Video Game Actors Strike at Comic-Con, Demanding Fair Compensation and AI Protections

Striking video game actors use Comic-Con as platform for a new deal

SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - While pop culture fans from around the world eagerly returned for the first San Diego Comic-Con since last year's dual writers and actors strikes, video game actors arrived to air their grievances about artificial intelligence. "After 18 months and still getting proposals back as recently as this past week that do not cover all our members and protect all their performances from the unethical use of artificial intelligence," the chief contracts officer of SAG-AFTRA, Ray Rodriguez, told Reuters at San Diego Comic-Con. "You know, at a certain point, you can't just keep doing what hasn't been working up until now. And we've reached that point where it was time to take this action," he said. Videogame voice actors and motion-capture performers called a strike starting on Friday over failed contract negotiations focused around AI-related protections for workers, bringing about another work stoppage in Hollywood. The SAG-AFTRA strike of the Interactive Media Agreement follows months of negotiations with major videogame companies, including Activision Productions, Electronic Arts, Epic Games, Take-Two Interactive, Disney, Character Voices and Warner Bros Discovery's and WB Games. Fans at the convention, meanwhile, celebrated a restored Comic-Con brimming with A-list stars and writers once again. "I'm really happy because now Hall H is back, exhibitions are back, so it's going to be great this year and I hope I'm going to see somebody - I don't know - famous or something," said Paola Guerrero from Mexico. SAG-AFTRA and the National Association of Voice Actors hosted panels at the convention to discuss the urgency of the issues they face with AI. "When you bring a performer in to render a performance, you take their data, you take their likeness, you take their voice and you use a computer to then be able to digitally replicate that to generate new performance that that performer would have otherwise been brought in to do," Rodriguez said. "You are taking their career away. You are alienating from them something that is essential to their personhood and something that is irreplaceable from a career perspective," he added. Despite the dispute, major video game companies proceeded with their convention panels. Notably, EA Games announced the voice cast for the next installment of the popular "Dragon Age" videogame franchise "Dragon Age: The Voices of the Vanguard." The panel, held the day before the strike began, included voice actors Ali Hillis and Ike Amadi, both known for "Mass Effect 3," Nick Boraine, known for "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare," and others. (Reporting by Danielle Broadway and Rollo Ross; Editing by William Mallard)

AI triggers video games strike by actors, voice-over artists

July 27 (UPI) -- Lacking protection against potential AI use in video games, the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists video game performers went on strike. The strike began at 12:01 a.m. Friday. Video game actors and voice-over artists voted to strike after the union negotiated with video game companies over the past 18 months. "Although agreements have been reached on many issues important to SAG-AFTRA members, the employers refuse to plainly affirm in clear and enforceable language that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their AI language," SAG-AFTRA officials said in an online statement. SAG-AFTRA lead negotiator and national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland and the union's Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee agreed to call the strike on Thursday. The strike affects video game publishers Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks Productions and WB Games. A series of offers and counteroffers were made by negotiators for the union and video game publishers in recent weeks, but the union called for a strike due to concerns about future AI use. "We're not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members," SAG-AFTRA president Fran Drescher told media Thursday. A spokesperson for the video game publishers said they reached an agreement with the union on 24 out of 25 proposals, including increased wages and safety provisions. "We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal," video game publishers spokesperson Audrey Cooling said in a statement. Cooling said the video game publisher offered "meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers." "These terms are among the strongest in the entertainment industry," Cooling added. SAG-AFTRA and the video game publishers began negotiations in October 2022. More than 98% of union members voted to authorize a strike in September if negotiations did not provide a suitable resolution to issues like the AI concern. SAG-AFTRA undertook a nearly year-long strike against video game publishers in October 2016 to obtain residual pay.

Video game actors go on strike over AI - Times of India

SAN DIEGO: Artificial intelligence was key to last year's Hollywood strikes, and it has now sparked a second walkout by those actors who work in a far larger industry, at the heart of advancing technology - video games. The Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) on Friday began its second strike in nine months, this time against gaming giants that dominate an industry which grosses well over $100 billion each year.And while many demands are the same - consent and compensation for actors, whose voices and movements are used by AI to build game characters - the latest talks are posing unique challenges, union negotiators told AFP. Technology companies, by their nature, tend to view actors simply "as data," said Ray Rodriguez, lead negotiator for the video game contract. "The fact that they see themselves as technology companies" is directly connected to "their unwillingness to perceive the performance value," he said. The work stoppage began immediately after midnight Friday. It concerns some 2,600 artistes who provide voice dubbing services for video games, or whose physical movements are recorded in order to animate computer-generated characters. The strike followed more than a year and a half of fruitless negotiations between the union and the likes of Activision, Disney, Electronic Arts and Warner Bros Games. Talks have been sporadic, as video game companies have not appointed dedicated full-time negotiators, and are "absolutely obsessed with secrecy," said Rodriguez. There are other complicating factors. Video game characters often fuse multiple human performers - for example, one person may voice a hero whose movements are motion-captured by another actor. It's "a really joyful, cool" way to collaborate, said Sarah Elmaleh, chair of the union's negotiating committee. But video game companies have tried to exploit that ambiguity to create "loopholes" in their counteroffers, she warned. This is because video game companies can use AI not just to replicate a specific actor, but to create "new" voices or body movements from a composite of human performers. Such use of generative AI can make it far harder for actors to trace their work, and therefore to deny consent or get paid. Voice actor Lindsay Rousseau does ancillary characters, non-player characters that give you side quests, characters that you fight and die, and creature voices. And "that's the first work that's going to go away," she says.

Video game voice actors go on strike over AI protections

2023's SAG-AFTRA strike was not the last. Credit: Mario Tama/Getty Images Video game voice and motion capture performers have gone on strike for the second time in a decade. After a year and a half of negotiations between SAG-AFTRA and major video game companies like Activision, Electronic Arts, and Take-Two Interactive, the portion of the union's membership that works on video games has initiated a work stoppage that went into effect on Friday morning. In a statement on its website, SAG-AFTRA said, with no uncertainty, that artificial intelligence protections are the "sticking point." "We're not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I. to the detriment of our members," union president Fran Drescher said in the statement. "Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live -- and work -- with, we will be here, ready to negotiate." In a statement to Polygon, a spokesperson for the gaming companies' side Audrey Cooling claimed the AI terms that SAG-AFTRA did not agree to are "among the strongest in the entertainment industry." According to Cooling, the two sides have agreed to 24 of 25 contract proposals, leaving AI as the final nail to be hammered down. While the exact contract language that both sides have been trying to agree to for the last 18 months is not public, the issue is familiar to anyone who has followed AI and the arts in recent years. Put simply, voice actors and motion capture performers are worried that, without proper labor protections, video game companies could use their work to train AI models that could then replace their labor. As the Washington Post also pointed out, the use of AI could negatively impact young performers who are trying to break into the industry. If the kinds of background, non-player character roles that usually go to those people were instead relegated to AI, it may be harder to break into the industry. It's worth noting that SAG-AFTRA struck a side deal with an AI company earlier this year, so the union has not been inherently opposed to AI up to this point. This is not the first time SAG-AFTRA's gaming workers have gone on strike. In 2016, voice actors started a work stoppage that lasted almost an entire year. That particular strike had more to do with "old" problems like bonuses, royalties, and worker safety than new, rapidly developing technology. In other words, it could theoretically be a while before these two sides come to an agreement.