FF14 director Yoshida asks fans not to “attack” Wuk Lamat actress

[Nestama]

Please don't tell lies, LarsBehe. I read their links and they did not support Bonoki's claims. Sorry for pointing out misinformation tactics I guess?

Posted to the facecbook promotional page for Distant World was this message regarding the December the 23rd performance "due to unforseen circumstances Susan Calloway will not be performing at this concert"
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/c477be11.jpg

Thank you! Now this is actually a real source. I also appreciate that you also read the sources you provided and did not treat clickbait titles as proof.

[Vensaval]

Okay. With that out of the way, let's return to the topic at hand, shall we?

[Nestama]

I mean the topic at hand is basically "harassment is bad, stop it."

What happened with Susan Calloway was awful (there's no justifying it at all) and the same applies with Sena Bryer (no justifying it at all). Just... stop with the knee-jerk mob mentality stuff, y'know? Focus on the game (criticising performance is fine, too) and not the people on twitter, y'know?

[Bananarama]

I'm worried that's going to be what happens, that Sena gets rightly kicked to the curb for being an awful person but she tries to frame it as Square-Enix being "transphobic" even though she literally had Yoshi-P out here telling people to lay off with the personal attacks/harassment/threats which were more than likely motivated by and targeted at her identity, as the people simply criticizing her performance and attitude are a different group entirely (though we keep getting unfairly lumped in with the actual transphobes anyway).

That said, the things Susan "liked" doesn't really paint her in the best light either, and the whole "no guys, I was hacked" is such an early 2000s internet excuse, lol.

I doubt S*na's identity is where most of these "attacks" are coming from. I think SE should just boot this VA, take whatever bad PR they're gonna get regardless, and keep it pushing.

I'd put Susan Calloway's likes on social media leagues below what S*na Bryer's been up to in terms of being unprofessional and obnoxious (that is to say Susan didn't do anything wrong.)

[Dante131]

I'm worried that's going to be what happens, that Sena gets rightly kicked to the curb for being an awful person but she tries to frame it as Square-Enix being "transphobic" even though she literally had Yoshi-P out here telling people to lay off with the personal attacks/harassment/threats which were more than likely motivated by and targeted at her identity, as the people simply criticizing her performance and attitude are a different group entirely (though we keep getting unfairly lumped in with the actual transphobes anyway).

That said, the things Susan "liked" doesn't really paint her in the best light either, and the whole "no guys, I was hacked" is such an early 2000s internet excuse, lol.

For me, it’s about fairness, plain and simple. If you're removing someone over mere ‘likes’ but keeping another person who actively insults customers or makes questionable posts, that's absurd. Either you enforce your policies consistently, or you don’t. In this case, it's clear that Yoshi/SE is not being consistent, allowing someone like Sena to continue without consequences. While that might not always be an issue, it becomes problematic when it affects paying customers. People have expectations when they spend money, and if one of those expectations is a positive community environment, that’s fair.

But when this environment is disrupted by a voice actor publicly insulting customers (I’m tired of listing all the details at this point), it stops being a good environment and starts feeling more like a toxic relationship. One person causes the problems, and the other is left to just take it. Looking ahead, the message seems to be: ‘If I criticize FF14, I might get insulted or even banned. I dont say Susan is a perfect angel and did nothing wrong but you cant tolerate far more worse behavior then likeing something people dont agree with.

[AddictedToWitches]

I doubt S*na's identity is where most of these "attacks" are coming from. I think SE should just boot this VA, take whatever bad PR they're gonna get regardless, and keep it pushing.

I'd put Susan Calloway's likes on social media leagues below what S*na Bryer's been up to in terms of being unprofessional and obnoxious (that is to say Susan didn't do anything wrong.)

I definitely feel like it's bad PR to keep someone hired who airs out their grievances publicly against fans of the game.
I think a lot of VAs recently have become too gung-ho about shit and forget their voice is not just their own now, when you say or do something it can reflect bad on your company. Some VAs seem to think "oh I'm moderately famous now so people will listen!" and it just boggles my mind.
Like I look at Mihoyo and they've actually been actively booting VAs who have been problematic (which has been a lot curiously)
It's fine to have certain opinions, but you shouldn't act holier than thou when it concerns something for people you work for. There's a difference between simply tweeting "Trans right are human rights." and "Everyone who plays this game is transphobic"

[StormChase]

I strongly suspect a large portion of the motivation is much more to do with said VA putting out more than a few inflammatory statements over Twitter than it is to do with anything else. When you sling poop, don't act surprised and cry about it when you get it thrown back at you in response.

