Videogame Performers' Union Hails New 80-Game Agreement as Preserving Human Creativity

This week after striking for over a month, videogame performers reached agreements with 80 games this week, reports the Associated Press. 'SAG-AFTRA announced the agreements with the 80 individual video games on Thursday. Performers impacted by the work stoppage can now work on those projects.

'The strike against other major video game publishers, including Disney and Warner Bros.' game companies and Electronic Arts Productions Inc., will continue.'

The interim agreement secures wage improvements, protections around 'exploitative uses' of artificial intelligence and safety precautions that account for the strain of physical performances, as well as vocal stress. The tiered budget agreement aims to make working with union talent more feasible for independent game developers or smaller-budget projects while also providing performers the protections under the interim agreement.

Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, SAG-AFTRA's national executive director and chief negotiator, said in a statement that companies signing the agreements are 'helping to preserve the human art, ingenuity and creativity that fuels interactive storytelling.'

'These agreements signal that the video game companies in the collective bargaining group do not represent the will of the larger video game industry,' Crabtree-Ireland continued. '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.'

Deadline calls the agreement 'a blow for major developers.'

As Deadline previously reported, AI is the one and only issue at the crux of this strike, as the union has managed to find common ground with the developers on every other provision. More specifically, the union has said that the sticking point in these negotiations is encompassing all performers in any AI provisions, without loopholes related to whether an actors' likeness is recognizable. In video games, similar to other forms of animated content, motion capture performers and voice actors are often performing as creatures or other non-human characters that make their voice and likeness unrecognizable.

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