Video Games are about to sound a little different... (SAG-AFTRA Strike)

Long story short, the SAG-AFTRA union is officially on strike.

I wonder how much we will actually notice, care, and most importantly, vote with our wallets. I'm sure enthusiasts, like Giant Bomb users, will notice and care, but I seriously doubt we will stop buying games because they lack a certain person's voice.

Then I consider the part of the market that doesn't concern itself with video game credits, where the majority of sales come from. As long it sounds decent enough, they probably don't care. The cynic in me is looking at the economics of this and doesn't see video game companies relenting in their position.

One last thing I'm thinking about is how long before we will feel it. This season's game are obviously done, but what about games in the middle of production a year or so from now.

Well doesn't look like my favorite publishers are listed (it's mainly the US ones), so won't affect me much.

I do hope as a result of this that everybody gets better working conditions, the game industry really grind ppl up

I'll all for people being paid and treated fairly, but to be honest, their two big reasons for striking don't seem to be worth striking over, and they look unreasonable.

Although I won't take anyone to task for standing up for themselves and trying to get what they feel they deserve, this just seems like a lost cause to me. Successful strikes tend to work on two levels. First, it creates a short-term crisis situation that generates leverage for the union. Second, it generates awareness of the issues in the mind of the public, which helps create PR pressure towards reaching a favorable resolution.

I don't see the VA side of this having either one. As far as the first issue goes, compare it to something like policing or professional sports. There, a strike generates immediate leverage. A city cannot function without cops, and a sports league cannot exist without players. Sure, in the long term you can always hire replacements/strike breakers or whatever, but short term it creates a pretty heavy crisis situation that generates momentum for an immediate solution.

In comparison, video games don't "need" voice actors. There are plenty of very good games that do just fine with no or minimal voice acting. Short term, it'll probably screw with the schedule of some games in production, but a lot of soon to be released games have already recorded and others can probably push-back VO recording a bit to see if there's a resolution. Future games can just design around the problem. So it's not like this strike is grinding the industry to a halt like it would if NFL players walked out.

Also, if things get really bad, I'm willing to bet there are probably a lot of people companies can pull in off the streets with the promise of "working in video games" to do some VA. A ton of those people will suck, but I bet there'd be enough talented ones to fill in the gaps and knock some games out.

As far as the awareness side of the issue goes I'll say this: I follow gaming pretty closely and until I heard about this on Austin and Patrick's podcast last Monday, I wasn't even aware this was still a thing. While I do remember hearing about this conflict a while ago, I honestly thought there had already been a strike and the whole issue had been sorted. If awareness is that bad with people who follow gaming, it isn't even going to register with the general public. Plus, how many gamers are really going to care? Outside of four of five big names, I can't name a single voice actor. For every Nolan North or Jennifer Hale, there's a dozen random shlubs buried in the credits as "additional voices #7" whose presence I don't really remember and probably wouldn't miss.

@hunkulese: I don't know, if I'm interpreting this right it seems that voice actors are offered jobs from a publisher but not told what the game is they are working on. That seems kind of nuts to me. Imagine if film actors weren't allowed to choose their film projects based on the film, but had to blindly accept jobs from various production companies.

Probably because they want to prevent leaks. Rockstar isn't leaking their newest project to some voice actor who gets 15 minutes on camera.

There demands are entirely reasonable. Voice actors have a right to know what game their are going to be working on ahead of time. Also, getting a bonus if the game sells more than two million copies is not that much to ask for.

Really, it depends on the bonus. It also depends on the game, and the importance of the story and voice acting. With something like GTA V or Mass Effect 2, voice work from the lead cast is pretty important. With something like Call of Duty or Street Fighter V, I'd say voice work contributes a fairly small amount to the overall package.

It's also kind of vague on who would get those bonuses. Would Rockstar really be required to play every voice of a background NPC extra money because their game sold well?

I might agree that their demands are reasonable--I certainly did when it came to protection their vocal health due to long and grueling sessions--but I don't think they've explained their situation as well this time.

And yeah. That. The movie industry might not work that way, but video games aren't movies. The gaming industry goes to great lengths to reveal games at the best time, and has done so far longer than games even had voice actors. I can understand the frustration from both parties, though.

