SAG-AFTRA Video Game Actors’ Strike Over AI Has Been Extended

The SAG-AFTRA strike for video game actors is now slated to continue.

As reported by Variety, the union and video game companies just ended three days of talks without coming to an agreement.

The strike affects 120 games, but the terms of the strike went after individual projects instead of the companies themselves. What that means is the games that have already been released, and likely most games coming in the next two years, are not affected by the strike.

It would be the newer projects that just started or are in pre-production that are being affected. Depending on how negotiations pan out, this may be a disaster for games sometime in the future, or we may not even notice anything different. It is potentially concerning because the strike is likely affecting games planned at or after the launch of the tenth generation of video game consoles.

The big sticking point that has come out of this strike is AI model technology, applied as generative AI, for motion and performance capture. Variety reports that the two sides agreed on the other 24 of 25 items being discussed.

Generative AI is already being used in games, from Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 to the latest EA Sports Football. Some companies are making their own rules to disclose AI use, and to make it clear that the technology is being used to help artists make assets for these games. This strike is one of many actions other stakeholders are using to respond to this new technology as well.

Variety named these companies to be on the other side of the table of negotiations:

• Activision Productions
• Blindlight
• Disney Character Voices
• Electronic Arts Productions
• Formosa Interactive
• Insomniac Games
• Llama Productions
• Take 2 Productions
• WB Games

It should be noted that not all of these companies are video game studios, and we should not presume that they are necessarily already replacing voice and motion capture actors with AI.

Blindlight, for example, is actually a company that supplies voice actors for video games. They pioneered in bringing over actors from Hollywood, not just celebrities, for video game work, and they actually helped avert a 2005 strike after negotiating with the same SAG-AFTRA they are negotiating with now.

Gamers may not necessarily see how this affects them and their enjoyment of video games. For the reasons we explained above, this strike isn’t affecting any games that you recently played or are coming out soon. This could, however, affect the future of the industry, and that future is closer than you think.