Artists' Strike Against Video Game Companies Using AI Continues

The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), the union of about 160,000 voiceover artists, DJs, and other entertainment professionals, announced that its strike against video game development studios would continue after three days of negotiations. 

"Negotiations resumed with the employer unit, which includes Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Llama Productions LLC, Take 2 Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc. on Oct. 23," said SAG-AFTRA in a statement.

The organization states that the strike remains in effect "against all signatories to the Interactive Media Agreement," with the exception of "games signed to the Tiered-Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement or an Interim Interactive Media Agreement."

The strike began in July, following nearly two years of unsuccessful negotiations on generative AI, as big-league game companies refuse to "plainly affirm, in clear and enforceable language, that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their AI language." The main aim is to make game development and publishing studios that hire SAG-AFTRA artists sign an agreement that would protect the union members from having their likenesses and voices used to train artificial intelligence models.

In September, Lightspeed L.A., the developer of Last Sentinel, reached an agreement with SAG-AFTRA on using AI protections in its games. Yesterday, SAG-AFTRA announced that it reached a new agreement with Ethovox, a company building a fully-authenticated foundational A.I. model for voice. According to the agreement, performers participating in Ethovox’s consensual foundational model will be protected and compensated fairly.

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