I'm pretty certain that if they maintained a professional presence on social media they wouldn't have this problem to begin with.

So far I've seen her get:

• Harassed
• Misgendered
• Accused of being a fake latina
• Told she should be replaced with AI
• The list goes on

They'll do this under any social media post of hers, no matter how inoffensive it is. They don't need to be provoked. And they were saying nasty stuff about her even before the expansion came out. It's not about being "unprofessional". That's nothing but an excuse.

[sindriiisgaming]

So far I've seen her get:

• Harassed
• Misgendered
• Accused of being a fake latina
• Told she should be replaced with AI
• The list goes on

They'll do this under any social media post of hers, no matter how inoffensive it is. They don't need to be provoked. And they were saying nasty stuff about her even before the expansion came out. It's not about being "unprofessional". That's nothing but an excuse.

If you actually go and check her x feed you can see that nobody really is harassing her. Some are calling her out rightfully when she's wrong and making stuff up for outrage fuel. But the majority do not bother and I've seen NO toxicity or transphobia on her timeline. Those voicing concern before Dt launch were concerned that she would use her platform to attack people and be overall a concerning figure. Our fears were completely justified and still are.

[Nestama]

If you actually go and check her x feed you can see that nobody really is harassing her. Some are calling her out rightfully when she's wrong and making stuff up for outrage fuel. But the majority do not bother and I've seen NO toxicity or transphobia on her timeline. Those voicing concern before Dt launch were concerned that she would use her platform to attack people and be overall a concerning figure. Our fears were completely justified and still are.

Well yeah, of course you wouldn't. 9/10 times her tweets are just daily fluff. Daily fluff can't really be spun into something to be outraged over and anyone she's blocked can't comment on her tweets any more anyway (unless they make a new account, but that's just being creepy at that point) and I'm sure she's blocked a fair amount of people already. Some for obvious reasons, some for other reasons and others for trying to incite outrage because she wore a silly harmless edgy shirt.

[Eyrilona]

• Told she should be replaced with AI

Let's not lump that one in with the other (vile) arguments, because as much as I am opposed to AI replacing artists, some positive evidence is kind of building that would make a more reasonable case; where a game dev might want to just buy a renewable license for a voice-trained package of a particular voice and style of speech from a VA instead of actually involving them in the production of a game. If the business model for professional VAs was to sell rights to data sets trained on the different voices and speech patterns they can do, instead of effectively becoming an 'actor' (used as the general case here, no gender implied) for a character in the game, then for developers it would resolve a lot of issues, from not having to schedule studio recording days, to being able to quickly re-generate voice lines if there is a script change without having to worry about the availability of the VA to redo a few lines, to (as relevant in this case) not having the personality and future public actions of the actor directly associated with your product. I mean, if all the text in your game is in a certain font, nobody cares about the personality of the person who created that font, right? It also means that a dev studio has a guarantee, once the package is purchased, that they will be able to continue using that voice for the character for as long as they continue making the game and they pay the license fee (which may stipulate a cost per X spoken words in the product or something), even if the VA should no longer be able to do that voice. And there wouldn't really be deal breaking downsides for the VAs either, because the marketing effect on the 'value' of their voice and name recognition within the industry would still work largely the same. VA work is kind of low paid, so it is a side job for many of them -- not having to turn up to a studio on demand would make it less likely to raise conflicts with the rest of their schedule, so that VAs can focus more on new projects, perhaps create more voice packs to expand their repertoire, or working other jobs creative or otherwise.

The royalties model, letting artists get paid when their songs are played without them having to actually come to some radio's studio to play the song live on mic, has worked for a long time in the music industry (issues of how they are split between corporate and artist aside), it could in some form do for VA voice models as well.

ADDITION: While I'd be cautiously positive about the potential for this particular use of AI, I do mean this strictly in the form of the high grade techniques where a voice pattern can be overlaid on top of a 'cue' spoken by someone who understands what emotion to put into a particular line. Not the absolute garbage AI text readers that are right now under what feels like 99% of the story narration content on YouTube.

Edit: added last line about royalties model and licensing use of a voice-trained package from an artist