Tomm Hulett Regrets Asking For Fan Opinions On Silent Hill HD Collection

Tomm Hulett: "Sorry to say, but I think Devin and I being so involved on forums was a mistake. We wanted to demonstrate to everyone that the people in charge (he and I) cared about the series and understood the passion the fans had for it. unfortunately it’s backfired.

We have insane conspiracy theories, people asking for me to lose my job, I get angry, threatening PMs about game delays. People are calling Mary horrible names. Now people are badmouthing Jeremy Blaustein—who directed all the original performances. It’s unbelievable. Certain fans have treated “developer involvement” as an excuse to manufacture pointless drama.

Nobody cares about Silent Hill more than I do. Not hyperbole—literally nobody. I’m tired of having that questioned every time I turn around. I hope you guys enjoy the games—I honestly do, and I work every day with that goal in mind—but this has gone too far.

The games will speak for themselves—please look forward to them."

[WhiteLightning]

Can you blame them, your doing a HD remake with new voice actors and worst of all they sound worse them the old voice actors. They have no emotion in what they are doing.

Plus you guys aren't including SH4 in the HD collection or Shatterd Memories which you of easily improved on to make it like a HD makeover of the first game.....oh that's right it's because your going to sell them as HD remakes later on for more money.

[NarooN]

Get outta here, that doesn't give morons on the forums the right to send Tomm and the others FUCKING DEATH THREATS over. These imbeciles are so goddamn melodramatic, I mean really?

How fucking hard is it to just stfu and play the original games? No one is getting ripped off here or anything. No one is being FORCED to get this collection. And hell, the way things are going now with the actors and actresses officially signing the paperwork and having meetings with Konami, the voices are probably gonna be put back in, yet people are STILL crying like entitled morons.

And the voices...REALLY? We're gonna go down that road? Them being "bad" is just an opinion, and those voices were some early work just meant to tease the collection and generate hype. They didn't sound groundbreaking but definitely better than the originals.

[WhiteLightning]

Mate.....Chill

It's just a comment section on a gaming news site

As I said...."Can you blame them"

Dosen't mean I agree with them, just pointing something out. Don't act all serious, it's not WW3.

[TheoreticalParticle]

But, but...internet death threats are internet serious business!

[NarooN]

@Theoretical

Yeah, it's a joke now, but when it actually happens, then idiots like you would still make a joke out of it. Such is retardation on N4G.

Also, you don't even know just how "passionate" and mindlessly loyal some of these so-called SH "fans" are, so don't try to come here and act all e-cool or some shit.

[TheoreticalParticle]

No, I wouldn't make fun of it. However, I will relentlessly taunt and mock someone who has to constantly overinflate and exaggerate situations. You realize that people like you are the reason situations get out of hand, right?

Look at your little mountain you've carved yourself out of molehill materials. Really, I "don't even know" how passionate some irrational group of people are? You realize you're just as irrational, you're just flying a different banner? Every stupid anti-Halo/pro-Halo, anti-CoD/pro-CoD, anti-Wii/Pro-Wii set of knuckleheads is JUST as fervent and idiotic and they're all over.

This isn't some special case. This is EXACTLY THE SAME response as anything on the internet. The only thing shocking about this whole situation is Tomm not realizing this was literally the single most probable outcome.

[Kamikaze135]

A lot of fans are very ungrateful. I guess this is why a lot of developers don't get involved with the community.

[gamingdroid]

The internet follows the dickwad theory:

http://www.inquisitr.com/34...

[Pozzle]

For a game that is largely considered by the fandom to be the best in the series, there sure are a lot of so-called "fans" who waste their time bitching about the game and insulting the people who made it. o.O

Fair enough if people prefer the old voice acting over the new (or vice-versa) and are unhappy with Konami's recent choices with the Collection, but threatening and insulting the devs isn't the way to show it. A rational opinion will always beat badmouthing and insults.

[n4gisatroll]

I thought konami said the old vo will now be in silent hill 2?

[Pozzle]

That's true..but I'm guessing most of the hate was directed towards them before it was announced that the old voice acting would be included in the HD Collection.

[n4gisatroll]

Ya, I can see that, I hated the new vo. Well, I just want a release date!

[GLoRyKnoT]

All cruelty springs from weakness.

[chiwoo]

Al Konami had to do was put the old voice acting in there as an option all this could have been taken care of I do know that I am a little upset about Heather from SH3 will be getting a new voice she was a perfect voice.

[KillerPwned]

As long as the voices do not sound really bad to me I could care less. I will be glad to finally own these classics again.

[Alos88]

From the sound of this negotiations between the original VAs and Hullett have fallen through.

[ShinStarwin]

People just love to complain because one thing gets changed. Whatever, you're doing your job and that's all that matters. F the haters

[Puty]

Right, Tomm, you are the biggest fan of the franchise and then you're showing us this abomination called "Silent Hill: Book of Memories" while trying to keep a straight face.

[Mr Tretton]

Tomm Hulett must be new to the internet.

[TheoreticalParticle]

I know, right? Like he thought that there would just be only amazing fan response? Seriously, grow a pair.

[NarooN]

Yes, because receiving death threats due to whiny, bitchy fans is an everyday thing, mirite? Seriously, stfu.

[TheoreticalParticle]

Yes, because death threats are mentioned in his complaint. Oh wait, THEY AREN'T.

An internet death threat is about as common as the common cold, and is even less likely to actually kill you. I reiterate my statement.

[Acquiescence]

but this whole fiasco over the redub is mostly Guy Cihi's fault anyway.

