The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announced Thursday that video game performers will go on strike on July 26 at 12:01 a.m. More than 2,500 video game performers — a group that includes voice actors, motion capture performers, and others — head to the picket line after nearly two years of negotiations with a major video game companies.
The biggest sticking point in negotiations is the unrestricted use of artificial intelligence, according to a news release. Video game performers want protections over the use of their likenesses and voices.
“Eighteen months of negotiations have shown us that our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable A.I. protections, but rather flagrant exploitation,” SAG-AFTRA interactive media committee chair and Hi-Fi Rush voice actor Sarah Elmaleh said in a news release. “We refuse this paradigm — we will not leave any of our members behind, nor will we wait for sufficient protection any longer.”
The group of video game companies negotiating with SAG-AFTRA includes Activision, Electronic Arts, Insomniac Games, Take-Two Productions, WB Games, and others. Video game performers will stop work — meaning no more recording for video games — when the strike begins on Friday. Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game company side of the Interactive Media Agreement, said in a statement to Polygon that the companies are disappointed the union is choosing to go on strike “so close to a deal.”
Here’s the full statement:
We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations. We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions. Our offer is directly responsive to SAG-AFTRA’s concerns and extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA. These terms are among the strongest in the entertainment industry.
The hold up around AI appears to be over protections to on-camera video game performers — like motion capture performers, according to The Washington Post.
“They’re saying we’ll protect voiceover performers, but we won’t protect anybody else,” SAG-AFTRA’s executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland told The Post last month. “The bottom line is if you have performers working for you, helping create the content that’s in your game, whether it’s voice content, whether it’s stunt work, whether it’s motion work…all of those performers deserve to have their right to have informed consent and fair compensation for the use of their image, their likeness or voice, their performance. It’s that simple.”
Throughout the strike, voice actors and others under the Interactive Media Agreement will still be able to work on projects that use one of several updated contracts that “offer critical A.I. protections for members,” SAG-AGTRA said, depending on the work that’s being contracted.
Video game performers last went on strike in 2016 in a work stoppage that lasted nearly a year.
The post The voices of your favorite video game characters are going on strike appeared first on Polygon.
