After A Year And A Half Of Negotiations, SAG-AFTRA Is Calling For A Video Game Strike

It’s been a year since the Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Arts (SAG-AFTRA) called a strike against the film industry. Now, they’re officially calling for a strike again, this time against the video game industry. After a year and a half of negotiation, during which the two groups managed to reach terms on several things, the guild has called a strike beginning tomorrow July 26.

The one area that the organizations have not been able to come to terms with is the use of AI to replicate the voice and image of performers. SAG is looking to protect performers by asking developers looking to employ SAG-AFTRA members to “sign on to the new Tier-Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement, the Interactive Media Agreement, or the Interim Interactive Localization Agreement” According to the guild, the bargaining group – made up of representatives from some of the largest companies in the industry, including Activision, Disney, EA, and WB Games among others – “refuse to plainly affirm, in clear and enforceable language, that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their AI language”.

Effective July 26 at 12:01 a.m. Today’s vote to strike comes after more than a year and a half of negotiations without a deal.#VideoGameStrike #LevelUpTheContract #SagAftraStrong https://t.co/8InNdB05k8

— SAG-AFTRA (@sagaftra) July 25, 2024

The statement, issued by SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland went on to note that the guild is “disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when [they] are so close to a deal” and that they “found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals” including wage increases.

Crabtree-Ireland also stated that “it's stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year – that [SAG-AFTRA] members will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to AI.”

That said, it’s not that shocking that game development companies are clinging to AI, as a post on Wired (shared by GamesIndustry) reports that Activision Blizzard has approved the use of generative AI including Midjourney and Stable Diffusion for creating concept art. Reportedly the publisher promised employees that AI would “be used only for internal concepts, not final game assets”. That said, former employees are reporting that many of the 1,900 employees laid off from Microsoft in January were 2D artists at Activision, with the remaining artists being forced to use AI to aid their work.