Genshin Impact Voice Actors Say They Haven’t Been Paid In Months

Today is not a stellar day for Genshin Impact developer HoYoVerse, which has been accused of not paying its voice actors for months. If you click on the HoYoVerse trend on Twitter, you’re going to find a series of tweets from voice actor Brandon Winckler, who voices quite a few of Genshin’s secondary characters. According to his tweets, Winckler hasn’t been paid by the company for over four months, despite having sent multiple emails – and despite HoYoVerse raking in about $86 million per month.

The tweet thread points out that this isn’t a one-time issue, but an ongoing thing, as he notes “I’m so sick of waiting 3+ months for payment for literally the BIGGEST video game project out there.” He also added that “it’s really hard to justify working on something for the sake of work when you can’t afford to eat”.

Winckler isn’t the only Genshin Impact voice actor who has tweeted about not being paid for their work. The voice of the game’s mascot (and the most talkative character in the game) Paimon, Corina Boettger, also tweeted about not having been paid for months, although she didn’t call out HoYoVerse as Winckler did. Most people have deduced that Genshin Impact is the project she was talking about, however.

Again... been working for MONTHS unpaid on a BIG project for a studio. I am owed THOUSANDS of dollars. I am struggling currently to pay rent because of this. This project has made BILLIONS. This project should be Union.

— Zulu & Lima (Corina, digi-destined) (@thebirdzulu) July 13, 2023

On an interesting note, Boettger pointed out that she’s not sure if this is the fault of the VA studio they work with, or HoYoVerse. She and Winckler both expressed that the one true solution involves unions. The VA studio working with HoYoVerse on their games is Formosa Interactive. This company deals in both union and non-union contracts – resulting in situations such as these. Formosa was also one of the companies focused on during the SAG-AFTRA video game VA strike in 2016-2017.

With this going on, it’s no surprise that Boettger is calling for unionization across all games. Although it is crazy it’s coming out the same day that SAG-AFTRA officially elected to strike in the TV and movie industry, joining the Screen Writers Guild which has been on strike for about 2 months now.

Again... been working for MONTHS unpaid on a BIG project for a studio. I am owed THOUSANDS of dollars. I am struggling currently to pay rent because of this. This project has made BILLIONS. This project should be Union.

— Zulu & Lima (Corina, digi-destined) (@thebirdzulu) July 13, 2023