It’s been eight months since video game voice actors and performers represented by SAG-AFTRA went on strike. While they’ve picked up some big wins – over 170 games signed to interim agreements that honor the terms SAG-AFTRA has brought to the bargaining table – major video game companies refuse to budge on the issue of AI. The reverberations are becoming harder to ignore: In March alone, one striking Genshin Impact actor and two Zenless Zone Zero actors were replaced. Characters in other games like Destiny 2 have gone silent. This costly stalemate is the reason why SAG-AFTRA has taken the risky step of publishing portions of proposed contracts that usually remain under wraps.
In March, SAG-AFTRA posted a comparison chart of AI-related proposals to its website and social media, contrasting specific language between the union and employers and explaining why they feel employers’ offer remains insufficient.
"[Game companies] want to use all past performances and any performance they can source from outside the contract without any of the protections being bargained at all,” SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and interactive media negotiating chair Sarah Elmaleh wrote in a strike update that ran alongside the contract comparison. “[Performers] could be told nothing about your replica being used, offered nothing in the way of payment, and you could do nothing about it. They want to be able to make your replica continue to work, as you, during a future strike, whether you like it or not. And once you’ve given your specific consent for how your replica can be used, they refuse to tell you what they actually did with it."
A representative for the companies bargaining with SAG-AFTRA disputed these claims to Aftermath.
“We have proposed a deal that includes wage increases of over 15% for SAG-AFTRA represented performers in video games, as well as enhanced health and safety protections, industry-leading terms of use for AI digital replicas in-game and additional compensation for the use of an actor’s performance in other games,” the representative said. “We have made meaningful progress and are eager to return to the bargaining table to reach a deal.”
A SAG-AFTRA representative acknowledged that companies presented an updated proposal last week, but declined to comment further as “we are evaluating the recent response.”
Zeke Alton, a video game voice actor and SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee member, told Aftermath during an interview at GDC that publishing specific terms from proposed contracts was risky, but union members felt they had no other choice after functionally being stonewalled by a group of companies that includes Activision Blizzard, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, and WB Games.
"We set bargaining rules before we sit down in every different genre that we bargain," Alton said. "One thing we use as a standard is a press blackout, and what that means is that we don't try to litigate things outside the room. … Now we're taking more and more progressive steps to help the industry at large understand that we are not being unreasonable. If you look at the ink on the paper, we have been more than reasonable. What it points out is, those companies are not right now. And so the fans, the actors, the performers, the stunts, the general public all need to look at these companies and ask 'Why is this not OK with you select few when it's OK for everyone else? Why are you holding up this industry and costing everybody money and time?'”
While some actors – like the aforementioned Hoyoverse regulars – have taken to striking in solidarity even though the option existed to continue lending their voices to characters, others are itching to get back to work. This has resulted in frustration with companies and, in some cases, also with other voice actors in situations that resemble scabbing but skirt just outside the technical definition. Elmaleh is not discouraged by these developments, however. She sees them as a sign that striking actors and performers have real leverage – and that companies can’t hold out forever.
"I feel very dearly the pain of the month-by-month, day-by-day impact that has on membership, but I always expected our leverage and our pressure to start to hit after a few months,” Elmaleh told Aftermath. “Games are not like other mediums; when you stop recording actors on a film set, you are not producing films. [On games] you can shuffle [elements] of a production around, but I think all that shuffling is wearing out. I think now is exactly when our pressure is starting to really kick in. I know this timeline is difficult, frustrating, and confusing, but I think this is the reality of the space that we're in, and I'm optimistic."
Alton added that he feels emboldened when he sees non-union actors set down their mics and pick up picket signs.
“[Zenless Zone Zero] is a non-union game,” Alton said. "And what it makes me think is that the community of performers now understands what's at risk. This is not a union fight; it's an actors' fight. ... When we see non-union properties coming out without voice in them because they're not able to cast, because the actors are standing up and going 'No, I need my rights,' that gives me optimism. Because as time goes on, the fans don't want a bad product, and that incentivizes the business to make the right business decision.”
Recent events like Sony's bizarre internal test of an AI-powered version of Horizon main character Aloy have provided voice actors with even more motivation to keep pushing for better protections.
"We've been told in the bargaining room 'Oh, we're not doing that,'" said Alton in reference to AI Aloy. "But sometimes [companies] are so brazen, it's amazing. Like, yeah, you are doing it. There you are doing it. We're not telling you you can't. We're telling you that the right of publicity of actors, citizens in general, is important, and so it's not going to break your company to get the actors' OK to do that -- get their consent, compensate them fairly, and be transparent."
While it might be cold comfort to voice actors who are struggling to find work or are having to take on odd jobs as the strike rages on, the interim agreement – as well as a new exception for student games and game jams – has ensured that a not-insignificant number of doors remain open. In a bitterly comedic twist, Alton was even able to work on a game licensed out to another studio by WB, a company whose games division refuses to agree to SAG-AFTRA’s terms.
"I am the Green Lantern in DC: Dark Legion, which is a Warner Bros licensed property that is on the interim agreement," he said. "I'm really proud to have been on that game and worked on that game for a long time. Again, it's evidence that anyone can sign this. It's completely reasonable. What we don't understand is why, on the other side of the table, all we're hearing is 'No,' and we're not hearing why. We want to have that conversation so we can get to 'Yes.'"
Elmaleh, too, is eager to get back in the voice acting booth.
"I love my job! I would love to get back to doing that,” she said. “All we're trying to do is get a fair enough contract made for 160,000 members to feel safe enough to let them explore this technology and figure out how we should progress."
