I have shouted into the abyss for a long-ass time that SAG is one of the biggest reasons English VA work is held to a lower standard and spoken about with disdain by most of the gaming and anime communities. It's a corrupt and nepotistic organization who will use dirty tactics, bully, and strongarm companies into only hiring from them. If you aren't part of the current clique within the union, your job options are VERY limited if you are from the US. Collective action can be useful at times, but there is a reason the idea of unions (especially american unions) raises a lot of hackles to some of us.
If you want an example of this, lets look outside of Hoyo to Bryce Papenbrooke. He's a man with absolutely zero range, who usually sounds widly off tone, and is always identifiable when he opens his yap. He only ever had
ONE role he was good at (Nagito in Danganronpa 2), and it's obvious that performance was carried entirely by the direction. Yet he's able to land the main character spot in the most popular series whenever he wants. Kirito in SAO, Eren in AOT, Shirou in the Ufotable Fate adaptations, Adol Christin in YS, and the list goes on. Why is this? Well, if you look at his parents... OH, it turns out both were in deep with SAG and long time VAs themselves, and suddenly it all makes sense.
You sometimes get a winning performance like Dr. Ratio from HSR or Van Arkride from Trails into Daybreak as two recent examples that come to mind, but those performances will be surrounded or buried in a pile of "mid" to outright bad performances. Ratio may sound fantastic, but he's a minor character in a game that has a main cast comprised of the mumbling Stelle, the mid AF Himiko, the sleep inducing Welt, Mr. Buttervison (
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMnbGj_4RtY), and the wildly off-tone March 7th.
All this leads me to a simple conclusion. If you are a voice actor in good-standing with SAG (who ensure you have steady work as long as you're paying them a % of your earnings, colossal annual dues, and sucking them off), why would you ever attempt to improve? How good you are doesn't seem to matter. All that matters is how much SAG likes you. The very idea of mertocracy is alien to the VA culture in America.
"Well just don't sign on with the union and go independant," you might say. However, given the rediculous legal leverage unions in general have in the US, getting on to a big project as an Independant or Fi-Core VA is going to be a damn rocky road. Agreements with studios and projects like the one SAG is trying to strongarm Hoyo into signing, will usually come with stipulations that force it to hire union only staff or force any hired non-union VAs to go union or the company will be fined. Due to the limited amount of Independnt VA's who have broken through enough to be noticed, if your project has a large number of characters, you'll eventually have to dip into the union talent pool to fill the slots. In hoyo's case, you'll wind up with them weather you want it or not, as the union appears to not enforce it's rule of only allowing members to work on union projects. This appears to be intentional to bait companies like Hoyo into hiring VA's who will eventually force you to sign on with SAG or risk having to recast & rerecord most of your characters.
Also, while it's not applicable to the current events surrounding Hoyo, I'd also like to take a jab at the current state of ADR and General Direction. Compare the performances of returning Scion characters in FFXIV Dawntrail to past expansions. It's night and day.
Even though there are some decent performances in Hoyo games at the moment, I'd honestly love for them to chop SAG off publically and recast everyone affiliated with them. Every controversy that damages that shuggoth will (hopefully) encourage the English VA scene to branch out. Independants can be hit or miss, but at least they have to rise through their own merits and are encouraged to improve their performances to land more roles. Also, there are plenty of foreign english VA's who act in a much more competetive enviorment you can pick from.
