I sure as shit did not! But since 2009 she has been posting photos online as TommyBoy, to a website cataloguing photos of abandoned spaces in locations as diverse as Japan, Alaska, Bali and Mexico. The site’s bio simply says
Hi! I’m Japansese urban explorer ‘Tommy’. I enjoy urban exploration all over the world.
But today publisher Read-Only Memory announced that TommyBoy was actually Nakamura, and did so because they’ve decided to release a book together, collecting some of her favourite photos in print for the first time ever. That book is called Project UrbEx, and it looks gorgeous.
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Described as “a thrilling photographic adventure around an offbeat selection of the world’s abandoned buildings, captured by one of the videogame industry’s most beloved creatives”, it’s 256 pages of photos and diary excerpts by Nakamura, and is available in a number of different formats.
Famed videogame creator Ikumi Nakamura became widely known after she gave a speech about a “spooooky” game, Ghostwire: Tokyo, at the prestigious E3 conference. Her talent, infectious personality and strong sense of wonder for the world – “I think I haven’t changed much since I was a kid” – has attracted a global cult following. What many fans don’t know, however, is that Nakamura has a secret alter ego in the form of ‘TommyBoy’ – a fearless urban explorer.
For years Nakamura has been traversing the planet to go to under-the-radar abandoned buildings, from the Igloo Hotel in Alaska, a magnificent dome structure housing an intricate carousel-like wooden framework, to a mysterious liquor factory in Mexico with a giant replica bottle on its roof and the disused Blue Horizon Boxing Ring, where Rocky (1976) was filmed. Working in the gaming industry for nearly two decades, Nakamura has dreamt up many imagined worlds, but it’s these forgotten corners of the real world that truly fire her creative vision. Her photographic eye evokes the survival-horror feel of her own dystopian videogames.
With Google Maps at our fingertips, it can often feel impossible to get lost or discover anything novel, but through her daring escapades Nakamura taps into a lost spirit of true adventure. Hers is an enthusiastic brand of tour guiding, taking the reader to eye-opening spaces and atmospheres through exceptional photography and transporting – and sometimes amusing – stories.
Her pictures, gathered here in print for the first time, reveal that, from Japan and the United States, from Belgium to Taiwan, and from Spain to Bali, our planet is teeming with human-made structures lying derelict and undisturbed, waiting to be discovered by intrepid explorers.
The former voice of Bayonetta has gone from calling out bad pay for gaming industry talent to plugging the controversial anti-abortion group Billboards 4Life. This all started out with her boycott of Bayonetta 3, after misleading fans about her removal from the project. She’s now urging them to take the money they would have spent on the Switch game’s release and give it to charitable causes instead, including the Kentucky-based non-profit whose sole mission is to “blanket cities and towns” with giant signs aimed at guilting and shaming would-be parents.
“My posts have hit a nerve with people,” she tweeted. “Low pay resonates not just in the gaming industry, but in the wider world beyond, all over the planet. To donate your boycott money, there are many small local charities that need your help.” While Taylor suggested traditional charitable causes like giving to food banks and organizations helping homeless people, she also promoted 14 organizations she had directly contributed to in the past.
These included the student pizza fund for the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art and several pet welfare groups, but also Billboards 4Life, whose roadside propaganda features artistic recreations of fetuses praying and quotes like “I could dream before I was born!” Taylor was promptly ratio’d.
“Your posts hit a nerve with people because you deliberately misrepresented the entire situation,” responded one person. “That and one of those charities is anti-abortion,” responded another. “I didn’t have ‘Bayonetta’s original VO is kind of a turd’ on my bingo sheet this year, but here we are.”
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The former Bayonetta voice actress became a mini-internet hero earlier this month when she revealed she was no longer working on the series because of the “insulting” pay she was offered to continue playing the titular star. In several videos that went viral, she called on fans to boycott developer Platinum Games for only offering her a flat rate of $4,000. Caught in the crossfire was Jennifer Hale, who was then harassed over replacing Taylor.
