They are free to negotiate as they are pleased. If the producer feels that they can find a cheaper acceptable alternative they will go with that. If they feel what the voice actor is offering is needed they need to pay for it.

> the game they worked on for a few hours

Voice acting is a hard job, and it takes more time than a “few hours” to get good at it. If you think anyone can do it certainly you can just pay an anybody to do it.

It can take a lifetime to get good at something, but a few hours of work after that lifetime generally doesn't cost much. Certainly not more than 5 figures.

A man sails his smoking yacht into a repair shop. The head mechanic goes over with a hammer and slams it against the side of the engine. The engine roars back to life, and the smoke subsides.

He submits a bill for $200,000. It is itemized as such:

- $1 - Fifteen seconds of labor; striking with hammer

- $199,999 - Knowing where to strike

Your hyperbole undermines your point.

I'm not sure I had a point. I kind of picked a number I thought Julian would have been happy with, since E$20,000 wasn't it.

You’re free to negotiate whatever contract you want with the voice actors you hire.

That's what they did in the case of the recent Bayonetta controversy. They actually paid less for the replacement than they were expecting to pay the original actor who wanted more.

And the game will still sell very well anyway. Problem solved.

> Voice acting is a hard job, and it takes more time than a “few hours” to get good at it. If you think anyone can do it certainly you can just pay an anybody to do it.

So it takes a long time to learn how to take good pictures, and therefore every picture you take after being good should be worth 5k USD or something? that's not how things work at all.

> Voice acting is a hard job,

So all other jobs are easy? That's again pretentiousness at play.