Actors strike again, this time against gaming giant

While SAG-AFTRA is once again addressing the issue of artificial intelligence, the nature of video game actors' work poses unique challenges for the union.

• By Andrew Marzal/AFP, San Diego, California

Artificial intelligence (AI) was a key focus of last year's Hollywood strike, which has sparked a second strike by actors working in a much larger industry at the heart of the advancing technology: video games.

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Performers (SAG-AFTRA) launched its second strike in nine months on Friday, this time against the gaming giants who dominate an industry that generates more than $100 billion in revenue each year.

While many of the demands are the same, such as consent and compensation for actors whose voices and movements are used by AI to create game characters, the latest round of talks has presented unique challenges, union negotiators said.

Photo: AP

Technology companies, by their very nature, tend to view actors as just “data,” said Ray Rodriguez, chief contracts officer for SAG-AFTRA, the lead negotiator for video game contracts.

“They deliver nuanced performances that reflect the psychology of their characters and their situations,” he said. “That's what makes it so compelling.”

But “the fact that they see themselves as a technology company” is directly related to “their unwillingness to recognize the value of performance,” Rodriguez said.

The strike began just after midnight on Friday.

The deals involve around 2,600 artists who provide voice-over services for video games or record physical movements to animate computer-generated characters.

The strike comes after more than a year and a half of fruitless negotiations between the union and companies including Activision Publishing, Walt Disney, Electronic Arts and Warner Bros. Games.

Rodriguez said talks have been sporadic because the video game companies have not appointed dedicated negotiators and there is “extreme secrecy.”

There are other complicating factors.

Video game characters are often created using a combination of human actors, for example, one actor providing the voice of a hero and another actor motion-capturing the hero's movements.

It's a “really fun and cool” way to work together, said Sarah Elmaleh, chair of SAG-AFTRA's negotiating committee.

But she said video game companies are trying to exploit that ambiguity to create “loopholes” in their own counterproposals.

This is because video game companies can use AI not just to recreate a specific actor, but to combine human actors to create “new” voices and body movements.

Using generative AI in this way makes it much harder for actors to track their actions and therefore harder to opt out of consent or receive rewards.

“There are a lot of ways to gloss over this,” Elmaleh said this week at Comic-Con International in San Diego, California.

Picket lines outside Hollywood's biggest studios, often joined by A-list stars, helped draw attention to last summer's strike.

Elmaleh said video game strikes may require a more “surprising and diverse” approach.

She said the strike strategy would likely focus on “streamers and the online arena, and then the in-person arena,” without elaborating.

For video game voice actors like Lindsay Rousseau, any labor disputes will hopefully come soon, as AI is rapidly eating away at her job.

“I'm a supporting character, an NPC. [non-player characters] “The ones with side quests, characters who die in battle, and lots of creature voices,” she says, “are the ones that go out first.”

Without AI protection, only a few big-name voice actors at the top of the video game industry would be able to make a living, while those just starting out or those barely scraping by would be left behind, Rousseau said.

For vulnerable actors still reeling from the effects of the Hollywood strike, the thought of even more time without work is tough.

But “the way the strike unfolded last year really proved that we were right on this issue,” Rodriguez said, “and it didn't discourage us from launching a new fight on AI. In fact, it underscored the legitimacy of fighting this fight and the need to fight it now.”