Three months after going on a video game strike, SAG-AFTRA will be returning to the negotiating table with the companies that sign on to the Interactive Media Agreement on Oct. 23.
Among the companies that are signatories are Disney, Activision, Electronic Arts, and Warner Bros. Games, the latter of whose offices will be picketed by the actors’ guild this Wednesday.
Both sides did not comment further on the resumed talks, which will occur under a media blackout as is customary for labor negotiations.
SAG-AFTRA announced the strike back in July, saying that while it had come to terms with the IMA companies on nearly all issues after more than a year of on-and-off talks, they were at an impasse on protections for artificial intelligence replication of voice actors and motion capture performers’ voices, movements and likeness. Performers had been working on video games without a contract since November 2022.
Last month, SAG-AFTRA turned up the heat on one of the IMA companies, Formosa Group, on claims that the voiceover production company had sought non-union work for a video game currently in development. In response, SAG-AFTRA filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board and expanded its strike to League of Legends, the popular Riot video game for which Formosa produces voice work.
SAG-AFTRA is looking for terms that ensure that video game performers are guaranteed consent and compensation for any use of their work in any AI models for video games. The guild claims that the IMA companies only offered such protections for motion capture performers working on characters with a likeness that resembles their own, which would only cover a small percentage of mocap work.
“What we’re saying to the video game companies is, ‘Step up, do the same thing that all these other industries and companies have done, and respect human creative performance, whether that’s voice or physical performance,” SAG-AFTRA general counsel Jeff Bennett said at TheGrill, TheWrap’s annual business conference.
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