Troy Baker stirred up quite the controversy earlier this month with his planned partnership with a new NFT venture. Baker has been fielding angry replies on Twitter ever since. Many questioned why Baker would have agreed to this project in the first place. The NFT space isn’t exactly established yet, and Baker has a history of making some questionable statements and decisions.
Anyway, back to the point. Back on Jan. 14, Baker announced the partnership with a company called Voiceverse NFT to help promote the collaboration between voice actors and the crypto fad. “I’m partnering with Voiceverse NFT to explore ways where together we might bring new tools to new creators to make new things, and allow everyone a chance to own & invest in the IP’s they create,” Baker said.
According to Voiceverse’s claims, a voice NFT will give its buyer access to a unique AI voice which they will then ‘own’. “Imagine being able to create customized audiobooks, Youtube videos, e-learning lectures, or even podcasts with your favorite voice,” it says, “all without the hassle of additional legal work. This also allows people with limited resources to access professional-grade voices more easily.”
The claims of direct ownership were immediately questioned by users critical of Baker and the idea. And his immediate response of calling those complaining “haters” certainly didn’t help matters. And frankly, the idea of voice actors losing out on work to AI sounds dystopian as all hell. It’s just bizarre to think that Troy Baker, one of the most prolific video game VAs, would choose to back such an idea.
The situation had already become tense after Troy Baker responded to shocking news about Naughty Dog and their accusations of crunch in Last of Us 2. His response drew tons of undue ire onto games journalists trying to highlight the issue. This latest gaffe was just another instance of Baker revealing that he tends to be a little prone to shooting off at the mouth before listening to criticism. In an industry like video games; there tends to be a lot of nepotistic behavior that encourages this mentality, and it constantly causes problems. If you criticize certain aspects, you’re quick to find yourself ostracized. But it would seem that he took the high road, and backed off of the plan.
“Thank you all for your feedback and patience,” wrote Baker earlier today on Twitter. “After careful consideration, I’ve decided to not continue the partnership with VoiceVerseNFT. Intentions aside, I’ve heard you and apologize for accusing anyone of ‘hating’ just by simply disagreeing with me.”
In response, Voiceverse tweeted “We have mutually decided to end our partnership with Troy Baker, and will double-down our resources and efforts to execute on our roadmap, further our vision as the voice of Web3.0, and strengthen our community as well as the broader NFT ecosystem.”
The reasons for this backlash are pretty obvious, as NFTs have garnered quite a bit of justified negative reputations. The number of scams and terrible ideas rolling out of the space and into the wider internet grows by the day.