Some additional info from IGN:

The current deal from the...Companies offered an immediate 9 percent pay rise should SAG-AFTRA union members accept the offer by December 1....The 9 percent pay rise would see a typical four-hour voice-over session and ‘on-camera day’ offer a new rate of $900 plus an additional compensation of up to $950 per game depending on the amount of sessions worked. SAG-AFTRA, however, feels the current offer doesn’t meet the union’s demands in terms of fair pay.

The other area SAG-AFTRA is gunning for change in is for vocal stress. If you’ve ever played a Borderlands game and heard rabid bandits screaming maniacally, you’ll be familiar with what vocal stress sounds like. That said, SAG-AFTRA defines it as so: “Voice actors are routinely required to simulate painful deaths, creature voices, grunts, barks and other stressful vocalizations that can strain and damage their voices, sometimes permanently.”

What SAG-AFTRA wants is for recording sessions to be just two hours in length to avoid vocal damage, but still paid at the four-hour rate.

I'm not going to deny the impact that good voice acting has on a game, but asking for the same amount of pay for half the time probably won't go over well. The stress part I get, but the same amount of money? Not 80%? Or 75%? Plus, they were offering $225 an hour as is. I mean, I'd take $225 an hour, but I'm not a voice actor, so perhaps my opinion is uninformed.

I agree with some other people in this thread that I don`t know how effective this strike is actually going to be.

As for their demands a lot of them seem reasonable (not having trained people there during mocap stuns seems insane), but some of their demands are a bit more dodgy. Mostly the bonus bit. It depends a bit on the game, but while in movies people will often go to see it based on the actors involved (if they are famous enough) I think vert few people decide which games to buy based on voice actors (escpecially the general public that doesn`t follow video games closely). Their examples of who got bonuses in the video game industry was the CEOs of EA and Activision. so if not even anyone on the development team is getting them I think it`s kind of insane for voice actors to expect it. I guess it doesn`t hurt anyone if they do, but considering of fucking bad a lot of working conditions in video games are for the developers I can`t muster that much symphathy for voice actors not getting a bonus if they are otherwise decently paid.

From my understanding, the union doesnt actually have that many members though it does have the big named guys. So really this could just lead to a changing of the guard.

Of course you would take $225 an hour. Then you would reduce that fee via taxes, agency fees, etc, and end up with about 50-60%. Then take into account that going through a session with extreme vocal stress will put you on the mend for days, which means you cannot perform any other work. You are causing damage that potentially wrecks your future income.

As usual, the public thinks these demands unreasonable. But remember that this comes after trying to negotiate several times, which the companies have shut down every time.

Finally we might have more than 3 different people voicing the leads in games.

I hope they're successful and I hope this leads to more unionization and potential strikes in the game industry.

I fully support the strike and hope they're successful, but I really doubt they will be. They don't have nearly enough visibility or leverage. Also, I don't fully understand the process of making video games, but I imagine that most VO work occurs at least several months before the game goes gold. Which means it'll be a while before consumers even could notice, since for the next several months at least we'll still be getting games that have their voices. Do the folks on strike have enough other sources of income to stay on strike long enough until we even could notice?

Also, changing voice actors for a character would be really jarring, but for new characters, who'd even notice? If Mass Effect 4 is affected by this, I'd really care a lot if it was a direct sequel of ME3; Jennifer Hale is female Shepard and there's no getting around that. But since ME4 has an all-new cast of characters, I'd never even know if any of the voices sound different from what Bioware originally intended.

Bobby Kotick's nephew is going to do a Dinklage impression for all of the characters in Destiny 2.

While I agree with their reasoning, I couldn't tell you the last time I've cared about the script, let alone the voice acting in a game. Oh wait, what if the impact of this is that we get Resident Evil 1 quality acting back?

@an_ancient: I'm 100% on board with that, the world could do with more bad voice acting xD

One of the odd catches is that it only affects games that started development after February of 2015, so it might not be noticeable for a bit of time.

