i know he is not really a big name, but it was still an obscene amount of work and a character that was supposed to carry the expansion throughout as far as how much they're featured in. Although you do have a point on that he probably expected the job offers to start streaming in after his stellar VA work and it just didnt. Unlike someone like Ben Starr
I think people really underestimate how much voice actors get paid.
A typical rate for podunk type stuff (ie, not LA/Hollywood/high end video games/etc) would be $75-$100/hr, depending on the project. Starting rates for something like a video game would
probably be around $200-300/hr, higher if you're established and a name.
Like, the VA for Aerith in the FF7 remake was doing streaming and other shit to supplement her income and I'd argue she's getting paid at a higher rate than whatever the rate was for Trooncat. (In fact, I daresay that Sena might've seen the
success Aerith's VA had and thought he could replicate it because he is also a true and honest woman.)
If we went off of Rich's estimates of 8 months of work at a $200/hr rate, that works out to $256,000 before taxes (in California that'd be about $95K doing some quick napkin math -- keep in mind I'm a Canuck and the American way of doing taxes is something I'm not well versed in so there may be writeoffs or lower/higher rates for him) and union dues (1.5% of annual earnings + a base fee so that's another $4,000.)
Not bad,
if you're consistently getting work (which we know he isn't.)
So assume production started in 2022-2023 and that's $256,000 split over 2 (or more) years minus the $100K or so he'd be paying in taxes and union fees. Which puts him at $156K.
Average rent in LA is $2335. Assuming he's living alone (because obnoxious pornsick troon) and is paying
average prices for rent (I don't think his Gibs a Thon correlates with that), that works out to $56,000 worth of rent over 2 years. Putting his earnings at $100,000.
Factor in all his travel expenses and con appearances where he likely operated at a loss, plus likely spending like he's nigger rich and I can't see $100,000 lasting very long.
I almost have to wonder if he bitched and moaned about how union rights and blahblah in order to not do any reshoots - because the game's release-state vocals were horrible.
I honestly think that this was just a case of a severe lack of oversight due to the teams being spread way too thin. I'm willing to bet a substantial amount of money that Kate was either overseeing it or delegated to other people on the localization team who didn't/don't have enough experience in this sort of thing.
Kate's strength is translation and understanding Japanese language. It's what she went to school for and, outside of QA work, is the only thing she has experience in.
Koji Fox, the guy who preceded Kate as localization lead, has some experience in programming, seems like a well rounded guy (he's a musician, reads lots and also enjoys video games), whereas Kate just seems to be anime/JRPG brainrotted (the only thing I've seen that isn't tied to Japan/anime/etc is her being on the archery team when in university.)
Kate seems incredibly limited in her worldview/experience so some retard doing some children's anime-tier delivery sounded perfectly fine to her.
Or, being more charitable, she doesn't have the experience being in the booth to know or demand more/different takes and just signed off on the first 'good' one (and potentially delegated the studio guys to being grunts, since we know she does not enjoy criticism and bristles at it.)
