Video game voice and motion workers are making a last stand against AI. Can they beat a rigged game?

LOS ANGELES — Last month, Amazon Games boss Christoph Hartmann was asked in an interview about SAG-AFTRA performers’ ongoing strike against video game studios. 

“For games,” Hartmann said, “we don’t really have acting.”

The comment alarmed many in the industry, and Amazon even issued a mea culpa for it. But for many of the 2,500 union-represented voice actors and motion performers whose voices, faces, movements, and stunts are captured for use in video games, Hartmann’s comment encapsulated a lack of understanding by the executives negotiating with the union.

“That’s where the problem is,” said Zeke Alton, a voice actor and motion-capture (or mocap) performer who’s appeared in “Call of Duty,” “Spider-Man 2,” “Starfield” and many other blockbuster video game titles. Alton says creative teams he’s spoken to understand what SAG wants, but the union is running into problems negotiating with the C-suite. 

The main sticking point? AI. 

“We get that what we’re asking for is inconvenient to them, but it’s an existential threat to us,” Alton said.

Several striking SAG members who spoke to Sherwood said they think video game studios envision a future where they can deploy AI however they see fit (digitally replicating voices, scanning and copying actors’ movements and stunts in perpetuity without pay, etc.). That’s unacceptable, said SAG’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, who spoke to Sherwood while on a picket line in late August outside the Warner Bros. Studios in Burbank, where hundreds of voice actors and mocap performers marched with the historic Warner Bros. water tower as a backdrop.

“We haven’t taken a position of banning AI or refusing to allow them to use AI, but we think it is very reasonable and appropriate to say there need to be guardrails around it,” he said. “There needs to be protection so that people don’t worry that their next job will be their last because some company is going to capture them and then just duplicate them and force them to compete against themselves.”

The 160,000-member union has been on strike against video game studios including “Grand Theft Auto” publisher Take-Two, “Madden” maker Electronic Arts, and “Fortnite” developer Epic Games for two months. 

A spokesperson for the video game producers subject to the strike expressed disappointment about SAG’s walk-off in a written statement: 

“We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations. We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions. Our offer is directly responsive to SAG’s concerns and extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the [Interactive Media Agreement].

Things are escalating. This week, the union made the bold move of saying it was expanding its strike to include the popular online game “League of Legends,” which previously hadn’t been subject to the strike because production on it started many years ago. 

Generative AI’s entrance into the video game industry isn’t a prediction — it’s already happened. A January survey found that about half of video game developers said genAI is being used in their workplace. In July, Wired reported that Activision sold a $15 cosmetic bundle, including weapon blueprints and a loading screen, for “Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3” last year that used AI-generated elements without disclosing it. Wired’s sources said that genAI use has become a common requirement in video game art and animation jobs. 

That, SAG says, is why its gaming performers are seeking to safeguard their livelihoods against genAI now. 

One sticking point in negotiations lies in the distinction between voice and motion performers. SAG argues that video game studios have attempted to limit AI protections to voice actors and “identifiable” motion performers, omitting other stunt performances — like, say, a human portraying an in-game monster. SAG movement performer Andi Norris, and others like her, say that would allow their work to be duplicated by AI in perpetuity. 

Movement performers aren’t always as recognizable in-game as their voice-actor and mocap peers. But Norris says they’re just as vital to the final product. She’s performed in games like “Diablo 4,” “Resident Evil Village,” and the Star Wars VR series “Vader Immortal.” (Norris says she’s “significantly taller in the game” — she plays a rancor.)

“All of your walk cycles, your run cycles, your falls, your deaths — all of that has to be captured by a movement performer. And what these game studios are arguing is that that isn’t performance, that they are just capturing reference for these characters. But it is literally our data,” Norris said. “It is our performance that’s driving the game.”

Dr. Amanda Cote, director of the Serious Games Graduate Certificate at Michigan State University, said human performance is a larger part of many games than casual players might realize. Celebrities have increasingly taken starring roles in major titles as competition gets tighter: Keanu Reeves plays a sort of ghost virus in “Cyberpunk 2077,” and Giancarlo Esposito plays a ruthless dictator in “Far Cry 6.” But motion and stunt performers fulfill a wide variety of needs for game productions.

