Video Game Performers Win Pay Raises, AI Protections

Unionized video game performers have overwhelmingly voted to approve a new contract with their employers. The vote, whose results were announced Wednesday night by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, ends a nearly three-year-long effort from union negotiators to obtain a new contract for the performers. The process, which included an 11-month strike against several major game makers, hinged on how artificial intelligence would affect performers in the industry. SAG-AFTRA said 95% of the members who voted favored ratification.

The new contract delivers pay raises, control over performers' likenesses, and artificial intelligence protections, the AP reports. A tentative contract agreement was first reached in early June between the union and an industry bargaining group consisting of several major video game companies, including Activision, Disney, and Electronic Arts. Video game performers "endured a great deal of sacrifice throughout the 11-month strike," Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator, said in a press release announcing the results.

• "Now that the agreement is ratified, video game performers will be able to enjoy meaningful gains and important AI protections, which we will continue to build on as uses of this technology settle and evolve," Crabtree-Ireland wrote.
• Under the new contract, employers must obtain written permission from a performer to create a digital replica—consent which must be granted during the performer's lifetime and is valid after death unless otherwise limited.
• The time spent creating a digital replica will be compensated as work time, according to the agreement. The agreement also requires the employer to provide the performer with a usage report that details how the replica was used and calculates the expected compensation.
• The contract also secured an increase in performer compensation of just over 15% upon ratification and an additional 3% increase each year of the three-year contract.
• Increasing awareness and knowledge about the new AI provisions among union membership is crucial moving forward, Sarah Elmaleh, a voice actor and chair of the union's interactive branch negotiating committee, told the AP before the voting period closed. "Actually applying these guardrails in our work is going to take members paying attention, understanding what they should look out for, being engaged with their union and reporting things that look fishy or that are actually violations," she said.