I am all for the strike. The Union has been working off of a contract from the 90's, and with conditions that lag far behind television and movies. Their demands are not outrageous; bonuses for when games hit certain sales milestones up to 8 million copies sold, and more transparency about the role they are being offered.

They don't have the right to either of these things, they have the choice to not take on the work if they don't like the terms.

That list is deceptive on paper. Many of those studios are voice acting specific studios many game developers contract casting and recording to. There aren't that many game studios that perform in-house voice acting for a number of reasons. As such, even if your favorite game developer is not listed that does not mean they will not be impacted by this strike.

While the companies are willing to disclose potentially objectionable material that may be involved in the role, they refuse to tell the performer’s agent what game the actor will be working on.

So they're striking partially because they're not told what videogame they're being paid to work on? Ho-kay, I'm sure there are plenty of people looking to get into the industry right now and this pettiness is great news for them!

I'm almost positive I've heard of actors auditioning for unidentified movies. Warning actors of potentially objectionable material should be enough.

And why should voice actors be guaranteed a bonus based on sales? Has anyone ever purchased a game based on who the voice actor was?

So would I for an ordinary job, but calling it $225/hour misses some of the nuances of the issue. If a four-hour session is too long, I suspect that means the actor would do at most two two-hours sessions per day (or one four-hour session per day if paid at the old rate). That means 20 working hours per week, giving a total income of $234,000/year. Take agent fees, tax, downtime between roles etc. out of that, and you end up with a high, but not totally unreasonable, income.

SAG-AFTRA seem to be asking for four payments (at two, four, six, and eight million sales):

It’s a simple approach to secondary payments, and it’ll net you up to four extra union scale payments for your performance (currently $3300.00).[1]

Though GameSpot are reporting that SAG-AFTRA asked for four payments at 500,000 unit intervals up to two million sales. I'm not sure from where that came - I can't find that on the SAG-AFTRA site anywhere. I definitely agree that who would be eligible for such a bonus is vague, though I suspect it'd be more obvious to people familiar with the contracts. I'm not a huge fan of this idea, but it doesn't sound totally unreasonable. A game very rarely sells more due to specific voice talent, and personally I'd rather total compensation be agreed up-front - it seems easier for the developers to budget for voice talent, and if the up-front compensation is a fair rate the bonus seems unnecessary.

If I understand it correctly, SAG-AFTRA are asking for title of the game plus the role before a contract is signed, so presumably auditions etc. can take place without revealing the game (I may be wrong on this):

SAG-AFTRA has proposed that the actual title of the project and the role being hired for should be made available to at least our representatives before signing a contract. We have also heard stories of actors coming into a session and being asked, without prior consent, to do content that contains simulated sex scenes and racial slurs. [2][1]

As this is immediately prior to when the actor would begin working on the game and make educated guesses as to the nature of the game, I'm not sure that this would be a huge source of leaks. Perhaps an immediate NDA before revealing the title/role would be appropriate (this may already be the case and/or have been proposed, but I can't find it anywhere).

Overall I'm on the fence about if I support the strike or not. Some of the issues raised by SAG-AFTRA seem reasonable (shorter vocal sessions, better transparency, better safety requirements), and their proposed remedies aren't outrageous. However, the vagueness around some of the measures (e.g. which VAs would be eligible for the bonuses) isn't great ("session payments per principal performer"[2] may be specific enough to some, but isn't clear enough to get public support (I suspect)), and the one-size-fits-all model of two million sales equals bonus seems questionable (F2P vs. $10 downloadable title vs. $60 triple-A release are very different cases even if the number of sales/subscriptions is the same). I'm also not a fan of the emotive language used by SAG-AFTRA:

The top games make money. This industry has grown, boomed and morphed into something bigger and more lucrative than many other segments of the entertainment industry, and it continues to do so. [...] Going nonunion would mean that the producer would lose access to all professional union talent for all their union games.[3]

More importantly, they would also be completely undermining the sacrifices that all of the union actors are making for their benefit.[3]

The first line starts to make this feel more like a shakedown than a reasoned discussion about fair compensation and conditions, which I doubt is the intent but that is how I initially read it. The second line feels like an appeal to emotion, which again feels out of place/unneccesary if making a reasoned and reasonable case.

It's a tricky one for sure.