“Through a process called photogrammetry, a person’s photograph can actually be transitioned directly into a game skin, which animators or artists would then touch up,” Cote said. “But rather than having to start from scratch, they could scan somebody in relevant costumes.” 

While there’s still quite a bit of work for animators and character riggers, motion capture is a wider-ranging process than what that viral video of Benedict Cumberbatch doing dragon stuff for “The Hobbit” implies, Cote said.

Escalation

By expanding its strike to “League of Legends” this week, SAG is trying to send a signal to video game studios that the union has more moves up its sleeve — and those moves could have a major financial effect on video game publishers’ revenues. 

Live-service games and content sold around them (microtransactions, season passes, etc.) account for a big chunk of publishers’ revenue, up to 85% for “Madden” maker Electronic Arts in its most recent quarter. Without union voice actors and motion performers, “League of Legends” and other live-service titles could be forced to delay the regular content updates they rely on to drive sales.

SAG says Formosa Interactive, which provides voice-over services for the game, attempted to circumvent the strike by hiring nonunion performers to work on a separate title that was already subject to the strike. In a statement, Formosa said it rejects the union’s allegations. On Tuesday, SAG filed a complaint against the company with the National Labor Relations Board.

Live-service games (titles that are regularly updated, like “League of Legends,” “Fortnite,” and “Destiny”) have been a point of contention in the strike so far. Because of language in an older contract agreement, games that began production before September 2023 (like “Grand Theft Auto VI”) are excluded from SAG’s strike — though union reps have made clear that performing new work on those titles isn’t required. 

That same language has also spared popular live-service games from the work stoppage, as many technically began production years ago, though their regular updates leave them in a virtually endless production state. But SAG has said it’s sent a notice of termination to many major titles, allowing the union to call a strike against them in the future, as it’s done to “League of Legends.”

State of play

This month, SAG said that 90 games in development have signed onto interim agreements, essentially approving the terms around AI that it’s demanding from the studios. That has allowed those games to continue production with union talent. A handful of performers said in interviews that their gaming collaborators on the development side have expressed understanding and support for their demands.

“Everyone except for the IP department agrees,” Alton said.

Like countless other industries, gaming companies see in AI a future of higher margins and faster productions. With improvements in graphics, in-game physics engines, and overall sophistication, AAA game-production budgets have ballooned. Sony’s 2018 “Spider-Man” game had a $100 million budget. Last year’s installment in the franchise cost $315 million. The massively anticipated “Grand Theft Auto VI” has a rumored $2 billion budget. High-earning franchises gobble up resources (as of last year there were 3,000 developers working on Ubisoft’s “Assassin’s Creed” franchise) to churn out fresh titles. Meanwhile, game margins aren’t rising with the tide: the $60 price point held strong for about 15 years until 2020, when it jumped to $70. And US spending on video games ticked up only about 1% last year.

In response, studios are massively cutting costs. There have been an estimated 12,700 layoffs across the gaming industry so far this year, already eclipsing last year’s roughly 10,000 cut jobs. Wired’s report found that some artists still at work have been “forced” to use genAI to fill the gaps. The turmoil, along with years of well-documented crunch culture, has led unionization efforts to expand within game studios this year. Over 200 workers at Microsoft’s “Fallout” maker Bethesda Game Studios unionized in July, and were soon joined by another 500 employees who create the “World of Warcraft” franchise.

“We’re in a fight right now for regulations on the use of generative AI that will affect them in the future. It’s going to be what they collectively bargain about,” Alton said. “So we support them, and they support us.”

The union says recent bills passed in California support its position. This month, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bills requiring employers to specify in contracts when AI likenesses of performers will be used, and prohibiting commercial productions from using digital replicas of dead performers without their estate’s consent.

“I really believe that what will rapidly become apparent to the executives of these companies is they are growing increasingly isolated,” Crabtree-Ireland said. “Here we’ve got almost a unanimous legislature, both sides of the aisle all across the state, saying these basic concepts of consent need to be baked into not only collective bargaining, but also the law.”