It’s official: members of SAG-AFTRA who work on video games are going on strike at midnight on July 26, and in a call with the media on Thursday, several on the guild’s negotiating committee explained what’s led them to this point.
The key issue, as highlighted by SAG-AFTRA's initial statement announcing the strike, is the lack of agreement between the guild and video game producers on the subject of artificial intelligence technology. In a statement, SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said, “our employers are not interested in fair, reasonable A.I. protections, but rather flagrant exploitation.”
Negotiating committee chair Sarah Elmaleh elaborated on that in the call on Thursday, saying, “unfortunately, exploitation is exactly what the bargaining group would have us accept for ourselves.”
“The employers refuse to plainly affirm in clear and enforceable language that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their AI language,” she added. “They insist we overlook obvious AI loopholes that imperil both movement and voice performance, which are in today's games frequently combined. Their offer is quite literally unacceptable."
Negotiating committee member Zeke Alton said they’ve had “productive” talks with the video game producers party to the Interactive Media Agreement (IMA), but what’s currently on the table is “dangerously incomplete.”
"Delayed, vague, and riddled with so many legal loopholes that we're left with practically no protection for our future,” Alton said.
Largely at issue (though not the only issue, representatives on the call clarified), is uncertainty over who a “performer” is and who is protected under the IMA as one. The definition by the video game producers, they argued, leaves out motion capture performers, at least in some ways. Or, as negotiating committee member Andi Norris put it: “They say they get to choose, seemingly arbitrarily, who is a performer and who is just data.” The current AI provisions from the video game industry, Norris added, “leave the folks who put their bodies on the line the most vulnerable to abuse.”
“We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance onstage next to a voice actor isn't a performer," she continued. "It would be like shooting all of Second Unit on a film without union protections simply because it's action."
For its part, the group of video game producers that are part of the IMA issued its own statement after the strike was called, saying its offer "extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA.”
Responding directly to that statement, however, SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said it’s that definition of “performers” that’s in dispute. He explained that employers could potentially be “excluding a whole class of members” by not including motion capture performers in that definition in a contract.
“If it said on the piece of paper that they put across the table what they're saying that all performers are covered, we wouldn't be sitting here. It's disingenuous. I'm sorry. All right?” Alton said. “There is a base level that protects all of the members of this union and that is what we expect and that is what we demand, and that's why we're here. Because we are not getting that. So you can say something. Put it in the contract if you mean it.”
When asked if there are video game companies who are already running afoul of the AI protections they’re seeking, Rodriguez said that they wouldn’t necessarily know for sure, but he personally has a “concern” that there are.
The strike begins at 12:01 a.m. PT on July 26, and comes after more than a year and a half of negotiations without a deal. The companies that bargain with SAG-AFTRA include Activision, Electronic Arts, Insomniac Games, Take 2, WB Games, and more.
Alex Stedman is a Senior News Editor with IGN, overseeing entertainment reporting. When she's not writing or editing, you can find her reading fantasy novels or playing Dungeons & Dragons.
