Per Deadline, SAG-AFTRA’s board has unanimously voted to authorize a strike in case its upcoming bargaining meeting with the games industry falls through. The voting process will take place from Tuesday, September 5 and last all the way to Monday, September 25. According to the outlet, the negotiation will include companies such as Insomniac, EA, Activision, and WB Games. SAG-AFTRA is aiming to secure protection against AI misuse and wage increases of 11% retroactively to expiration (followed by 4% increases in the second and third years of the agreement) similar to those who work under film and TV contracts, set medics, and other things such as voice stress protection.
In the event of a full blown strike, it would likely not affect upcoming fall release dates on major video games such as Spider-Man 2 by Insomniac Games. With an October 20 release date, Spider-Man 2′s motion capture and most of its voice work should be complete as most games this close to release are in the quality assurance phase of development before going gold. The same would hold true for this month’s big release of WB Games Mortal Kombat 1. Should a full strike happen, the games affected would be those in early development such as Insomniac’s Wolverine game and any post-launch content for current titles that don’t have mocap and dialogue recorded. As this affects games which use SAG actors for motion capture and voice, not all game studios would be affected because not all games use that level of tech.
The summer of strike is quickly turning into pumpkin strike season and could potentially drag out to the end of the year as no word on new talks with the WGA or SAG has emerged.