ButBloomberg later reported that Taylor was actually offered closer to $4,000 per session, with the total pay for the project being closer to $15,000. Negotiations with Platinum reportedly only broke down after she refused to budge on higher pay and residuals from future sales. While Taylor denied ever demanding a six-figure sum for the project, she ultimately confirmed that the $4,000 number referenced in the original videos was for a brief cameo after she’d already been replaced by Hale, rather than for voicing the entire project as she’d originally led fans to believe.
Even prior to today’s promotion of Billboards 4Life, Taylor had come under scrutiny by some fans over who she followed on Twitter and what tweets she Liked. Regardless of Taylor’s beliefs and behavior, the is right that the story of low pay in games and beyond resonates with people. Not just voice talent, but developers across the industry, often face uneven pay and exploitative working conditions. Boycotting a particular game is unlikely to fix that. Unions might.
I’m going to start this article with a confession: I have never played a Bayonetta game. I’ve always meant to. I even own Bayonetta 2. I just never carved out the time. But this story isn’t a story about the contents of Bayonetta. It’s not a critique. This is about the ever-shifting tones of the social media discourse around Bayonetta 3 in the past few weeks—because a lot has happened around the game, and as nuance has become more and more necessary, that discourse has gotten reactionary.
Before we dig into the present and the bizarre whiplash surrounding two very opposing review styles of the game, let’s start at the beginning. Let us begin with the saga of Bayonetta voice actor Hellena Taylor.
Taylor asked for a boycott of the game. She also specifically called out voice actor Jennifer Hale for taking the role, saying she has “no right” to even sign autographs as the character. Calling out Hale was objectively too far—especially as A Woman On The Internet who knows what such an act would (and did) mean.
The boycott, on the other hand, split fans. Some flocked to Taylor’s support and canceled their pre-orders. Others voiced concern that a huge team of people made this game, and they wanted to respect that team’s work. I was neutral—honestly, it felt like a convenient excuse not to play a game I didn’t have time for. But I totally understand the latter concern. It’s a difficult subject to navigate, though: Many people are going to boycott Hogwarts Legacy because of J.K. Rowling’s continuous transphobic statements. Why is that different? Is it because Rowling is at the top of the residuals and ideological food chain for Hogwarts Legacy, whereas Taylor is one of hundreds of creatives involved in Bayonetta‘s process? That would have been a discussion well worth having. It’s the first big one we missed.
But alas, to borrow from The Daily Show, we didn’t have time for it—nor did we have an opportunity to ponder the ramifications of the new wave of creator Hedeki Kamiya’s ever-infamous blocking behavior on Twitter. Because, about a week later, a report came out at Bloomberg that contradicted Taylor’s statement. In the words of reporter Jason Schreier, “Platinum offered Hellena Taylor between $3k and $4k per session for at least 5 sessions.” This report was corroborated by several reliable sources. Schreier also said that, “In an email to Bloomberg, [Taylor] called that version of events an ‘absolute lie’ and said that Platinum is ‘trying to save their ass and the game.’ “
Last weekend, Bayonetta’s former voice actor called for fans to boycott the new game, saying she was offered just $4,000 to work on it. Her Twitter videos went viral and stoked a debate over voice actor wages. But the full story is much more complicated… https://t.co/qPa8grfCtq
Many were upset with Taylor as the story got more complicated—especially fans who had rushed to her side and cancelled their pre-orders. Predictably, there then came to be a ton of finger-pointing, a lot of shaming, and a lot of accusations of being untruthful. Since Taylor did, indeed, make a point of saying the offer for the “whole game” was $4K, she was technically misleading. But, to me, this new scenario was that much different. Because in all this, we missed another major important discussion. Because—hey, guys? $15K or $20K to voice the main character in a multi-million dollar franchise is still not nearly enough. But that point—and a larger necessary discussion about paying not only voice actors, but creatives in general, a bigger share of corporate profits—was overshadowed, too.
