Mere hours before The Game Awards last week, video game voice actors and performers represented by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) posted up outside the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles, where Geoff Keighley’s annual clamor of glitz and glamor takes place. There, they handed out leaflets to industry bigwigs waiting in line and spoke to passersby about their ongoing fight to secure AI-related rights.
Spirits were high among SAG-AFTRA voice actors and performers despite the bittersweet nature of the occasion: A year prior, they’d been in the exact same spot, not yet on strike but demonstrating for the same reasons.
"How do I feel that we're back out here having to do the same thing? Not great!” Seth Allyn Austin, who’s provided movement capture for games like Spider-Man and The Last of Us, told Aftermath. “I really wish that a deal could have been reached way sooner so that we could just continue working and be able to celebrate this award event to its full capacity. But everything worth fighting for is worth the fight, and it takes time. So the fact that I'm out here again, and just the amount of SAG-AFTRA supporters who are here for actors, stunts, movements, and developers shows that there's still a great love and appreciation for this art form. And we're gonna come here and protect it."
Austin described opportunities in his line of work as "few and far between" even on a good day and said that the strike has "narrowed the scope" of what he can do further. Actors and performers are feeling the squeeze as companies explore alternative options.
Everything worth fighting for is worth the fight, and it takes time.
Performers demonstrating outside this year’s show had mixed feelings. On one hand, a year – five months of which they’ve spent on strike – is a long time, and food does not put itself on the table. Moreover, while SAG and the major video game companies that would be covered by its Interactive Media Agreement have been exchanging proposals, the bargaining unit representing companies like EA, Activision, Take-Two, and WB keeps quibbling over small details that would ice out chunks of the performing populace, like those who primarily do mocap-based work.
"I'm noting [companies’] gives, and I'm noting where the holdouts are,” Sarah Elmaleh, video game performer and SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement negotiating committee chair, told Aftermath. “Those hold out places are massive pieces of exposure for our membership. Progress is happening, but as for when we'll have a deal? We'll know it when we see it."
Despite the slow tug of war, video game performers have made good progress: Where last year companies weren’t budging, this year 136 video game productions have signed interim agreements with SAG that contain the AI protections the union has been looking for. These allow SAG members to continue working and put pressure on the bigger companies SAG has been bargaining with to follow suit.
"57 [productions] in 11 months [during the 2016-2017 video game voice actor strike] versus 136 in five months [this year]. We’ve learned lessons from last time,” Zeke Alton, who has lent his voice to games like The Callisto Protocol, Overwatch 2, and Spider-Man 2, told Aftermath. “On top of that, the environment within America and workers getting beat on and downtrodden has galvanized people to want something better. … The last two years have just decimated game developers; they've been fired left, right, and center. And now actors and other performers are under threat of complete displacement, and we're all looking around going 'Who's gonna save us?' The answer is us. Throughout history, the answer is us. And more and more people are starting to take that on board and step up."
Alton in particular has been a beneficiary of the interim agreement, under which he’s managed to find work with the strike raging on. He says the protections SAG is seeking really do make a difference.
“It is freeing to be able to be an actor and not worry about your future and your identity being stolen,” he said. “It can be very vulnerable when you’re in the booth or on set to just throw yourself out there, and if you’re not able to forget about your day-to-day, and if you’re worried about ‘Is this the last time I’m gonna work because they’re gonna steal all my stuff,’ it really gets in the way of your performance. I worked on interims, and you know that the people on the other side of the glass care about maintaining your creative future and your career, and there is an amount of freedom there that allows you to collaborate in a way that I haven’t done before. It really brings us together as a team.”
A lot of [interim contracts] have come about because the creative development teams on the production side have pushed their leverage up to the bosses – not just us.
In some cases, Alton added, developers were the primary reason a studio agreed to the terms of an interim contract.
“A lot of [interim contracts] have come about because the creative development teams on the production side have pushed their leverage up to the bosses – not just us,” said Alton. “We’re all in this together, and when we push, things move.”
Now the goal is to keep things in motion. Video game voice actors and performers are attempting to employ new strategies to keep pressure on the big companies at the heart of the contract dispute.
"Aside from leafleting and doing panels at conventions and those sorts of things, I've personally done a few interviews on Twitch to kind of get more fan base coverage – reaching out to the fans more and involving them,” Andi Norris, a creature and stunt performer whose work has appeared in games like Resident Evil: Village, told Aftermath. “We held a content day where we had a bunch of creators come in, and I taught them how to move like creatures, and [voice acting veteran] Jennifer Hale was there teaching them how to do some voice acting stuff. We've been able to bring in folks who have those platforms. I think that is an avenue we can pursue a lot more."
If a normal year was on the horizon, more interim contracts, more proposal exchanges, and eventually, a return to regular work might seem more certain. But in January 2025, Donald Trump will once again assume the office of president, and alongside key allies like Elon Musk, he’s spoken out in favor of firing striking workers and expressed interest in abolishing the National Labor Relations Board. Striking video game performers aren’t sure what to expect.
"When the dock workers went on strike, the dock companies wanted Biden to force them back to work,” said Austin. “The Biden administration was very pro-labor, and Biden went 'No.' I remember when that happened, I was like 'Oh, if that was a different administration, I'm pretty sure they would have told the workers to get back to work, which would have weakened labor.’ We are in that situation now. [Admittedly] they were saying to Biden that [dock workers] are essentially a utility, so you're gonna screw the country if you don't [force them back to work]. I don't think video games are in the same category."
So long as the right for workers to engage in this kind of resistance exists and they need what we have, we can get things done.
Regardless of what’s to come, video game performers aren’t backing down anytime soon, even if they’ve got their longest year yet ahead of them.
"There are lots of different tools in this kind of fight, and contractual pieces and contractual recourse and things like the NLRB,” said Elmaleh. “These are all part of that toolkit. But the fundamental verb is the question of supply and demand. So long as the right for workers to engage in this kind of resistance exists and they need what we have, we can get things done. I think it just means redoubling our energy and our attention and our education around what it means to organize.”
"This country was founded on people who fought knowing they were most likely going to get their asses whipped and fought anyway, because this is what they wanted and that's what they were going to do,” said Austin. “In entertainment, it's always been hard, and you know, what's a little harder? We're gonna keep fighting."
