Video Game Actors End 11-Month Strike With New AI Protections (san.com) 21
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Straight Arrow News: Hollywood video game performers ended their nearly year-long strike Wednesday with new protections against the use of digital replicas of their voices or appearances. If those replicas are used, actors must be paid at rates comparable to in-person work. The SAG-AFTRA union demanded stronger pay and better working conditions. Among their top concerns was the potential for artificial intelligence to replace human actors without compensation or consent.
Under a deal announced in a media release, studios such as Activision and Electronic Arts are now required to obtain written consent from performers before creating digital replicas of their work. Actors have the right to suspend their consent for AI-generated material if another strike occurs. "This deal delivers historic wage increases, industry-leading AI protections and enhanced health and safety measures for performers," Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, said in the release. The full list of studios includes Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions and WB Games.
SAG-AFTRA members approved the contract by a vote of 95.04% to 4.96%, according to the announcement. The agreement includes a wage increase of more than 15%, with additional 3% raises in November 2025, 2026 and 2027. The contract expires in October 2028. [...] The video game strike, which started in July 2024, did not shut down production like the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike in 2023. Hollywood actors went on strike for 118 days, from July 14 to November 9, 2023, halting nearly all scripted television and film work. That strike, which centered on streaming residuals and AI concerns, prevented actors from engaging in promotional work, such as attending premieres and posting on social media. In contrast, video game performers were allowed to work during their strike, but only with companies that had signed interim agreements addressing concerns related to AI. More than 160 companies signed on, according to The Associated Press. Still, the year took a toll.
Under a deal announced in a media release, studios such as Activision and Electronic Arts are now required to obtain written consent from performers before creating digital replicas of their work. Actors have the right to suspend their consent for AI-generated material if another strike occurs. "This deal delivers historic wage increases, industry-leading AI protections and enhanced health and safety measures for performers," Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers, said in the release. The full list of studios includes Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions and WB Games.
SAG-AFTRA members approved the contract by a vote of 95.04% to 4.96%, according to the announcement. The agreement includes a wage increase of more than 15%, with additional 3% raises in November 2025, 2026 and 2027. The contract expires in October 2028. [...] The video game strike, which started in July 2024, did not shut down production like the SAG-AFTRA actors' strike in 2023. Hollywood actors went on strike for 118 days, from July 14 to November 9, 2023, halting nearly all scripted television and film work. That strike, which centered on streaming residuals and AI concerns, prevented actors from engaging in promotional work, such as attending premieres and posting on social media. In contrast, video game performers were allowed to work during their strike, but only with companies that had signed interim agreements addressing concerns related to AI. More than 160 companies signed on, according to The Associated Press. Still, the year took a toll.
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Closing The Stable Door (Score:2)
If we aren't already, we will soon be at the point where actors are not needed at all.
Exactly. This is closing the stable door after the horse has bolted and the car has been (or is just about to be) invented.
My thoughts on this are.... (Score:3)
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And such a thing should be considered as those persons "not being in their right mind" and that they should be prevented from taking this "Forever" step into nothingness... Just my 2 cents. No offence intended to anyone. Just an opinion. From one human to another.
It's my opinion that calling someone mentally unfit, for having a different opinion, can only be taken as an offense. I'm not not saying I'd sell my voice/appearance/etc, but people are more than capable of making fully informed decisions I don't agree with.
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Shit man. I'd sell the rights to my name, likeness and voice for $500 to anyone who wants it.
I'd be seriously overcharging for it too.
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Canada Postal Workers (Score:2)
If you go on strike and literally nobody notices it's time star
AI based text to speech makes this low impact (Score:2)
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No need to speculate on the future, It's already quite good if you are willing to pay a tiny bit, and tons better than we have grown to expect from the text to speech built into our OS or phones.
Copying voices is lame (Score:3)
The best use for AI voice generation is to tailor the voices to sound exactly like you want, instead of picking from a handful of voice actors and asking em to try to fit the character somehow.
Add challenges like having to voice over hundreds of different characters, and i can see where AI voices would really help.
Now multiply by the number of localizations (Score:2)
Add challenges like having to voice over hundreds of different characters, and i can see where AI voices would really help.
Now multiply by the number of localizations. Perhaps localization can be AI based too? Text finely tuned to assist in voice generation and localization.
"enhanced health and safety measures"? (Score:3)
The fine article states the voice actors for video games asked for "enhanced health and safety measures" as part of the negotiations. I have little to base any assumptions on but from what I've seen in behind-the-scenes videos and photos the voice actors appear to be in a climate controlled recording studio of sorts. Sometimes its acting in a motion capture suit inside a room that's painted in chroma key green or blue. Just how much was impacting their health and safety to begin with?
Maybe there's elaborate props and sets built for some of the cut scenes in video games, elaborate enough to cause serious injury such as Harrison Ford breaking his leg when a large door closed on him. How often does that happen though? And was this something worthy of inclusion on a contract for voice acting, motion capture, or whatever else it is that actors do for video games?
Mo-cap on odd terrain with weapons ... (Score:2)
And to be fair, the more complicated stuff more likely for a cut scene than gameplay.
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Wil Wheaton (CleverNickName of Slashdot) did a blog post years ago what's it like to be a voice actor in practice, see here (context is the strike a decade ago): https://wilwheaton.net/2015/09... [wilwheaton.net]
remember Crispin Glover in Back to the Future 2? (Score:2)
Incentive to skip humans and go direct to AI? (Score:2)
I suspect the number one unintended consequence of this is to encourage AI from the start for almost all characters, so that there is no pesky contract issues like this.
But also, real actors in video games? Is that even a thing, today? (Other than for voice over, where gen-ai is fast approaching equal quality).