When Taylor took to Twitter to attempt to rebut the claims, that conversation got actively anti-productive. In the reactionary wave, a type of commenter emerged that acted like $15K is a perfectly reasonable wage. Some sources claimed that Taylor asked for a six-figure salary. This caused more outcry. Yet I fail to see how that’s outlandish, especially when you’re at the bargaining table?? In the emphatic anger of the “You lied!” finger-pointing, I began that age-old though experiment in which I wondered whether the tone of the backlash would be different if Taylor were a man.
It was at this point that I realized this saga was making assholes out of absolutely everyone, including anyone who commented on it. I hoped it was, at least, over. Within all this drama, though, some curious numbers came out. Despite the rumblings of a boycott, Bayonetta 3 sales did not go down. They went up. Just … an interesting note.
The next wave: ‘Bayonetta 3’ Review Whiplash
On Tuesday, October 25, reviews for Bayonetta 3 started coming in. And there was a very clear trend: 9/10s or 10/10s pretty much all the way around. “Wow!” I thought. “Maybe I really should play this game, even though the discourse of the last two weeks has made me want to scream!” But then I saw a hugely divergent strain of review, best exemplified by Polygon and The Verge. Divergent enough to give me serious pause. And a headache.
All reviews do agree on the gameplay. They say Bayonetta 3 is a blast to play. They say the combat is the series at its best. Even the Polygon and Verge reviews say that if you only care about fighting, you’ll have a great time. Where the “9/10 reviews” and the Polygon/Verge reviews diverge is the ending. NintendoLife said Bayonetta 3 is “topped off with one of the best … one of the absolutely maddest and goofiest endings to a game we’ve ever seen.” PCGamer celebrates a “truly wild finale, an ending that dares you to ask yourself if you would ever cry over a video game where a lady sticks her middle finger into her motorcycle’s ignition like a key to rev up the engine.” Outlets like IGN say the story is disappointing but it can be overlooked for the combat.
But there’s another viewpoint here. Former TMS senior editor Maddy Myers Polygon says on Polygon, “Unfortunately, Bayonetta 3 ensures that one of the few female characters in a mainstream game who owns her sexuality must pay some sort of tax for the privilege.” After an exploration of the reclamation of female game protagonists that will surely hit with any female gamer, Myers concludes that “Bayonetta was made with Luka in mind.” She also says that the ending was so jarring to her that she immediately uninstalled the game.
Ash Parrish concurs on The Verge: “Suffice it to say, the ending had me like Marlon Brando, tearfully standing over the body of his son in the first Godfather, ‘Look how they massacred my Bayo!’ … There are some incredible leaps of character development that we’re supposed to just take on faith while the game abandons two whole games’ worth of established motivations and relationships all in service to the game’s true villain: compulsory heterosexuality.”
These are lengthy, highly personal laments from two female game critics. That’s what a good review is, in my opinion—personal, and very aware of that. I’m not saying either kind of review is right or wrong. Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I’m glad people are enjoying a game they like! As a reporter, though, I have to pause and wonder why there is such a huge gap in perception. Why is this ending a goofy hoot for some and utterly devastating for others? Myers had a very blithe observation of the situation, and it struck me as dead-on.
tbh it makes perfect sense if straight men are largely giving bayonetta 3 great scores. the game is made explicitly for them. sorry if this tweet sounds mean or whatever but it’s simply the facts of the matter as presented clearly by the game itself.
Not every reviewer who loved Bayonetta 3 was a straight man. Because—and this is true!—no gender or sexual identity is a monolith. I do think Myers was actively brave to post this. It needed to be said, but Twitter is giving her a lot of shit for it. I’ll probably get some of that, too, for this article. Hello! I hope you’re having a nice day!
In the aftermath of this post and these two reviews, I noticed the increasingly toxic Twitter conversation around the game get really nasty and reactive. Both reviewers and anyone who dared to post their viewpoints (including yours truly) are getting accused of not just being flat-out “wrong,” but of being “silly” or “a joke” or, worst of all, lacking knowledge. Even though both Parrish and Myers say in their reviews they’ve been fans of Bayonetta for years. Even though reviews and fiction are objective. At the risk of sounding like the internet’s mom, just because you disagree with someone doesn’t mean they’re wrong or uninformed. It reminds me of the “your IQ isn’t high enough to understand Rick and Morty” vibe all over again.
