Gaming IndustryVideogame voice actors are officially on strike over AI: ‘We refuse this paradigm’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
Gaming IndustryVideogame voice actors are officially on strike over AI: ‘We refuse this paradigm’When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland at a 2023 rally in support of the union’s strike against Hollywood studios.(Image credit: Momodu Mansaray/Getty Images)
It’s happening again: Videogame voice and motion capture actors in the SAG-AFTRA union are going on strike. Over 160,000 performers will refuse to work on new games in production at a number of major developers, includingActivision, Disney, and EA, until the companies agree to a contract with “critical AI protections” for union members. The strike officially begins on July 26.
The voice actors, who authorized the strike with a 98.32% “yes” vote, want big game makers to inform the union when they plan to use generative AI in a way that would replace the work of actors, and to negotiate compensation when they want to generate material based on an actor’s voice or likeness.
The actors are striking for “fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the AI use of their faces, voices, and bodies,” according to SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.
The game makers in negotiation with the union say they’ve already offered “meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation,” with terms that are “among the strongest in the entertainment industry,” but the union disagrees.
“Eighteen months of negotiations have shown us that our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable AI protections, but rather flagrant exploitation,” says actor and union negotiator Sarah Elmaleh. “We refuse this paradigm—we will not leave any of our members behind, nor will we wait for sufficient protection any longer.”
“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,” said Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the game producers, in a statement sent to PC Gamer.
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AI was also one of the issues that motivated SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes on Hollywood studios in 2023.
SAG-AFTRA’s videogame actors in particular lastwent on strike in 2016over residuals. That strike, which targeted the same set of game makers, lasted for nearly a year. It isn’t obvious how significantly it hindered in-development games at the time, as big developers wouldn’t have publicly attributed delays to the strike, but one notable consequence was that actorAshly Burch did not reprise her roleas Chloe in Life is Strange: Before the Storm.
This article has been updated to include a statement from the game producers.
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