Genshin Impact Voice Actors Say They’re Not Getting Paid

Genshin Impact is one of the biggest and most successful video games in the world, grossing tens of millions of dollars monthly for developer/publisher miHoYo. However, according to some voice actors involved with the popular game, they don’t get paid for months, and that makes them eventually fall behind on rent.

Launched in 2020, Genshin Impact is a free-to-play, anime-themed, gacha-based online action-RPG featuring a large roster of characters who work together to defeat enemies using elemental magic attacks. The game was a huge hit the moment it first went live and spawned a giant community of gamers across the globe. However, despite all the money and success the game brought developer miHoYo, two voice actors who worked on the game publicly shared their frustration over their salaries on Twitter.

On July 12, Corina Boettger and Brandon Winckler, two voice actors who voiced characters in Genshin Impact, tweeted how frustrated they were and claimed that the money owed to them had yet to be paid months later. late. Boettger voices the popular NPC Paimon and Winckler voices various minor characters in the RPG.

Winckler explained that he sent five emails to miHoYo asking the company to pay him, but has yet to receive a response. He said it was “inexcusable” that he had to wait more than four months for his paycheck, when he estimates the publisher brings in more than $85 million a month. Between 2020 and 2021, Genshin Impact would have generated a total of $3.7 billion.

“It’s really hard to justify working on something for work when you can’t afford to eat,” Winckler tweeted. “A lot of non-union productions have this problem, I’ve waited four to eight months for payment, and even then it’s not too much to ask. $1,000 here, $500 there, and it adds up fast.

Winckler added that while he loves working on video games, he won’t be working on Genshin Impact anymore, saying the game should be a “union production” with a union contract and protections.

comedian actor Corina Boettger also tweeted about the frustrations about the lack of pay, saying they had worked for “months” without being paid on a “big project”. Boettger claims they are owed thousands of dollars and are currently struggling to pay rent due to late payments. Although Boettger didn’t directly say Genshin Impact in the tweets, the follow-up replies make it clear which project the actor is referring to in his public statements.

“This project made BILLIONS,” Boettger said. “This project should be Union. This wouldn’t happen if the game was union. Tell them to do the SAG game.

Boettger added that while they don’t know if the developers, publisher or anyone else are to blame for the payment issues, they believe that if the game were united none of this would happen. .

Kotaku reached out to miHoYo, Boettger, and Winckler for comment, but did not hear back before publication.

Unions in the video game industry aren’t as common as in other industries, like film or manufacturing, but that’s started to change in recent years. First of all, Call of Duty studio Raven Software’s QA testers unionizedmonitored by testers at bioware, Snow stormAnd Bethesda. Developers at Proletariat Studio has already tried to unionize everyone at the studio apart from management but ultimately failed. And on Monday, Sega of America’s office in Irvine, California successfully voted to unionize.

Outside of Microsoftno video game publisher has flyingly acknowledged any of these unions, and Activision allegedly tried to break up the unions within its large organization.