[1] http://www.sagaftra.org/interactive/what-we-stand-for

[2] https://www.sagaftra.org/files/whywestrike.pdf

[3] http://www.sagaftra.org/interactive/faqs

@jdizzlefoshizzle said:

I think the issue is that VAs are notorious for spoiling marketing plans, and employers aren't willing to be strict enough with the consequences to discourage that behavior. And publishers are notorious for caring a LOT about their carefully crafted media strategy.

Just a guess really. I wonder what exactly that means as well. They aren't told the title, or they aren't given any information about the role they are playing or the piece as a whole? Those are worlds apart. If you can't tell them what the name of the title is or the franchise it belongs to I can understand that to an extent at least based on the secrecy of the industry to guide marketing along smoothly. But if you aren't telling them about the project before they sign a contract, that's crappy.

I imagine that the project would only be revealed to actors who are chosen for a role. That would be fair in my opinion, assuming it's before they sign a contract and are given an opportunity to make an informed decision.

According to SAG-AFTRA:

We have also heard stories of actors coming into a session and being asked, without prior consent, to do content that contains simulated sex scenes and racial slurs. To be placed in a session, and asked to do a sex scene and racial slurs that will be forever tied to an actor’s name should be a choice made by an actor prior to booking.

Which definitely falls more on the latter part of title vs. nothing about the role. It's difficult to say how common it is though (I'd assume not very from the way SAG-AFTRA say "We have also heard stories..." rather than "It is common for actors...", but that's just a guess on my part)

It seems incredible that SAG-AFTRA are asking for non-union-members to respect the strike (ie avoid working on jobs for these companies).

When a proper union is working, they promote the rights of all workers in the sector and improve rights. They show value (in what changes they get enacted by companies/groups/legislators after campaigning) and so inspire workers to provide dues, plus offer side-benefits with good prices (various insurance etc they can get good rates on due to buying "in bulk"). When those unions go on strike then everyone in the sector knows they do good work, they improve conditions, they are a force for good that should have their strikes respected (you can't join a strike as a non-member but you can not be a scab/strikebreaker and avoid new gigs from the companies being striked against if a contractor).

However, when a union is promoting wage theft by getting contracts that restrict companies into only employing union members to work on all projects they and their subcontractors work on, why would a non-union-member not jump at the job? This is a job that the strike is (end goal of the union) about making sure the non-union-member can never be considered for. A job they would have to pay their dues as a tax to get access to (even if they don't see paying for union management to represent them as good value). It absolutely makes no sense to respect such a striking union's wishes as they are working against the rights of some workers to produce an exclusive club for other workers who get access to exclusive jobs. That's a bad union. SAG-AFTRA have a history of working towards contracts that block non-union-members from accessing work. To hear them ask non-union VAs to support for this strike is perverse!

Key distinction between acting and any other regular job out there: this is not stable work. You are hired for the duration of the project which nets you an agreed-upon fee, that's it. Some can go days, weeks, even months without work, and those are the ones we call working actors.

I was negotiating a deal for myself where the fee would've been roughly $12,000 for many hours of work. But then that fell through, probably because someone else agreed to do it for a fraction of that price. That would've been a good payday for about two weeks worth of non-stop recording. But it ended up being nothing, and I had spent days negotiating for no gain.

Don't equate the hourly rate into a week. This field doesn't work that way.

@rahf: The unreasonable part isn't the hourly rate; I doubt the work is stable enough for it to actually result in a six figure sum per year for the vast majority of people. I'm more concerned with wanting the same payment for half the work; I could see changing the amount of hours due to stress concerns (just two hours a day, or two hour periods with a mandated rest period between), or negotiating a dollar amount that is a appreciable fraction of the current rate for those two hours (say, 80%), but asking for the exact same pay for half the work reads poorly.

@mirado: You shouldn't see it as their final offer, but rather as one bullet point for future negotiations. Remember that there have been multiple negotiation attempts, and all have fallen through when the video game publishers refused to play ball. So we now have the union making its demands public, which does not close the door for future compromise.

Again, it is not fair to judge a union's demands as unreasonable when you have no experience of the actual process itself. It could be unreasonable, but at the same time we don't know what a VO project has demanded of its actors.

