Since December 2014, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) has been in negotiations with major video game companies over its contract for voice and motion captor actors employed by the industry. They unionised and fought for the right to those payments and won them.
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Also up for debate is whether performers would receive stunt pay for performances which are vocally stressful.
Video games might be briefly returning to the glory days of silent protagonists, if the contract dispute between SAG-AFTRA and publishers comes to a head. SAG-AFTRA wants more money for its members, but developers and publishers don’t want to pay it.
SAG-AFTRA is also seeking language covering what it called “vocally stressful” recordings.
As video game technology has advanced over the years, games are starting to look more and more like movies.
Both sides have agreed to a media blackout while voting continues, so more information is hard to come by outside of the union’s public remarks.
In the FAQ section, the first question asked is, “The demands are too outrageous to be serious”. The definition if being “attentive” is not specifically explained and the union has stated their demands “may not even be legally enforceable”.
Other requests include more transparency in projects.
“We propose that the actual title of the project should be made available to at least our representatives before we are asked to audition”, SAG-AFTRA said.
We’ll keep you informed on the progress of this matter.
The SAG-AFTRA is calling for performance bonuses to be given to actors for every 2 million copies of a game sold (or unique subscribers for online games), meaning residual payments would kick in for every 2, 4, and 6 million copies sold and so on, continuing to follow the game’s sales progress patterns as high as they go.
If the employers’ proposals for fining actors and agents or the ability to use their staff to do voiceover work in video games gets into the Interactive Media Agreement, then we are setting precedent for all the other industry union contracts. “Remember, Warner Bros. and Disney are at the table”.
Video game performers are proposing a change to four key issues in their renegotiation of the Interactive Media Agreement.
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The hashtags #PerformanceMatters and #IAmOnBoard2015 have been gaining traction on Twitter over the past 24 hours, with industry veterans including David Hayter, Steve Blum, Grey Griffin, D.C. Douglas and Ken Lally all lending their support to the campaign and voting in favour of industrial action.