Clearly, there are mountains of complicated configurations of gender perception and equality, female fantasy, sexuality, the place of women in gaming, etc., that are coming to the surface with every angry Tweet, every commenter who skips over or doesn’t take seriously the counterpoint presented by the Polygon and Verge reviews, every space in the perceptional gap between those reviews and the 10/10 ones. But we don’t have time to discuss that right now, do we?
The role was subsequently given to Jennifer Hale—who has issued her own statements—while a Bloomberg report said PlatinumGames had originally offered to pay Taylor somewhere between $3,000 and $4,000 per four-hour session for at least five recording sessions, for a total of at least $15,000. It’s then said that when Taylor instead asked for a “six-figure sum” to voice the character, negotiations broke down.
It has come to my attention that some people are calling me a liar and golddigger. I feel the need to defend myself and my reputation in the industry.
As I posted on part three of my video thread. I explained that their first offer was too low. That offer was 10,000 dollars total. Remember, this is 450 million dollar franchise, (not counting merchandise.) I then wrote in Japanese to Hideki Kamiya, asking for what I was worth. I thought that as a creative, he would understand. He replied saying how much he valued my contribution to the game and how much the fans wanted me to voice the game. I was then offered an extra 5,0000! [Note: it appears this is a typo, and that Taylor means 5,000]
So, I declined to voice the game. I then heard nothing from them for 11 months. They then offered me a flat fee to voice some lines for 4,000 dollars. Any other lies, such as 4,000 for 5 sessions are total fabrications.
There were not “extensive negotiations.” I’ve also been informed of ridiculous fictions, such as I asked for 250,000 dollars. I am a team player. I was just asking for a fair, living wage in line with the value that I bring to this game.
I was paid a shockingly low total of £3000 total for the first game. A little more for the second. I wanted to voice her. I have drummed up interest in this game ever since I started on Twitter in 2011.
The story behind the casting of the lead voice acting role for the third game in the Bayonetta series has been a complete mess, involving allegations of terrible pay, conflicting accounts and Non-Disclosure Agreements. In an attempt to put the whole thing to bed the developers of the title, PlatinumGames, have tonight issued a statement.
We at Platinum Games offer our sincerest appreciation to everyone who has contributed to creating the Bayonetta series over the years, as well as the community that has served as its foundation.
We give our full support to Jennifer Hale as the new Bayonetta, and align with everything in her statement.
We ask people to please refrain from any further comments that would disrespect Jennifer or any of the other contributors to the series.
The statement they’re referring to, from current voice actor Jennifer Hale, reads:
With regard to Bayonetta 3,
As a longtime member of the voice acting community, I support every actor’s right to be paid well and have advocated consistently for this for years.
Anyone who knows me, or has followed my career, will know that I have great respect for my peers, and that I am an advocate for all members of the community.
I am under an NDA and am not at liberty to speak regarding this situation. My reputation speaks for itself.
I sincerely ask that everyone keep in mind that this game has been created by an entire team of hard-working, dedicated people and I hope everyone will keep an open mind about what they’ve created.
Finally, I hope that everyone involved may resolve their differences in an amicable and respectful way.
“Fat cats cream off the top and leave us the crumbs,” she said, before noting that her inability to get a living wage from the industry has led her to suffer depression and anxiety. As she tells it, after being lowballed, she wrote to Hideki Kamiya, executive director on the game, to plead her case. She claims that he acknowledged her importance to the role and how much it would mean to fans. But the offer still apparently ended up being $4,000.
“I worried that I was going to be on the streets,” she said of the larger inability to be paid a living wage. “That terrified me so much that once I was suicidal. I am not afraid of the non-disclosure agreement. I can’t even afford to run a car. What are they going to do, take my clothes? Good luck to them.”
