Voice acting has become an essential part of the video game development process for many studios within the last two decades, with some games like the upcoming Fallout 4 boasting over 100,000 lines of recorded dialogue. We may soon get a chance to see just how entrenched the voice acting profession is within the video game industry thanks to a proposed strike by actors associated with SAG-AFTRA, a joint union composed of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists.

The proposed strike involves disagreements over the union’s current Interactive Media Agreement, which outlines industry practices toward voice actors in relation to compensation, royalties, and other legal rights. According to SAG-AFTRA’s official Interactive Negotiations site, the current Interactive Media Agreement was established in the mid-1990s, when voice acting in gaming was relatively rare, and the guidelines have not been updated since.

What does SAG-AFTRA want?

On the site, SAG-AFTRA points out four key proposals that it has submitted to some of the top video game industry companies.

Performance bonuses

The union wants game studios to offer performance bonuses to actors based on how well a game performs, offering pay bumps for every 2 million copies sold up to a cap of 8 million.

“Stunt pay”

Video game voice acting is often full of shouts, grunts, growls and other sounds that can be taxing on an actor’s vocal cords, especially after several hours of repetition.

SAG-AFTRA wants a provision for “stunt pay for vocally stressful recording sessions the same way they get stunt pay for physically demanding roles.” Much like a professional athlete could be benched due to an injury, voice actors could end up out of work if they injure their vocal cords.

Stunt Coordinators for performance capture

As with many modern films featuring CGI characters, video games studios have begun using motion capture to directly transfer an actor’s real life performance into the game.

Because some of these performance require stunts, SAG-AFTRA strongly feels that a trained stunt coordinator should be present for the recordings just like they would be on a film production. The union notes that at least one actor has already been injured during a performance capture stunt for a video game production where no stunt coordinator was present.

Transparency

Unannounced video games are a closely guarded secret in the industry, but SAG-AFTRA says studios need at least a little more transparency toward actors.

“You wouldn’t work on a TV show, commercial or film without knowing what part you’re playing and how it fits into the story, yet we are asked over and over again to do just that in interactive media,” SAG-AFTRA said on its site.

The organization asks that studios provide more information about the production, including the number of voice acting sessions involved, the expected content rating for the game (and why), and whether the production will involve vocally stressful recording sessions.

The industry’s response: Haha, no

SAG-AFTRA notes that after two rounds of negotiations with employers, all of their proposals have been rejected, and in fact the employers have shot back with a few proposals of their own including:

• The ability to fine a voice actor for $2,500 if they “show up late or are not ‘attentive to the services for which [they] have been engaged.’ “
• The ability to fine an agent $50,000-$100,000 and potentially revoke their union franchise if they do not send actors out on certain types of auditions

The employers’ proposals also claimed that motion and performance capture work is not covered by the Interactive Media Agreement, and they want to be able to “hire their own employees to play characters in video games without having to join the union.” SAG-AFTRA says that the counter-proposals also include provisions that ” reduce integration/reuse fees and allow the sunset of Cloud Gaming provisions that rollback the gains we’ve made in previous contracts.”

“Simply put, these proposals are completely without precedent in the entertainment industry and we believe they are reckless and ill-advised,” SAG-AFTRA said on its site. “We look forward to a dialogue with producers that focuses on making games better, rather than making actors’ lives worse.”

The union’s members are currently voting on whether or not to strike, and 75 percent would have to approve the strike by October 5 for it to take effect. If the union does decide to strike, it could be some time before gamers feel the consequences due to the long development time of most games. SAG-AFTRA claims that it represents “160,000 actors, announcers, broadcast journalists, dancers, DJs, news writers, news editors, program hosts, puppeteers, recording artists, singers, stunt performers, voiceover artists and other media professionals.”

In other words, a strike could be very bad news for game publishers.

Photo by @yakobusan Jakob Montrasio 孟亚柯