. That is not what these voice-actors agreed to.
Furthermore, people getting their voice displayed doesn't pay bills and rarely do people look up who did the voice of who. The steam code doesn't mean anything to a voice-actor who isn't interested in this type of game. If anyone is changing the contract, it is the developers. You're disregarding the other things they did that is simply poor business practice and unfair treatment of their workers.
And you're right, the voice actors do want more money because they did more work. That only makes sense. I also want to point out that there was no contracts made with the voice-actors and the developers.
I don't understand what you're trying to get at, the voice actors for Portia are great, but the board we posted this on was for indies that can't pay much, which is us, we really don't have much money to pay for it at the moment. We're pretty much trying to stretch every dime to make this game better as it is. That's why we always said we'll pay more at the end, if the game makes more money, everyone gets paid more, which is fair to everyone.
We're a Chinese studio, so handling English emails is a slow process, with priority on fan emails, so replies might be slower to the rest. But we reply to everything unless that person screwed up.
Also, we as developers make $4 off every copy, that's it (this is the average, as some areas in the world are charged less than the dollar price).
I'm sorry if some actors and actresses feel this way, and we'll look into the miscommunication and ways to remedy it.
I don't think the actors had an issue with the original workload and I don't think they had any qualms about doing more lines. The real issue lies with the rest of the list I see you're disregarding. There was no contract, so all the actors have to go by is what you originally did. They submitted the first batch of lines and received their money right afterwards which is good. However, then you asked them to do many more lines and I have proof in an e-mail from one of the voice-actors that said you were going to pay them after they finished voicing their lines which you did not do. You changed your minds and decided to pay voice-actors at a different, unspecific time which is a big no-no because many of the voice-actors are professional and rely on this money to pay bills and are accustomed to being paid after their lines have been submitted.
You had a very successful kickstarter and made no inclusion of giving more funds to the voice-actors in the game even though you are clearly aware that $50-$100 is chump change in this industry. Every other indie-developer who actually respects their voice-actors and wishes to pay them fairly at least mentions them and makes it a stretch-goal to properly pay their voice-actors, especially seeing as they've done more lines. What you're telling me right now is that you can't pay them for the additional work they did at this time. If you can't pay, don't ask them to do more lines till you can, it's simply courteous. They probably would've been more understanding if you elaborated on this fact and was simply transparent with them instead of tricking them into doing more work for no money. It is poor business practice to try and pay voice-actors from sales, especially when the work has already been done and submittied to you. It is just not reliable.
I have been told by multiple voice-actors that your communication, to be blunt, sucks. I now see why. Fan-mail should not be your priority, it should be voice-actors, the people who WORK for you. The people who do this professionally and need that money to LIVE. Clearly you do not reply to everything as many other voice-actors say otherwise. I suggest getting your priorities straightened out.
We're going to write an email to all the voice actors right now to make clear our position and answer any questions they may have. If they chose not to work on this title anymore, that's unfortunate. But like I said, everyone that worked on this title will be compensated fairly when the game ships, and we'll write the numbers we have in mind in the email.
Also, we sometimes get hundreds of emails a day, the people replying are doing the best they can.
I think I explained how they felt they were being tricked but I'll do it again. You e-mailed multiple voice-actors and said near the end of your e-mail "we'll pay you once you finish recording all the content". This is a very vague statement and it implies that once the voice-actor is done recording ALL OF THEIR CHARACTER'S lines, they will be paid "extra". https://imgur.com/DFyu0Fv There is the screenshot of the sentence I'm referring to. This was taken out of an actor's email.
Now, I'm going to assume your team meant to say "we will pay you after all of your character's lines that will be in the entire game are 100% completely finished", but your team did not put that, so the voice-actors were forced to just assume, because once again, your team's communication is very lacking, that they were going to get x-amount of money for new batch they were given.
This isn't the only thing you have to address. Why were some voice-actors, who were cast for certain characters and turned in lines, not notified of their character being recast? That is really disrespectful to the voice-actor originally chosen. I think you should send an e-mail to those voice-actors as well explaining what happened.
You should also go address your casting call post; http://voiceacting.boards.net/thread/2853/update-time-portia-extra-vo?page=2&scrollTo=13837&fbclid=IwAR1hZnyIOGZDJ6HG8qEL1hMj0r-uKrWhZFypjh39eVC0fMEbAAVgBOrzJrA
Also, we just read through everything, seems like your anger's from a few voice actors misunderstanding us and expecting to be paid $50-100 every time we send scripts. We never said we'd do that. So again, no, we didn't try to trick anyone. That's a heavy accusation.
We will clear it up with all of our voice actors, we don't cheat people.