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AI Games

Video Game Actors End 11-Month Strike With New AI Protections (san.com) 33

Posted by BeauHD from the AI-consent-now-required dept.
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.

Video Game Actors End 11-Month Strike With New AI Protections More | Reply

Video Game Actors End 11-Month Strike With New AI Protections

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  • My thoughts on this are.... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zurkeyon ( 1546501 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @08:15PM (#65511348)
    That what happened to people like Prince and others where they had unknowingly sold their very name away to corporate interest, should NEVER be allowed to happen again. This is one of a set of steps that should be taken to insure that each and every person, regardless of nation or status, should forever retain the rights to their own likeness and self image. To take this from a person, is to take away their very being. And should never be allowed. Even WITH their permission. It should be deemed a "Step too far" and a level of permanence that no living person should accept when it comes to selling their very identity. Only a person with a sick soul, and nothing left to lose, or the willingness to "Sell their soul" would agree to such a thing. 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.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Xenx ( 2211586 )

      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.

    • 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.

    • That what happened to people like Prince and others where they had unknowingly sold their very name away to corporate interest, should NEVER be allowed to happen again. This is one of a set of steps that should be taken to insure that each and every person, regardless of nation or status, should forever retain the rights to their own likeness and self image. To take this from a person, is to take away their very being. And should never be allowed. Even WITH their permission. It should be deemed a "Step too far" and a level of permanence that no living person should accept when it comes to selling their very identity. Only a person with a sick soul, and nothing left to lose, or the willingness to "Sell their soul" would agree to such a thing. 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.

      All of this can be countered with a simple, "But hey man, profit." Greed wins. Your moral outlook will be deemed antiquated and out of touch with reality.

  • Copying voices is lame (Score:3)

    by Z80a ( 971949 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @08:25PM (#65511360)

    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.

    • 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.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by allo ( 1728082 )

        That's a good question. The same voice for every language is tempting. But maybe local dialects are also a nice factor?

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Z80a ( 971949 )

        I was not even thinking on localization. Having to find good voice actors for like 60+ languages and having em fit the characters and such must be an herculean if not impossible task.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by drnb ( 2434720 )

          I was not even thinking on localization. Having to find good voice actors for like 60+ languages and having em fit the characters and such must be an herculean if not impossible task.

          Which is why, if you are lucky you will see English, French, German, Japanese, and Simplified Chinese.

          On a really lucky day add in Spanish, Korean, and Traditional Chinese.

          Portuguese support, go buy a damn lottery ticket. :-)

    • Personally, I'd expand a bit. Two games I've played recently are No Man's Sky, an open world SciFi survival craft game, and "Still Wakes the Deep", which is more a horror themed action visual novel.
      Still Wakes the Deep is completely voiced, but utterly, absolutely, on the rails - there's always only one way forward. Thus, replayability factor is lacking.
      No Man's Sky isn't voiced at all, but would likely make a lot of people cringe because of a large but still limited number of dialogues. Plus, well, prob

  • "enhanced health and safety measures"? (Score:3)

    by MacMann ( 7518492 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @08:56PM (#65511392)

    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?

    • Ever see an in-game character climb a ladder, jump over an object, navigate broken terrain, etc ... All of that might have been motion captured. Now add variations of all the preceding with weapons. Weapons in a carry position, at the ready, pointed at targets, aimed at targets, etc, and switching between these, while moving through a setting. At runs, at walk, crawling.

      And to be fair, the more complicated stuff more likely for a cut scene than gameplay.

    • Re:"enhanced health and safety measures"? (Score:4, Informative)

      by RandomUsername99 ( 574692 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @10:09PM (#65511482)
      Props, makeup, stunts, costumes, repetitive stress injuries, simply being asked to destroy your vocal cords letting out blood-curdling screams for 10 hours straight because the director is picky and it’s crunch time you don’t have to be doing hot work in a refinery to worry about your health and safety.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zarhan ( 415465 )

      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:3)

    by Rujiel ( 1632063 ) on Thursday July 10, 2025 @10:51PM (#65511566)
    They wouldn't pay him for the role, but they reused some footage ftom the first film and gave a different actor prosthesis to look like him. Then they put his name in the credits even though he wasn't involved. He sued over this and won, and the actors' guild changed rules to prevent this sort of thing after. It's a shame how even these standards have fallen away with AI.

  • 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).

  • "Downloading pirated games and movies hurts the creative industry!"
    "Downloading actor's voices and likenesses is cheaper than paying them"

  • Last game I played (that I can remember) was Baulder's Gate on a PS4, roughly in....uh.....2007 maybe? Before that, it was Vice City.

    I'm not a "gamer", so this is a serious question: Does an authentic voice actor really add much in a practical sense to games?

    When playing the games I mentioned above, I certainly would not have cared if the voice was AI or even just text on the screen. I don't even remember if it HAD voices. I think Vice City did, not sure about Baulder's Gate.

    Anyway, would most gamers actual

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