Despite being a CEO of several companies in Japan, the bozo made a huge deal about being owed residuals for his "acting" and mocap in the game, even though actors in the video game industry never get royalties for their work anyway. Coupled with the fact that he and the Japanese development team at the time only seemed to agree on a verbal contract, it's all a load of horses**t. A verbal contract means squat if you need to prove the terms and conditions that were included in it...some businessman. Konami didn't want to deal with the legal wranglings if they went ahead with including the original dub, so here we are.

Nice little bit of trivia: according to the casting director of Silent Hill 2, Cihi lied about being unemployed to get an audition for the role of James when, you guessed it, he was the CEO of a company back then too. So he's deceitful, a piss poor actor and a crafty manipulator in the sense that he's used his own facebook page as a means to turn many of the Silent Hill fanbase against Konami, just because he didn't get a few exta dollars to add to his millions.

[Puty]

Oh yeah, he cares so much about money... probably that's why he signed waivers so that his voice can actually be included in Silent Hill HD Collection.

[Acquiescence]

only to then sign waivers after the likes of Hulett, McGlynn and Blaustein called him out on his bulls**t...yeah, it's not looking good for him.

Maybe this whole debacle could have been avoided if he signed the waivers before Konami spent money on new actors for the redub.

[Pozzle]

You might want to check out the recent Silent Haven interviews with the original voice actors. They can be found here: http://silenthaven.tumblr.c...

Several of the voice actors have said they were willing to sign waivers, but when they asked Konami about it they got no response.

None of them expected royalties. And I'm really curious as to where that rumor even came from, because Maria's VA, Angela's VA and Eddie's VA have all made it very clear that they neither expected royalties or even knew Konami were planning on reusing their voices. In fact, Maria's VA has flat-out stated that Mary Elizabeth McGlynn has been making up lies about all of the original voice actors and their so-called "agreements", even though McGlynn has never met ANY of them and knows nothing about their work with Konami: http://n4g.com/news/859142/...

Guy Cihi has also said (multiple times) that he only auditioned for the role of James after his daughter begged him to, and wasn't even expecting to get the role. So he as hardly going out of his way to lie or be deceitful. He only accepted the role after his daughter told him to, and also signed the waiver as soon as it was given to him. He too flat-out said that "It was never about the money" and that Konami should have just contacted him to sign a waiver, instead of going behind all the original VA's backs to completely re-record the game and remove their faces from the Making-Of DVDs. http://n4g.com/news/833238/... From what I can gather, he WANTS new fans to play the games. He's EXCITED about the HD Collection.

IDK everyone's so quick to blame Guy and the other VAs just because Konami said a few things,, but most of them either didn't have a clue what was going on or tried to get their hands on a waiver and got no response from Konami. It seems strange to me that Konami are more willing to ignore the original VAs completely (and if Maria's VA is correct, make up lies about their original agreements) when most of the original VAs just wanted to get in contact with Konami and get the waivers out of the way. It sounds like a lack of communication on all ends.

[Acquiescence]

I'm not blaming the other VA's, just Cihi. I don't even know why you brought them into the discussion when I never mentioned them in the first place. I know the others didn't expect royalties, probably due to them being more versed in how the industry works, but as for Cihi...he sure as hell wanted money he was never going to get! It's all well and good for him to say "It was never about the money" NOW, lol. He sure changed his tone from last year when Konami contacted him about the HD Collection and Cihi demanded he be paid 10 years worth of residuals. He even wrote that on his facebook page, which is why I don't trust the guy remotely: he's quick to backpedal and change his stance as long as it makes him look good in front of the fanbase.

And he did go out of his way to lie. He told Jeremy Blaustein he was unemployed and was given an audition based on the reasoning that a down-on-his-luck unemployed man would be suitable for the role, which of course couldn't have been further from the truth. It's here, 6:50 onwards... http://www.youtube.com/watc...

[Pozzle]

Like I said though, it sounds like there's a lack of communication on all ends. Not just Guy Cihi and whatever he thinks he's owed. If Konami had just communicated with the people who asked for it and set down some ground rules regarding any royalties or waivers, then maybe the whole mess could have been avoided. IDK why more Japanese companies don't have contracts tbh. There's a reason contracts exist - so shit like this doesn't happen.

I brought up the other VAs because they too have been lied about by Konami (and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn in particular) so it's not like Konami's word in this case is completely trustworthy. So why would the word of Jeremy Blaustein be any more truthful than the word of someone else? (Though I don't know why Cihi's employment status would even be an important factor anyway. If it's true that he lied about being umemployed -even though he claims he didn't- then it's not like he's the first person to ever lie on a job application. Seriously, that's such a non-issue and just seems like a lazy attempt on Blaustein's behalf of making Cihi seem like an untrustworthy person. The whole thing's a mess and now everyone involved just seems to be slinging shit at each other for the sake of slinging shit at each other).

[Knushwood Butt]

Re-recording the voice work for the remakes was a crap idea from the start, regardless of the circumstances.

[AriesSiren]

it has gone too far. some of you psycho gamers who are mentally unstable need to seriously check yourselves into a mental health facility. you just have no respect for anything or anyone. whats funny is you would never be as vocal in person becuase you know you cant handle confrontation so you hide behind your computer. personally if i was him, id prosecute those who made the death threats. its psycho gamers like this who make me ashamed to call myself a gamer. i dont anymore, its almost embarassing to say as an adult. every step we take to be better, mature, make games an art form, theres a psycho gamer to bash it and just send us back 10 years. dantes look is awful, silent hill voices are awful, blah blah grow up or dont buy it you freaks.

[ignorantsonsof_]

I really don't care about the voice acting, that wasn't really what stood out to me in these games. It was the overall experience, and the presentation of a lot of the games moments. And silent hill has never had very strong voice acting anyways, although the new one looks to be changing that.