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Hale, who has replaced Taylor, issued her own statement (the one above), while a story on Bloombergthen cast doubt on some of Taylor’s initial pay claims. Both women have subsequently been the target of online abuse, prompting Platinum’s plea in tonight’s statement.
“Bayonetta’” voice actor Hellena Taylor is speaking up over the “insulting” pay she was offered to return as the voice of the protagonist in the third installment of the video game series, “Bayonetta 3.”
PlatinumGames confirmed Taylor would not be returning as the voice of Bayonetta earlier this month in an interview with Game Informer, citing “various overlapping circumstances” as the reason for the departure.
Last September, Taylor cryptically hinted to fans that she might not return in the upcoming game but said she wasn’t “at liberty” to discuss further details when fans began inquiring about her statement.
On Saturday, in a series of video messages posted on Twitter, Taylor asked fans of the series to boycott “Bayonetta 3” and to send their money to charity instead due to the “immoral” $4,000 she was offered to voice the character again.
In one of the clips, while blasting the video game developer, she claimed that the company made a whopping $450 million from the popular franchise.
“The ‘Bayonetta’ franchise made an approximated $450 million, and that’s not including merchandise,” Taylor said in the clip. “As an actor, I trained for a total of seven and a half years — three years at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art Lambda with voice coach Barbara Berkery and four and a half years with the legendary Larry Moss in Los Angeles. And what did they think this was worth? What did they offer to pay me? The final offer to do the whole game as a buyout, flat rate, was USD 4,000.”
She continued: “This is an insult to me. The amount of time I took to work on my talent and everything that I have given to this game and to the fans. I am asking the fans to boycott this game and instead spend the money that you would have spent on this game donating to charity. I didn’t want the world. I didn’t ask for too much. I was just asking for a decent, dignified living wage. What they did was legal, but it was immoral.”
The 53-year-old actor also claimed that she wrote Hideki Kamiya, PlatinumGames vice president, to explain why it would be best to continue casting her as the role. According to Taylor, Kamiya wrote her back with an empathetic message and the final offer of $4,000.
Earlier this month, it was confirmed that Taylor was replaced for the role by veteran video game voice actor Jennifer Hale. She’s best known as the female voice of Commander Shepard in the “Mass Effect” series, as well as voicing Samus Aran in the “Metroid Prime” series.
Platinum announced that the swap was due to Taylor’s schedule, with the company stating that it “felt [Hale] was a good match for the character.”
“Various overlapping circumstances made it difficult for Hellena Taylor to reprise her role,” PlatinumGames said at the time. “We held auditions to cast the new voice of Bayonetta and offered the role to Jennifer Hale, whom we felt was a good match for the character.”
On Saturday, Kamiya seemingly responded to Taylor’s claims with an ominous tweet.
Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That’s what all I can tell now.
“Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth. That’s what all I can tell now. By the way, BEWARE OF MY RULES,” Kamiya wrote.
The gaming community has rallied behind Taylor, with many fans showing love for the beloved voice actor.
YOU’RE TELLING ME HELLENA TAYLOR BASICALLY CARRIED A GAME THAT DIED IN THE HANDS OF SONY, REVIVED THROUGH GUEST APPEARANCES & NINTENDO REVIVAL (BAYO 2), KEEPS BAYONETTA ALIVE FOR NEAR 2 DECADES, & YOU OFFER HER $4000 FLAT FOR ONE OF THE MOST ANTICIPATED GAMES RN?
Early in October, Japanese developer PlatinumGames, known for its action titles, told Game Informer that upcoming Switch exclusive Bayonetta 3 would not see voice actress Hellena Taylor reprise her iconic sultry role as the protagonist. Instead, Bayonetta’s english VA would now be Jennifer Hale, one of the industry’s most ubiquitous voice actresses who is known for roles like Commander Shepard. At the time, Platinum claimed that the replacement was due to “various overlapping circumstances” that made it “difficult” for Hellena to play Bayonetta once again. Over a week later, Taylor has gone on to social media to dispute Platinum’s account, suggesting that the studio wasn’t entirely being transparent about what actually happened.
