Video game performers on strike for almost a year over AI issues reach a tentative deal

Key Points

• SAG-AFTRA has reached a tentative contract with major game companies including Activision, Electronic Arts and Epic Games, potentially ending their nearly year-long strike over AI protections.
• The agreement puts in place AI guardrails designed to protect performers’ voices and likenesses from unregulated digital replication without consent.
• The tentative deal still requires approval by SAG-AFTRA’s National Board and ratification by union members before the strike can officially be suspended.

The union for Hollywood’s video game performers has reached a tentative contract with several video game companies that may bring an end to an almost year-long strike tied to the use of artificial intelligence.

Members of the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists went on strike in July 2024 after negotiations with game industry giants came to a halt over artificial intelligence protections.

SAG-AFTRA said that the unregulated use of AI posed “an equal or even greater threat” to performers in the video game industry than it does in film and television because the capacity to cheaply and easily create convincing digital replicas of performers’ voices is widely available.

The performers were worried that unchecked use of AI could provide game makers with a means to displace them — by training an AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or to create a digital replica of their likeness without consent.

“Patience and persistence has resulted in a deal that puts in place the necessary AI guardrails that defend performers’ livelihoods in the AI age, alongside other important gains,” SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director & Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said in a statement.

The union had been negotiating with an industry bargaining group consisting of signatory video game companies, including divisions of Activision and Electronic Arts. Those companies include Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Epic Games Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Take 2 Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc.

SAG-AFTRA said that it anticipates that the terms of a strike suspension agreement will be finalized with the companies soon. Union members will remain on strike until such an agreement is reached.

The tentative contract deal still needs approval by the National Board and ratification by union membership.

Video game performers had previously gone on strike in October 2016, with a tentative deal reached 11 months later, in September 2017. That strike helped secure a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists.