Interesting Troy Baker Interview Fuels the Fire on the New HD Collection Voice Cast Controversy
Posted By: Whitney August 24th, 2011 | 2:06 pm
Yesterday The Gaming Liberty posted an exclusive indepth interview with Troy Baker who has been given the role as James Sunderland’s voice for the upcoming Silent Hill HD Collection. The interview ranged from his past work as Vincent Brooks in Catherine, his future roles in both Arkham City as Two-Face and his lead role in Bioshock: Infinite but the big buzz from the Silent Hill fan base is his response to the controversy surrounding the new voice talent.
TGL: So Troy, I have to ask you about Silent Hill 2 HD because it emerged a couple of days ago that you are taking over from Mr. Guy Cihi as the voice of leading character James Sunderland. The new voices and the decision to re-voice the original characters have ignited a lot of controversy among fans of the original game. Tell us a little about how you first got involved in the new HD version and what do you make of the controversy that surrounds the re-voicing of the characters?
TB: Well, we found out last year that Konami were going to be doing this HD release and we weren’t sure exactly how it would go down or if Konami was simply going to an HD treatment of the game or redo the voices. It was all in deliberation for a time. Then it just emerged really quickly that they were going to recast and use new voices and we didn’t really know why. They just decided that they were going to do this. So we didn’t know if they wanted us to just voice match or if they wanted us to do something different. For the tenth year anniversary, they wanted to do something different that was new. They told us that obviously they don’t want to change the story or the gameplay or anything else but that they just kind of want to give it a fresh face.
Troy then goes on to explain his view on the involvement with Guy Cihi
But the fact that he’s talking about residuals being in videogames shows you just how out of the loop he is because residuals don’t happen. They don’t exist. Don’t think for a second that I don’t wish that I had a fraction of a penny for every unit sold of Call of Duty: Black Ops or Modern Warfare 2 or Modern Warfare 3 that we’re finishing up right now. I would love to see that. But that’s not how the system works right now. So it’s not that Konami wasn’t willing to pay them, he (Guy) wanted residuals, he wanted non-existent money that he felt that he was owed. So Konami has no fault in this whatsoever. And they wanted to use him again. Guy was the one who was outspoken about it and said that unless this happens he wouldn’t do it, so he forced Konami’s hands. So if anybody wants to blame anybody for why they chose new voices, they can go back to the original James and he’s the one to blame.
It would seem according to Troy Baker that Konami planned to have a new voice cast for the HD Collection to give the game a face lift for the 10th anniversary. They reached out to Guy Cihi to reprise his role but Guy felt he was owed residuals for his past work and said that unless that happened he wouldn’t do it. Unfortunately, “residuals don’t happen” in the game industry apparently so Konami had to find another person to play James.
As a big fan I find this really sad because having Guy back to reprise his role in the game would have made the collection that much cooler but at least there was an attempt on Konami’s part right?
Well today, Guy posted a response to the article and the ongoing debate over on his facebook wall.
Well now this leaves me even more confused! So there wasn’t any sort of contract or written agreement years ago about residuals but when Konami approached him 10 years later they wanted him to sign a “backdated release” (what is that? Something that says he wouldn’t get any past or future residuals?) and after he refused James was then recast?
Ugh, this isn’t making sense. I really hope something is worked out between Guy and Konami as an an option on the collection to switch between new and the old voice work would make my day. There still is no official response from Konami about this whole thing but I’ll keep my eyes and ears open for new any developments!
Source (The Gaming Liberty, Guy Cihi on Facebook)
Big thanks to Ashley Vendoc for pointing out the Troy Interview on the Silent Hill Experienced Facebook yesterday and thanks to Cj on Rely on Horror for pointing out Guy’s response today!
