Video game voice actors overwhelmingly agree to strike

Many prolific actors voted for the strike, with 96.52% of the union members voting in favour.

The vote doesn’t necessarily mean that there’s going to be a strike, but it gives union leaders a powerful bargaining chip when they return to the table. The union’s website said that its negotiating committee for the contract would now “seek to return to the bargaining table and continue to press for a fair resolution on behalf of performers working in video games”. It expired when 2014 came to a close, however, and SAG-AFTRA has attempted to re-negotiate the agreement in February and June.

The voice actors aren’t officially on strike yet, but its members now agree to the possibility of a strike, should one be necessary.

The strike authorization has been supported by several notable voice actors including Elias Toufexis (“Deus Ex’s” Adam Jensen), D.C. Douglas (“Resident Evil’s” Wesker) and Jennifer Hale (“Mass Effect’s” Femshep).

SAG-AFTRA planss to ask publishers like Activision, EA, Warner Bros., Disney and others to go back to discussions over working conditions.

SAG-AFTRA is asking for it’s actors to be rewarded a bonus after two million sales/downloads/online subscriptions of any particular game, and then for every two million thereafter up to eight million.

The union contended that such bonuses are not uncommon in the video game industry, noting that Activision’s chief operating officer received a bonus last year of $3,970,862 and Electronic Arts paid their executive chairman a bonus of $1.5 million.

Our previous report covered the details of what SAG-AFTRA was after, but the general gist is that it wanted actors to be entitled to residuals for games selling upwards of 2m copies, stunt coordinators on hand for risky motion-capture shoots, stunt pay for “vocally stressful” recording sessions, and more transparency in what their work would be used for. “We applaud their success, and we believe our talent and contributions are worth a bonus payment, too.” wrote SAG-AFTRA in a statement.