Troy Baker is one of the most well-known and popular voice actors in gaming. He has voiced characters in video games for over 15 years and has lent his voice to some of the biggest characters in gaming, including Booker DeWitt from BioShock Infinite, Joel Miller in “The Last of Us,” Batman in the “Telltale” games, and of course “Jonesy” in Fortnite. He is now embracing NFTs and feeling the wrath of gamers.
Who is Troy Baker?
- Troy Baker (46) is an American voice actor and musician. He started his career with radio commercials in Dallas, Texas, before he began voicing anime.
- Since 2004, he has been heard in video games for the first time, and from 2008 onwards, he was repeatedly cast as one of the main characters in games. In 2008, he voiced Conan in “Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures”.
- He is now one of the most recognized and sought-after voice actors in gaming. He has voiced villains such as Pagan Min in Far Cry, the Joker in Batman, but also major heroes like Joel Miller in “The Last of Us” or “Jonesy” in Fortnite. Baker holds the record for the most nominations in the “Performance” category at the BAFTA Game Awards. He was nominated 5 times between 2013 and 2021. Along with Nolan North, Baker undoubtedly belongs to the elite of gaming voices.
“You can hate. Or you can create.”
What did Baker do? On January 14, the voice actor tweeted that he had entered into a partnership with an NFT company. They are looking for new tools to enable Creation to make new things so that everyone has a chance to invest in and own the brand he creates.
The statement was then:
We all have a story to tell.
You can hate.
Or you can create.
What will you choose?
Troy Baker, Twitter
6 times more likes for negative replies than for the tweet
What was the reaction to it? The reaction was quite brutal. While Baker’s tweet received “only” 2,500 likes, comments that critically addressed the statement received significantly more than double that number of likes. One reply even received more than 6 times the amount of “likes”.
This situation, when a negative reply tweet receives significantly more likes than the original tweet, is called “ratio.”
A comment received 10,000 likes: “Troy, it’s not about hate. NFTs are unethical. They have a huge impact on the environment and cause a massive shortage of computer chips and computer parts. Do you even know how NFTs are created? Have you looked into this?”
16,000 likes were given to the comment: “Many people will come to you and give you a lot of information about why this is not good. I hope you are the kind of man who appears to listen to those voices and not just to the people who tell you what you want to hear. You are one of the greats, but I will not follow you here, sir.”
Other users announced they would unfollow Baker. While they respected him as a man and talented voice actor, the decision was simply unacceptable.
Others said NFTs are just a way to “easily take money out of people’s pockets.” They are basically just scams.
How does Baker respond? The voice actor definitely realizes that he went overboard with the provocative formulation “You can hate – or you can create.” He says he only wanted to add some levity to the debate and say something clever, which did not work out.
He thanks people for their input. Ultimately, he is just a storyteller trying to tell his story to anyone who wants to hear it. He wants to help others do the same: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t.
A positive view of NFTs in gaming is also offered by MeinMMO author Maik Schneider:
The harsh criticism of NFTs in gaming is unfair – They are more than microtransactions
