Wednesday, members From the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, or SAG-AFRA, voted to validate a new video game contract and officially put an end to an almost year-long strike. A majority, 95 percent of members, voted in favor of the contract, which guarantees annual increases, increased compensation and handrail designed to prevent game companies from giving their work to AI.
Actors in the video game industry were on strike for 11 months as part of a struggle to ensure protection against AI, a point that negotiated most of the time. Every other issue in the contract, including remuneration and working conditions, has been resolved months ago, says SAG-UPRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. The strike was temporarily suspended in June, pending the ratification of the contract.
According to Sarah Elmaleh, a voice actor who also serves as a chairman of the SAG-UPDER COMMITTEE, the actors in the games industry have been tired of years before tools such as Chatgpt exploded. “We knew it was the issue of the most existential importance,” says Elmaleh. “It’s a medium that is fundamentally digitized.”
The work of achievers is crucial for the creation of play. Actors voting characters, help to make these characters look more natural by doing movement survey, and even allows companies to use their appearance. And although AI has an influence on industries in general, including animation, technology, education and others, the video game industry has begun to experience these consequences carefully.
As part of the contract, consent and disclosure agreements are now needed when any video game producer wants to use an artist’s voice or image to make an AI-driven digital replica. If artists strike, they may also suspend their approval for companies to generate any new material with AI.
AI is already starting to replace meat and blood actors, even in high-profile cases. In May, Fortnite introduced a generative AI version of Star Wars’ Darth Father. (Players made him disastrously say that he only swears and slums for a few hours. Fortnite Maker Epic Games pushed a HotFix shortly thereafter.) A few days later, SAG-DRA filed an unfair labor officer at the National Labor Relations Board against Epic subsidiary Llama Productions. In a statement posted on SAG-DRA’s website, the organization said that the replacement of a human worker was done with AI “without giving any notice of their intention to do so and without negotiating with us about appropriate conditions.”
Darth father-actor James Earl Jones gave permission to recreate his voice before his death in 2024 with AI. Crabtree-Ireland would not comment on specific artists or contracts. However, he says that protection should be applied consistently and with a ‘reasonably specific’ description of how their image or voice will be used. “These provisions ensure that the image, voice and performing of a deceased artist is treated with the same respect as a living artist,” says Crabtree-Ireland.