Re: "Voice actors not paid?"

[Aurelia]

Hi all. It's come to our attention that there's information going around that we are not paying our voice actors. I'd like to shed a little light on this, as I feel that some misunderstandings and/or cases of our errors have begun digging a grave for us that we are doing our best to avoid.

During the time we've been developing MTAP and been working with voice actors, we have sent out countless payments, and have listened and adjusted our methods and systems several times when we discovered that something didn't work. Did we make errors? Yes, we did, and we are not proud of them. But did we ignore them and leave people out in the cold? Absolutely not. We have attempted to address every case that was brought to our attention, and have always been ready to fix any errors on our part.

So, what went wrong? Obviously something isn't right.
Past. Disconnection and difficulty in communication, and lack of clarity and explanation. We are still an inexperienced and ambitious studio, and did not have a solid structure in place to maintain adequate links to our actors and maintanance thereof, and this caused several issues. It started from volunteer work, to paid work, then to contracted work. From 11 voice actors to 60+. Why didn't this work?
With our initial casting, we outlined an initial pay, along with additional pay once the game was completed. Everyone who auditioned at that time agreed to this, or they should not have auditioned. Those who auditioned and were accepted, recieved that pay, and would recieve the final pay on completion of the game.
Three months ago, a third party individual posted a thread on these boards declaring the statement that actors were being mistreated, and were not being paid, and that we were making excuses of "not enough funds". That thread remains on this board with no instances of bans, or post deletions, because frankly, we have a habit of blaming ourselves. So, we spent the next 3 months establishing direct contact with our actors, attempting to fix line of communication, feeling that was where the issue was. We communicated with what actors were willing to come forward and share their feelings, and in turn, we concluded that periodic payment would be a better course of action than what we had plotted prior. Communication increased, payments were made, but it still wasn't enough. The swift urgency of change brought some inconsistencies and conflictions with our structure, slowing things down, and timelineness not being handled appropriately.. Ontop of that, was the initial pay that lingered as an intent to be a part of the full pay. This led some actors to submit a few lines, not meet the "credit", and then in turn, we asked them for more lines without them having recieved any pay.

Over this last weekend, we have been addressing this as best as we can. We sent out payments to all actors whether we had implimented their lines or not, but this still left some people not recieving pay, due to that "credit". After interacting with a few of those in question, it was made clear that this just wasn't fair. We removed that credit/deduction, and are currently in the process of getting out the payments as due.

And..?
Right now, our top priority is making sure everyone is met with what they were expecting, rather than what we had in mind. We have grown attached to these voice actors, and are disheartened that we seem to be doing everything wrong. We wanted to include voice actors because we know how important they are for bringing something to life, and we wished to be as fair as possible to them, and show them how important they were. We are just simply an inexperienced studio that did not understand how to manage this best. In the future, we will be signing on a professional vo company to handle these things for us. It just didn't work for anyone.

We appreciate all the voice actors that have supported and helped better our system, and My Time at Portia. They have given us patience, advice, suggestions, tips, and encouragement, when they were obligated to do none of those, and we will continue to return that appreciation the best we can.
We are still working to get all VO's in the game, and I apologize to those who feel the game incomplete without them, along with any voice actors who feel we've not been fair.

[Adesanya]

I remember someone posting about this subject and the way they came off was like "sour grapes". I am glad to hear the other side of the story and appreciate your coming forward. I always feel better hearing BOTH sides of the story.

[Antiga]

All I can say is be careful people do not abuse your inexperience and tendency to blame yourselfes. It kind of sounds this has already happened, as it sounds like people agreed to one thing initially, then some of those people changed their minds and this is what caused the problems to begin with.
In the end, everyone is paying the price. Some voice actors most likely still feel somewhat mistreated, whether justified or not. Pathea has lost extra time and funds. The player is still left with incomplete voice acting.
It's a learning process, happy to see you're very open to that, at least.