Rather than losing out on the role because Hale was the better performer, or due to something like scheduling conflicts, Taylor claims that it was over pay. In a series of videos, Taylor goes on to say that Platinum apparently only offered her $4,000 for the entirety of the performance, which based on the trailers appeared to show the leading VA voicing multiple versions of the same character. For Taylor, who spent years studying her craft and has undeniably created one of the most memorable performances in the entire medium, the offer was considered insulting.
“We held auditions to cast the new voice of Bayonetta and offered the role to Jennifer Hale, whom we felt was a good match for the character,” game director Yusuke Miyata told Game Informer at the time. “I understand the concerns some fans have about the voice change at this point in the series, but Jennifer’s performance was way beyond what we could have imagined. I’m confident that her portrayal of Bayonetta will exceed our fans’ expectations.” According to Game Informer’s story, the publication found Hale’s performance virtually indistinguishable from that of Taylor.
But Taylor called the entire situation, while legal, “immoral.”
“Sometimes think I’m not very much like Bayonetta at all,” Taylor said in a video, in reference to her decision to speak up about what’s going on. “But I guess I am a little bit more like Bayonetta than I thought.
“I understand that boycotting this game is a personal choice, and there are those who won’t, she continued. “And that’s fine. But if you’re someone who cares about people, who cares about the world around you, who cares about who gets hurt with these financial decisions? Then I urge you to boycott this game.”
Taylor was originally cast in for the bullet time witch role in the acclaimed action game 2009, and reprised her role for the series in 2014’s follow-up. The series is widely considered one of Nintendo’s best modern franchises.
“Fat cats cream off the top and leave us the crumbs,” she said, before noting that her inability to get a living wage from the industry has led her to suffer depression and anxiety. As she tells it, after being lowballed, she wrote to Hideki Kamiya, executive director on the game, to plead her case. She claims that he acknowledged her importance to the role and how much it would mean to fans. But the offer still apparently ended up being $4,000.
“I worried that I was going to be on the streets,” she said of the larger inability to be paid a living wage. “That terrified me so much that once I was suicidal. I am not afraid of the non-disclosure agreement. I can’t even afford to run a car. What are they going to do, take my clothes? Good luck to them.”
Nintendo, Bayonetta 3‘s publisher, and Taylor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. And while PlatinumGames hasn’t made an official statement on the matter, Kamiya himself did appear to respond on Twitter.
“Sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth,” he wrote. “That’s what all I can tell now.”
But more glaringly, he ended the note by typing, “By the way, BEWARE OF MY RULES.” As far as anyone can tell, this seems to be in reference to Twitter usage, where infamously, Kamiya is said to block people left and right. To wit, his header image is just a series of posts where he warns “insects,” especially those of foreign languages such as English, that he has or will block them. And his pinned Twitter post is a series of “rules,” which, if broken, he warns people will lead to a block. “MY BLOCK BUTTON IS BIGGER THAN EVER,” it reads.
“Bayonetta always stands up for those who have less power, and stands up for what is right,” Taylor said in her videos. “And in doing this, you stand with her,” she said of player’s potential decision to boycott the game. In the videos, Taylor also wished Hale, the new Bayonetta, all the best. But she still had harsh words to say about what taking on Bayonetta’s role would mean to her.
“But she has no right to say she is the voice of Bayonetta, I created that voice,” Taylor said. “She has no right to sign merchandise as Bayonetta, any more than I have the right to sign as Eva Green even though I was her parent on video game The Golden Compass. That betrayal is hers, and hers alone. They’ll probably try and do a spin-off with Jeanne. Don’t buy that either.”
The final video Taylor shared was directed entirely at Nintendo, PlatinumGames, and “fat cats” in general. It was a retelling of Lazarus the beggar, from the bible, and a larger critique on the morals that come with emphasizing money over people.
Bayonetta 3 will release for the Nintendo Switch on October 28th.
