Video game voice actors have been on strike since July 2024, and with no end in sight, members of the SAG-AFTRA union held their first picket of 2025 this week and further discussed why the issue of AI is so critical.
Resident Evil Village actor and member of the negotiating committee Andi Norris told Variety that picketing paused for a period due to the Los Angeles wildfires and “everything that the world is dealing with” currently. But picketers returned to the WB Games offices in Burbank, California this week, with Norris said the aim is to ensure that people understand that the voice actors are “still fighting.”
According to the report, the two sides have come to terms on 24 of 25 items, with the one outstanding issue being protections against generative AI.
Yuri Lowenthal, who plays Spider-Man in Insomniac’s game series, said he wants the game companies to ensure actors that the voice data they’ve recorded cannot be used to “manufacture a performance that we had no say over.” Lowenthal also stressed how compensation is a critical element in the ongoing negotiations, saying, “If you’re going to do something like that, then we deserve a piece of that.”
Another actor, Scott Lambright, said they expect the rise in AI to lead to a future where there are studios that use AI and studios that do not use AI. “It’s going to create a gulf in quality between art made by passionate people and, I guess the term is slop,” the actor said.
Before this, Mass Effect actor Jennifer Hale discussed why AI is an “existential” issue in the ongoing back-and-forth for the strike.
SAG-AFTRA video game performers also went on strike in 2016, with work stoppage spanning 18 months. Hale was involved in those discussions, too, and she said a key difference between the strike of 2016 and 2024/2025 is that the two sides had productive side bars without attorneys involved.
“My understanding is that in this particular negotiation up until very, very recently, they haven’t been allowed to talk to each other. They can each talk to their attorney, and then the attorneys talk to each other. And until you have the people with the vested interest having the conversations, all that’s happening is billable hours are going up,” she said, referring to attorney fees.
The picket this week at WB Games comes not long after that company announced dramatic changes, including the cancellation of a Wonder Woman game, layoffs, and the closure of three studios.