It was a scene that produced a sense of déjà vu: a line of performers carrying SAG-AFTRA signs and walking in circles under the blazing Burbank summer sun.
This time, however, the group wasn’t film and television actors calling on studios to cede more ground on an array of demands like greater compensation in the streaming age and more comprehensive AI protections, as they did during the 2023 actors’ strike. (There were, still, some film and TV actors present.) One year later, video game performers in the same union, SAG-AFTRA, were picketing the Disney Character Voices building in Burbank as the labor group remains deadlocked with major gaming companies over an issue that one performer called “existential”: AI.
Thursday’s event was the second picket organized by SAG-AFTRA after the union called a strike against video game companies on July 25. Performers first demonstrated outside of Warner Bros. Games on August 1 before setting up shop a little over a mile away in front of the Disney building two weeks later. (Beyond Disney Character Voices and Warner Bros. Games, the union is also currently striking Activision Blizzard, Electronic Arts and Insomniac Games, among others.)
“Our members correctly believe that, if we don’t have the right [AI] protections in this contract, their ability to make a living in this business can be jeopardized within the term of this contract,” the union’s national executive director and chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, said. “This is not something we can wait for.”
Signs emblazoned “Game over” and “Time to burninate AI” could be seen amid the fray of the Disney picket. Explained Sarah Elmaleh (God of War Ragnarok, Halo Infinite), the chair of the union’s negotiating committee on this agreement, “We went into this negotiation knowing that this issue is existential and we could not have a deal without it.” She adds that when the strike was called, “We finally felt that we had done everything we possibly could” to reach a deal.
According to SAG-AFTRA’s negotiators, video game companies only would agree to partial but “dangerously incomplete” AI proposals in the parties’ last formal bargaining session, which would have left stunt and movement performers particularly vulnerable if they had been enacted. A spokesperson for the video game companies has countered that their offer was “directly responsive to SAG-AFTRA’s concerns” and would offer “meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA,” the Interactive Media Agreement. The spokesperson called this contract language “among the strongest in the entertainment industry.”
SAG-AFTRA disagreed, and though union negotiators have engaged in some “informal conversations” with the companies since the strike began July 26, no real progress has been made to ease the impasse yet.
The tone at Thursday’s picket was upbeat and relaxed, with music blasting and a drummer performing for the picketers across Olive Ave. In addition to SAG-AFTRA performers, members of the musicians’ union the American Federation of Musicians, the crew union IATSE and the writers’ union the Writers Guild of America were present at Thursday’s picket. Burbank City Council member Konstantine Anthony (himself a SAG-AFTRA member) and Writers Guild of America West board member Adam Conover could be spotted in the crowd.
That easy vibe belied the high stakes that performers talked about in conversation. Stunt and motion capture performer Jasiri Booker (Spider-Man 2) called the possibilities represented by AI “scary.” He said, “If we are just giving [companies] an unprecedented amount of our data, and not just any data, really good data, they can use our movement to create new performances over and over and over again … It could potentially spell the end of this industry for human beings working in it, at least.” Booker was hoping that the strike ends with the union “setting some sort of standard, or at least getting a foot in the door to continue these conversations.”
Fellow stunt and performance capture performer Seth Allyn Austin (The Last of Us parts one and two) said that video games helped motivate his career, as he was inspired as a young person by the movements of characters in Mortal Kombat, Spider-Man and Super Mario. He hopes to encourage a next generation of video game performers with his work. “The fact that that might be taken away because it is cheaper to have generative AI create my performance off of data that I potentially trained it to do, it’s insulting. It also just kind of kills the joy for future generations of performers,” he said.
SAG-AFTRA performers can still work on video games if companies sign the union’s Tiered-Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement or its Interim Interactive Media Agreement, which include the terms on AI that the union is seeking with major firms.
At one point during the Thursday picket, dancing broke out as rapper V.I.C.’s “Wobble” played on the speakers. Gesturing out at the crowd, Crabtree-Ireland said, “As you can see by the turnout of members here, there’s no lack of passion. There’s no lack of commitment. And we are going to continue fighting this battle until we have the protections we need in the video game contract.”
As for how he hopes the community remembers the 2024 SAG-AFTRA video game strike years from now, long after it’s over? “Well, I hope we say it was short,” he said.