[RonjaLin]

I will wait to see how this plays out before I make my own judgment on who is right here. The voice actors should be able to present their contracts with the alleged payment rates.

[Ice Dagger]

I will take a wait and see approach. But I will say this: I care more for workers than I do a company.

[Lorca]

Thanks for your transparency on the matter. It is difficult to run a business when the company lacks experience. Even to the most experienced studio, problems can arise no matter how well they thought they had everything under control. Business sure is an adventure where you constantly deal with all kinds of foreseeable and unforeseeable challenges. I'm glad you guys are hiring a third party to handle the voice acting matters. I think that was a smart decision to make even if it means shelling out more money. But in the long run, I think this will pay out dividends. I wish the best for all parties involved. I want Portia to be successful! It's a great game!

[Strife]

Thank you on clarification on the matter, and I wish you guys resolve the issue swiftly. I love to see what My Time in Portia will become when it entirely voiced.

Wish you guys the best :)

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

Glad that you're being transparent. However, I'm cautious of any developer that has a branch located in China, especially after the Huawei scandal.

[Kit ˖ ࣪⭑]

Oof, Luminaire, I feel so bad for you.

That really took off quick, and people were fast to turn to accusations of Pathea not paying ANY of their VAs at all to straight up refusing to pay anyone. I tried to do some damage control on Twitter and explain the situation as truthful as possible.

I hope this tiny storm will finally calm down.

[Jonah Falcon]

I'm SAG-AFTRA. Trust me, if you don't pay your voice actors, we'll come down like the hammer of God.

[ziroonderel]

Thank you for the transparency. I remain constantly impressed by how you are handling setbacks and failures; while sure, not everything is perfect, it's clear you do your best to improve and communicate the steps taken to improve stuff. Good luck!

[IchigoMait]

People who accept this kind of work should meet the credit no matter what if they accepted the contract, there is no reason to not to, unless they don't trust the company for whatever silly made up reason, if you actually did the work as what was asked and you accepted to do it in the first place, and then you don't get paid, then you can start dishing out social justice.

You can't go to work and not do the work, just because you've have not being payed yet, because last time you didn't do enough work to get paid in the first place, seems like a dead circle whoever behaves like that.

Originally posted by Protoss:

I will wait to see how this plays out before I make my own judgment on who is right here. The voice actors should be able to present their contracts with the alleged payment rates.

That doesn't matter, because the voice actors themselves decide if they wanna do the work at those rates, they know very well what they should or not do, you can't decide it for themselves with your made up ideas what's fair for you, what others should have to pay and what other peeps should have to accept.

If the voice actors accepted the terms, they did what was asked for and then didn't get paid initially for it, then yeah you can dish out your social justice, otherwise this whole ordeal has no point.

[Ice Dagger]

Originally posted by Jonah Falcon:

I'm SAG-AFTRA. Trust me, if you don't pay your voice actors, we'll come down like the hammer of God.

Thor*

[DMadman]

This just sounds like a typical company response but hopefully things will be made right(if they are wrong) and everyone comes out of this situation with what they were expecting. I'm also like everyone and will withhold my judgement until someone actually provides proof for their claims whether it be the company or the voice actors.

[Matshishkapeu]

Sounds like someone had to explain to you that work you ordered has to be paid, whether or not you are using what you ordered.

What about Planet Explorers? Are you going to finally deliver that game with the promised quality? Now you def got the funds!

be fair to your employees AND customers

especially those who supported you from the very beginning, haven bought MTAP because of PE btw

[Paintbrush Poltergeist]

Originally posted by Matshishkapeu:

Sounds like someone had to explain to you that work you ordered has to be paid, whether or not you are using what you ordered.

What about Planet Explorers? Are you going to finally deliver that game with the promised quality? Now you def got the funds!

be fair to your employees AND customers

especially those who supported you from the very beginning, haven bought MTAP because of PE btw

This is the big reason why I'm dubious about Portia being fully fixed.
I was bitten and scorned by PE in the past and don't really trust the devs.