Sassy Chap Games is rewriting the playbook for video game voice acting.
The Los-Angeles-based studio Sassy Chap launched its first game, the dating sim “Date Everything,” on June 17. Despite, or perhaps because of, its wacky premise — players date personified objects inside their virtual home — the title has received a warm reception from the gaming community, with Sassy Chap celebrating 500,000 copies sold less than two months into its release.
“It kind of became this weird cultural-zeitgeist-like cosplay of the summer,” said Sassy Chap co-founder Robbie Daymond in an interview with GamesBeat. “I think we were doing 50-million-plus views on TikTok around ‘Date Everything’-themed stuff, and we still have hundreds of thousands of wishlists [on Steam].”
One aspect of “Date Everything” that drew clicks from interested gamers was its stacked voice cast, which features over 100 actors, including familiar names from elsewhere in gaming and media like Sarah Natochenny, the voice of Pokémon’s Ash Ketchum, and “Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog” star Felicia Day. Daymond and his Sassy Chap co-founders are also longtime voice actors, and they pulled from their personal networks to bring the “Date Everything” voice cast together.
“I was at dinner with the guys, and they were talking about the game and how they cast so many of their friends,” Natochenny said in an interview with GamesBeat. “And I’m like, ‘why am I not in it?’”
To get leading voice talent on board for “Date Everything,” Sassy Chap relied on more than just personal connections. The company also dangled a unique and enticing carrot in front of their noses: royalties.
Although royalty deals are standard for voice acting work in other forms of media, like animation, the standard in gaming is for voice acting work to be performed on a one-and-done contract basis. Neither Sassy Chap nor any of the four voice actors GamesBeat interviewed for this article could recall a past example of a game studio offering voice actors royalties before “Date Everything” came along.
“As you can see by the cast, I think we all believed in the project, and we’re excited to also have the opportunity to do a project in this structure, because it’s something that is not common in games,” said “Date Everything” voice actor Ashly Burch. “I think a lot of us are interested in the possibility of having some sort of structure or paradigm where, in success, we also get to share in that success.”
Six months into the lifespan of “Date Everything,” Sassy Chap is ready to talk about the results of the royalty program. The deal is structured based on unit sales, with all voice actors receiving a share of each sale that scales depending on their overall contribution to the project. Daymond declined to share specific payout amounts, but said that Sassy Chap has thus far distributed “roughly half a million dollars in royalties” to its voice cast of 102 actors.
“What Sassy Chap did was sign the standard union agreement for video games — because we’re a little bit too big to qualify for low-budget — and then, on top of that, we had a secondary contract between the actor and us, that we got approval from SAG for,” Daymond said.
The unique royalty structure of “Date Everything’s” voice actor contracts created marketing value for Sassy Chap, with voice actors feeling more motivated to promote the game after its release — not only because they were proud of their work, but because they benefited directly from sales. Natochenny, for example, did her first-ever Twitch stream to promote the game, while voice actor Bryce Papenbrook shared multiple videos and social posts to share “Date Everything” with his fans.
“The great part about this is I feel like I’m part of the team,” Papenbrook said in an interview with GamesBeat. “I feel like I’m invested in the success of this project.”
All of the actors who spoke to GamesBeat for this story said that they would be encouraged to do more voice work in games if deals like the “Date Everything” royalty program were to become more standard in the space.
“When people have ownership, and they have even the smallest piece of their own success tied to the success of a product or a company or a production, I think everyone’s going to give it just a little bit more,” Day said.