Until the actual labor in video games unionize and stop having to work slave hours for little pay, I can care less about voice actors and their "4 hour" work days.

Well it might affect your games since non-US publisher might use 3rd party contractors to get the English voice work done. Perhaps, those 3rd parties will be affected and then down the chain. Just food for thought.

Slightly shifting the topic here, but does anyone else get the feeling that this process is being driven more by the "big names" in the VA industry rather than the rank and file? The interviews I've seen are all quoting people like Jennifer Hale or Nolan North. On the one hand, that makes a certain amount of sense because their the best known names so anyone reporting on this would naturally want their opinion. But it just seems like they have most of the voice in the union too. I'd be interested in seeing how the rank and file feels about this whole situation.

I agree that it looks bad. I think it would have been smarter for them to demand something along the lines of Little League Baseball rules regarding rest days for pitchers. In other words some sort of graduated system where based on the number of hours of recording, they are guaranteed some number of days off before the studio can book them for another session (i.e. if they record 8 hours, they get a full week. If they record 4 hours, they get 3 days. If they only do a couple of lines they can work on consecutive days, etc.)

You cannot record 8 hours if there are incidentals, hits, and death screams. It would completely wreck the instrument and shelve any other projects that were to be recorded the following week. Plus, you'd prolong the recording process for main characters by weeks, even months. The actors would be forced to take these rest days, because of its status as a union mandate, and be unable to accept any other work during those days. Nobody would accept this, especially not the actors themselves.

Regarding your question: Jennifer Hale and Nolan North are visible because they are known. The industry leaders and veterans have a larger pull for the public opinion, whereas their voices within the union weigh roughly equal to other veterans. We know nothing about their influence on the union as a whole. This is not their idea, it's the union's idea.

Far as I know, most people are all for this. At least the actors I know.

Just in case anyone was thinking this is a bit harsh on this particular union, here's some of the details of membership and why this is something where signing contracts that force union-only gigs is very damaging for worker rights [even the rights of union members as this completely divides a sector and locks you into only one camp or the other], especially workers who don't have literally thousands of dollars in spare cash to hand (and why this isn't just a tax on income - something you could pay even if that is shockingly close to wage theft when it happens in any other context):

Joining isn’t cheap. There’s a $3,000 one-time initiation fee for new members joining the New York or Los Angeles locals, although other cities have a reduced rate. After a performer joins, she’s subject to annual base dues in addition to work dues, which are a percentage of earnings for the year.

The steep price means that joining might not be worth it for some performers still gaining experience. SAG-AFTRA members can’t take nonunion work because they’re subject to “Global Rule One,” which states: “No member shall work as a performer or make an agreement to work as a performer for any producer who has not executed a basic minimum agreement with the guild which is in full force and effect.”

In other words, once you’re in the world of union work, there’s no going back.

Seems like a lot of support for this coming from the industry (especially indie devs who got out of AAA and the press) to just 100% support the union as the good guys and paint any industry members who don't support this as bitter devs who should just unionise to also get residuals in their contracts.

I look forward to reading about how EA testers in 10 years time are forced to pay $1k up front and then a cut of their salary and annual fee towards a mandatory union because it's a union shop and you can't work if you'[re not a member. Plenty of young eager things working their way to get that cash together and "get your foot on the ladder to the industry with $100k/year salaries" that can be fed through the industry machine but this time also subsidising a load of union management who hold publishers feet to the fire almost an ineffectively as the current industry orgs who claim to work for labour rights. Personally, I can't think of anything worse.

So either voice actors will get a better deal, sure why not. Or we might see a new wave of voices, doesn't sound bad also.

Voice acting has become so strange in video games, they have gotten remarkably better and more integral in many games, but I still don't see it as something that is as crucial as many other things. Whereas bad voice acting tends to have bigger negative impact...or interesting results depending on what you are after.

@monkeyking1969: @zombiepie

Yeah that's a good point.

Ah well if this makes things better for game industry workers, I'll live.

What I hope might come from this is the people in the game industry saying, "You know what? We need a union, we need to organize, and we need to start now."