Image: miHoYo
Genshin Impact’s voice actors are reportedly struggling to make rent after not being paid for months.
Genshin Impact voice actors have taken to Twitter to claim that they haven’t been paid for their work on the hit videogame. According to a few members of the game’s English cast, the actors are now struggling to make rent while pay has been withheld for as long as six months running.
Brandon Winckler, who voices several minor characters in the game, explained on Twitter that he hasn’t been paid for his voicework for over four months. He chose to make his concerns public after a fifth email to miHoYo went unanswered, and noted that cases like these were not uncommon in the industry - voice actors can go without payment for their work for as long as four to eight months at a time.
The actor says that he will no longer work on the game until he gets a union contract to guarantee timely payments. Another actor named Corina Boettger, who voices the game’s mascot NPC Paimon, also backed up Winckler by saying that they were owed, “thousands of dollars,” after months of work for a project that has made ‘billions’. Boettger didn’t specifically call out Genshin Impact, but given the timing of the tweet and its wording, it’s not hard to guess what project they’re referring to. They also later retweeted a user specifically calling out Genshin Impact.
Boettger also called for work on the project to be unionised and noted that they were meant to come in for recording work - presumably as Paimon - days ago but didn’t show up due to their lack of payment. Boettger also noted that they were “struggling to pay rent because of this,” echoing Winckler's sentiments that he has to, “build my budget months in advance trying to accommodate this, and not be a pain.”
It’s worth noting that this issue might extend beyond miHoYo and towards the dubbing studio Formosa, which manages English voicework on the game. Winckler has specifically called out Formosa in a newer tweet, suggesting that the studio is specifically responsible for holding back payment for its actors, not miHoYo. The best hope both voice actors have is for miHoYo to take notice of the way its English dubbing studio is treating its actors, and intervene for the greater good.
