Video game performers secure AI consent rules with new SAG-AFTRA transactions

The nine major video game studios agree to performers' artificial intelligence “guardrails,” ratifying a deal that will end one of the longest entertainment industries around AI rights, forcing gaming companies to operate under the same labor standards as traditional Hollywood studios.

In the ratification vote, which was recognized on Wednesday, 95.04% of its members approved the 2025 SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement.

According to the coalition statement, not only does wages increase immediately by 15.17%, with a 3% annual increase of 3%, but it also guarantees “consent and disclosure requirements for the use of AI digital replicas” and “the ability of performers to suspend the generation of new material.”

The deal came into effect immediately, ending a nearly one-year strike that began last July over unresolved disputes over labor protection in the generated AI, audio replication and video game industry.

“We set precedents on how the US and the global workforce in general is treated,” said Zeke Alton, a spokesman for SAG-AFTRA. Decryption.

The new deal covers major studios such as Activision, Electronic Arts, Disney Character Voices, WB Games and Take 2 Productions.

Overtime rates for excessive performers are now calculated on a double scale. Scale performers are paid more than the union's smallest scale rate. Meanwhile, the health and retirement contribution rate will jump from 16.5% to 17%, jumping to 17.5% by October 2026, according to the statement.

“All AI-generated voices or likenesses should carry proof of encryption rather than ambiguous license footnotes,” said Hitesh Bhardwaj, co-founder of CAPX AI. Decryption.

“The tool is ready and the output can be swept through and pinned in real time to public ledger,” he added.

The deal rests on what Negotiation Committee Chairman Sarah Hermale called the “Strike Suspension Language,” preventing AI from replacing impressive performers with their own digital versions.

“If they choose to withhold the workforce using that tool, they should not have an unprecedented type of scab. Variety.

SAG-AFTRA attacked film and television producers from July 14th to November 9th, 2023, ensuring the protection of “employment-based digital replicas” created with “independently created digital replicas” made from archival footage.

In California, state legislators responded by passing laws requiring both consent and real estate approval for the commercial use of digital replicas.

The Hollywood actor had been warnings about the threat of AI throughout 2024.

Robert Downey Jr. told a podcast last October that he declared that after his death “my law firm is still very active” and that he “sues all future executives” who tried to create a digital replica of the Iron Man character without permission.

At the Newport Beach Film Festival in October 2024, Nicholas Cage called the AI “inhuman” and told the young actor that technology “want to take your instrument.”

However, industry tensions surged in May after AI-generated Darth Vader Fortnite Using an offensive language, it urged SAG-AFTRA to submit fees against Epic's Llama Productions, claiming it used AI voices without the union's consent.

Under the new video game agreement, companies must ensure advance notice and express consent before using AI to replicate performers' voices, faces, or movements.

The agreement covers approximately 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members who have been banned from working on the Struck Video Game project since July 2024.