When you do certain tasks, such voice acting for a video game for example, you should probably get paid for your time and effort. Recent accusations that voice actors for My Time at Portia were not paid has caused the developer to speak out, saying that the issue is due to lack of communication.
Accusations have gone back as far as October, when a Steam forum thread accused developer Pathea Games of a number of things, including low-balling voice actors for their work, changing deadlines for auditions spontaneously, outright not paying voice actors for their work, and a general lack of communication between the voice actors and the development studio.
The thread was later updated to indicate that developers eventually did reach out to voice actors to settle the issues that they had. But Pathea has taken to Steam’s forums to address the issue upfront, citing their lack of experience as a game developer.
“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 [sic] thereof, and this caused several issues,” the statement said. “It started from volunteer work, to paid work, then to contracted work. From 11 voice actors to 60+.”
They went on to say that they have sent out payments to all actors regardless of whether the studio used their lines or not.
“We have grown attached to these voice actors, and are disheartened that we seem to be doing everything wrong,” they continue. “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.”
My Time at Portia is a farming RPG similar to Harvest Moon or Stardew Valley, but in a 3D setting. The game was released on Steam on January 15 after a successful Kickstarter campaign.
