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Actors union SAG-AFTRA, which also represents voice actors, has announced that companies behind 80 games have agreed to its terms over the use of AI, while voice actors and mo-cap performers continue to strike against major industry players. The contracts, which include both tiered-budget and interim agreements, will allow performers more employment opportunities as the strike continues.
The video game actors’ strike began on July 26 this year, with the union demanding fair AI protection for its members. At the beginning of the strike, SAG-AFTRA said that studios would need to sign one of three agreements offering “critical AI protections” if they wanted to hire union talent for covered work, which includes all games that started development after September 2023.
Currently, 80 games are covered by one of these agreements, a statistic that SAG-AFTRA says proves its terms are reasonable and fair for businesses. “We applaud those video game companies signing our tiered-budget and interim agreements,” said SAG-AFTRA chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “Not only are they doing the right thing by their workers; they’re also helping to preserve the human art, ingenuity, and creativity that fuels interactive storytelling. These agreements signal that the video game companies in the collective-bargaining group do not represent the will of the larger video game industry.”
Some of the studios that have already signed agreements include Lightspeed L.A., which is currently working on its debut game Last Sentinel, as well as Ark: Survival Evolved developer Studio Wildcard and indie studio Little Bat Games.
SAG-AFTRA adds that some of the games that have signed agreements weren’t covered by the strike order to begin with, but have now guaranteed that actors’ performances both past and present will be protected from unregulated AI use.
The voice actors’ strike will continue, with the major industry players involved in the bargaining still yet to come to an agreement with SAG-AFTRA. The companies involved in the negotiations include EA, Activision, Take-Two, WB Games, and more. It has been confirmed that GTA 6 will be unaffected by the strike, and current live-service games are also exempt from the strike action.
