The strike initiated by voice actors in the SAG-AFTRA union this past July is beginning to yield some positive results for voice actors who don’t want their performances used to train AI. The union announced last week that multiple studios have signed agreements with represented performers, securing AI protections for actors in 80 different game projects.
Several companies have agreed to tiered-budget or interim video game agreements, including Vampire Therapist developer Little Bat Games, indie dev Francisco Gonzales, and most notably in our sphere of gaming, ARK: Survival Ascended developer Studio Wildcard. The union also pointed out how other games that fell outside of the strike order voluntarily signed similar agreements, which represents “a clear demand for SAG-AFTRA talent and a willingness to protect that talent” according to the union.
“SAG-AFTRA has enabled us to work with top-tier talent using standardized union agreements, which has been a huge benefit to the quality and consistency of voicework in our games,” said Wildcard Development Director Jeremy Stieglitz in a statement.
Of course, the bigger targets of the strike, including Disney, Activision, and EA, haven’t come to the negotiation table yet, but according to SAG’s Chief Negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, those companies don’t represent the wider video game industry. “The many companies that are happy to agree to our AI terms prove that these terms are not only reasonable, but feasible and sustainable for businesses,” he argues.
