Claptrap VA reveals why he isn't back for his role. He wasn't getting paid. - Sensationalist Headlines

And if you see Doctor Breen Randy, tell him I said: fuck you!

It's literally calculated into most large corporations "Cost benefit analysis". The cost of paying fines is balanced against the cost of having to follow the law. There are plenty of instances where following the law costs more than the fines, so they take the fines. Most fines are less than 1 day of operating profit for these types of businesses. They literally are thriving because of this type of abuse of the legality of the situations they find themselves in.

Probably because the former will work for peanuts and the latter, at least in Troy’s case, have enough demand to demand a bigger paycheck, or at least in David’s case- an actual paycheck

If you know of Randys shite and still don't hate him, you're a dumbass

There is a big piece of context missing from the headline and article and it's that Eddings was the VP of business development. Voicing Claptrap was not at all his primary role at GB. I can guarantee he was not hurting for cash or anything like that. I imagine it's a similar situation to how Joe Staten was Bungie's lead writer during the Halo era but also voiced all the grunts on the side. I don't think that excuses him being refused for compensation on the voice work, especially for how iconic the character is, but the headline leaving that detail out paints a disingenuous picture.

How so? It still doesn't change the fact that they wanted him to do something for free when he should have been paid.

It doesn't! It's just that the implications the headline has, and you can see it all over this thread, is that this is a starving artist sort of story where they took advantage of somebody who lives off of contract voice work. I'll say it again if I have to, and I said it in the sentence before your quote, that this doesn't excuse the fact that he asked to be compensated for work he did and didn't get it.

You know, I was already out until it hits Steam, but I think I'm actually out for good until Randy gets the axe. I realize the game industry in general sucks, but the circumstances surrounding this game in particular are a tough pill to swallow. There's no ethical consumption in our capitalism, so its ultimately up to people to draw personal lines - and I'm going to draw mine at Randy Pitchford. Along with Tim Sweeney and EGS, of course.

because until recently they were not really on anyone's radar but they have been gaining rights in recent years.

If you buy Borderlands 3 you support Gearbox not paying employees, which makes you a piece of shit.

According to IMDB he also did some VA in the original Sin game.

Doesn't matter if he's fucking Croesus, you should always be paid for your contributions to a commercial effort no matter how big or small you are.

Not that Gearbox's actions here aren't shitty- because they are- but he was getting paid when he voiced Claptrap, just not for voicing Claptrap. He held a prominent position in the company and was paid accordingly. There's loads to reasons to shit on Gearbox that exist already, we don't need to come up with dishonest ones.

It’s not dishonest at all. They dropped him as an actor because he wasn’t volunteering for the role anymore.

As always, "fuck you pay me" is the standard everyone should follow

This is going down the shitter by the minute. The thing that pisses me off is that its still gonna sell.

I didn't dispute that. That's terrible behavior and they deserved to have the shit criticized out of them for it. He said they don't pay employees, but when he was an employee he was getting paid.

Still not going to buy it, or any gbx product.

by the looks of it, he's EX Gearbox business team, left the company and works for Rooster Teeth now. Seeing as he's no longer with the company, it makes sense to ask for him to be paid. Previously, if he was already on the payroll, it shouldn't come to a surprise if anyone's not getting paid for the voice role, because they are already getting paid by the company. Full time work, even in a different department is still full time

Game Informer should write an article about it because Randy Bitchfork gets pissed when they tell the truth. Imagine what Bitchfork would do if GI wrote that article? He'd lose his shit twice as much as he did because of the MTX article.

the tweets of that were hilarious https://twitter.com/DuvalMagic/status/1123659538392014849 https://twitter.com/DuvalMagic/status/1123866630080081922 https://twitter.com/DuvalMagic/status/1124126333850701824 https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134149/819bf3fe-cd40-4b13-9704-352ca8a36bb5/image.png https://twitter.com/DuvalMagic/status/1124423684284772353 what a load of horseshit. literally goes from saying we have no plans for mtx/cosmetic dlc to laying out that they're excited to add skins and head dlc due to fan demand that doesn't exist, and then playing kissass victim with this long tweet chain

In the famous words of notorious Marcus Kincaid: "Caveat emptor!"

Ashly Burch is probably considered important enough to be irreplaceable, despite being a union actor now. The Eddings case seems like Pitchford going "oh so you want to get paid for the extra work you put in now" and firing him out of spite. Troy Baker is a union actor and high profile name and so Randy's undoubtedly decided he was too expensive to even contact his agent and told the team to find a non-union replacement. Every other returning voice actor is non-union (all the previous Borderlands titles apart from Tales were done locally in Texas) so they're presumably cheap enough to bring back.

i wont buy the game if they don't get claptrap right

It's not just them. It's pretty much *Everyone* in the gaming industry that isn't at the top. Publishers are the white collar workers that don't actually do anything. Nothing. They don't make anything, they don't create anything, they don't do shit. The developers under them, they do everything. They have all the talent. The Visual artists, the sound artists, the acting talent, the writers, the programmers and QA testing. But they're treated like slaves by the publishers. Get X game out by Y. Period. Work 50-110 hours a week for shit pay, then get pushed out to look for another job as soon as you're no longer useful. There's no future for you as a game developer. You will not be able to retire and your job security is in the negatives Unless you go Indie with a small team to make something you actually like and enjoy and it's a success.

Voiceactors generally have it a bit better because they have a union. Gearbox mostly relies on non-union VAs, so they can fuck around with them as much as they want. There's seems to be a growing desire to create a game developers union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2TSB5YQqDiY But it's not magically going to fix all problems, the US needs better labour laws.

Gearbox is a talented studio who does their best to put their heart and soul into great games. Gearbox management is exact opposite.

Update with this nonsense, Randy says hes just being a whiney bitch for wanting to be paid: https://www.playstationlifestyle.net/2019/05/05/pitchford-on-claptrap-voice-actor-claims/

But wait, there's more! The saga concerning why Troy Baker didn’t reprise the role of Rhys for Borderlands 3 continues. This time, the actor’s responded to a claim by Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford, wherein Pitchford alleged Baker turned down the job. According to Baker, this couldn’t be further from the truth. As he explained during the fan convention in Melbourne, Australia, it was Gearbox who told him he wouldn’t be reprising the role. Baker reiterated his claim and addressed Pitchford’s statement on the matter in a recent interview with OnlySP. He told the publication the following during an interview at Supanova Comic Con & Gaming: I didn’t say I wasn’t coming back. I said I would love to come back. [Gearbox] said I wasn’t coming back. Their timeline tells an interesting story, so I… I think it’s interesting that Randy Pitchford tweeted out that I turned it down. And, then, he said he “heard” that I turned it down… I would fact-check before I tweeted out to the internet.

We did it folks, we found someone in the Borderlands franchise more insufferable than fucking Claptrap