Have game voice actors gone on strike before? What happened last time, explained

SAG-AFTRA members have voted 98.32 percent in favor of a strike authorization on the Interactive Media Agreement that covers their involvement in video games. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher hopes that these companies, who pay their CEOs lavishly, will agree to compensate their employees a fair wage in the wake of inflation.

And this isn’t the first time video game actors have led banded together against the greedy corporations and studios.

What happened during the 2016-2017 SAG-AFTRA strike?

In October 2016, SAG-AFTRA’s video game performers began an almost year-long strike against 11 major video game companies in the pursuit of better pay and working conditions. The SAG-AFTRA union had around 165,000 members at that time, 6,000 of which performed regularly for video games—be it voice acting or live-action.

Perhaps one of the biggest issues arose from the fact that video game performers—unlike other entertainment media such as film or television—are not paid residuals or secondary compensation based on how much money the game goes on to make.

When this agreement never came to be, SAG-AFTRA organized a strike that commenced on October 21, 2016. Several proposals, including cutting down four-hour-long recording sessions to two hours and an upfront payment system of standards rates regardless of the success of the game, were denied by the union.

It wasn’t until September 23, 2017 that SAG-AFTRA and the video game companies eventually came to an agreement. The terms did not cover residual payments as the union had hoped, but it did require companies to provide performers with a sliding-scale bonus payment for however many recording sessions they would need to attend. These bonuses started at $75 and went as high as $2,100 for 10 or more sessions.

The companies weren’t required to disclose details about roles that would breach confidentiality, but they were permitted to inform actors of project code names, gameplay genre, if the work was based on an existing franchise or character, and whether profanity, racial slurs, obscure technology terms, sexual or violent overtures, or physical stunts would be a recurring theme—such as signing on for Grant Theft Auto.

Even after that, SAG-AFTRA members believed the union conceded far too much to the companies, losing out on negotiation keypoints. A three-year agreement went into effect in 2017, was then extended for a further two years in 2020 to November 2022, and finally extended an additional year into 2023. 

And that brings us to the present day, where the union could launch another potential strike against the same companies if terms aren’t renegotiated to their liking.

As confirmed by the union themselves, SAG-AFTRA has been in Interactive Media Agreement negotiations with signatory video game companies (Activision Productions Inc, Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Epic Games, Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc.) since October 2022. 

Voting was opened to eligible members on Sept. 5, and the final deadline to vote was Sept. 25 at 7pm CT. With 98.32 percent voting in favor of further strike action, the union could take matters into their own hands soon.