Eleven months ago, the video game voice acting community went on strike. The voice actors' union, SAG-AFTRA, announced today that the strike against eleven video game companies has finally ended with a "tentative agreement." The strike was against publishing giants like Activision, Electronic Arts, Warner Bros. etc.
The deal was reached on Saturday morning. According to SAG-AFTRA, the terms include:
- A new bonus structure that "provides an additional payment to performers."
- This payment, which must be delivered no later than a game's release date, is calculated by the number of recording sessions an actor worked on a title.
- It starts with a $75 payment for the first session and runs up to $2,100 after 10 sessions.
Originally, the union also sought a back-end payment program that aimed to give performers residual payments for every 500,000 units sold, with a maximum of four secondary payments if a game sells 2 million copies. Unfortunately, this does not seem to be included in the deal.
Under the previous deal, video game voice actors represented by SAG-AFTRA are paid at least $100/hour, plus benefits.
"This is an important advance in this critical industry space. We secured a number of gains including for the first time, a secondary payment structure which was one of the members' key concerns," SAG-AFTRA president Gabrielle Carteris said after the closure of the strike, "The courage of our members and their fortitude these many months has been admirable and I salute them. We are always stronger together."
SAG-AFTRA chair of the Negotiating Committee, Keythe Farley, said the new structure provides voice actors with "Significantly larger" bonus payments than before. Good news, considering that previously, the success of a game meant nothing to the actor's pay. While this is still the case, they've gained multiple benefits as well.
Lead Negotiator Ray Rodriguez said in a statement that this win also improves transparency, which should help bargains. Under these new terms, companies are required to disclose more details about the game and lines. The genre, codename, whether or not it's a new IP or an existing franchise, etc. They must also be told whether they will be required to use "unusual terminology, profanity or racial slurs, whether there will be content of a sexual or violent nature and whether stunts will be required."
Hopefully, this will help union members in the future. Considering the plights of the video game voice acting community was previously mostly unknown, this is a positive.
On the other end of the bargain, companies have reportedly sought to fine performers for being late or distracted during a recording session. They also proposed having agents "submit performers for low-paying 'atmospheric voice' session or face fines, and a possible revocation of their union franchise." They also apparently sought a provision that would allow them to use internal staff to do voice work outside of the purview of the SAG_AFTRA collective bargaining agreement.
The new deal will be reviewed and potentially confirmed at a board meeting in October. Considering the importance of voice actors in the video game industry, this could be big news once it's finalized. Keep it tuned to GameZone to hear the end results.
