Claptrap will no longer be the same in Borderlands 3. This is because he has a new voice actor – the blame lies with a dispute between the actor and Gearbox.
Even in the first gameplay scenes of Borderlands 3 some fans raised their eyebrows in confusion. After all, the voice of one of the series’ most important characters, Claptrap, had changed.
The quirky, annoying robot with grand delusions has received a new voice actor. The reason for this is a dispute between the former voice actor David Eddings and the heads of Gearbox.
What happened? While watching the first gameplay of Borderlands 3, longtime fans immediately noticed that Claptrap had a new voice. Naturally, fans wanted to know immediately what was responsible for the change of voice actor and why the speaker had been changed in the first place. This led to a small mudslinging match on Twitter.
These are the views: David Eddings believes that he was not adequately compensated for his work. Randy Pitchford, on the other hand, claims that Eddings is greedy and refused, even though they wanted to pay him double the guaranteed industry rate. In Gearbox’s statement, it states that there simply was no agreement.
Eddings blames Gearbox: Eddings was previously employed by Gearbox and was therefore the voice of Claptrap. Employees of Gearbox have the opportunity to lend their voice to characters in games if they want to. This is done without any extra pay, simply during working hours. However, Dawids is no longer working at Gearbox, as he was fired. On Twitter, he said that “for the first time he insisted on being paid for his work, and suddenly they could no longer afford it.”
Meanwhile, the situation has escalated, and Eddings claims that Pitchford became physical.
This is what the Gearbox CEO says about it: Randy Pitchford responded to fans’ inquiries and explained:
“The current issue is that Mr. Eddings is bitter and upset about being fired. He was offered double [the industry standard rate], he declined. I don’t want him to do it unless he wants to, since motivation affects performance.”
In his view, Eddings wanted way too much money for the job, so a different voice actor was chosen.
The official statement from Gearbox: The colleagues from IGN asked Gearbox for an official statement and received the following:
“(…) In this case, where he [David Eddings] is no longer an employee of ours, we wanted to pay him according to industry standards, but we couldn’t reach an agreement. However, we are comfortable and happy with Jim Faronda as the voice of Claptrap and expect our fans to be satisfied as well.”
Who the “bad guy” in this story really is can only be determined with difficulty. In any case, fans of the English original version will have to live with a new voice for Claptrap.
Who is the new voice? The new voice actor for Claptrap is, by the way, Jim Foronda. He is mainly known for English anime dubbing such as in the newer parts of “Dragon Ball” or “Fullmetal Alchemist”.
Do you think it is acceptable that Claptrap has a new voice? Or are you playing in the German version anyway and all this drama doesn’t matter to you?
