The video game industry is in a rut that has been developing for the past couple of years. Whether it is fighting rising development costs of hundreds of millions,massive employee layoffs in 2023, or grappling with the higher prices of some of the industry’s most beloved franchises, the game industry is losing its momentum.
One issue that lingers in the background amidst the rest of the industry’s problems is the SAG-AFTRA Strike on the interactive media scene.
The strike began on July 26, 2024, and has raged against the game industry’s use of artificial intelligence in opposition to flesh and blood actors.
A tentative agreement was reached between the roughly 2,600 voice and motion actors on strike and some of the industry’s largest conglomerates. The companies include Electronic Arts Production Inc.,Activision Production Inc.,Take 2 Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc. The agreement settled on modest wage bumps and revised AI safety standards as of June 11, 2025.
While this is great for the actors’ livelihoods in this interactive art form, it is a mere band-aid trying to mend a bullet that has grown ravenous with infection. It is excellent to see union leaders step forward in this regard, but it is certainly not what the industry needs right now.
According to an article from NPR, the tentative deal includes “significant improvements in wages, protections against the exploitative use of AI, and basic health and safety standards.” On the surface, it sounds incredibly promising that workers receiving that five to seven percent increase would do wonders for whichever title they get hired into.
However, there is a catch in regard to wages – this increase still does not close the monetary gap in the deals made between game actors and writers and their counterparts in the film and television industry.
Worse, the AI agreements are more about discussing its use than outright hard limitations on it, leaving actors still in this twilight zone within the games industry regarding when AI will be able to take over an individual’s task or entire job.
That pressing concern these actors fear, the fear of having their voice taken away or careers replaced entirely with AI, is still very much in effect. A prime example comes from one of the industry’s largest juggernauts, Sony Interactive Entertainment.
According to The Verge, in early March of this year, a leaked video showcased an AI Aloy, the main character from the PlayStation 5 exclusive “Horizon Forbidden West,” responding to questions with voice prompts while in gameplay. Sony’s copyright laws on social media have since taken down the video, with Aloy’s actress, Ashly Burch, standing against the use of AI for her portrayal of the game’s heroine.
This tentative deal that companies have reached with SAG-AFTRA does not prevent other instances like this. It does not shield actors from losing their jobs. Instead, it is nothing more than a polite request between studios and union workers to limit such AI usage.
In the multibillion-dollar video game tech industry, performers, creatives and staff who create the games people love are still incredibly vulnerable and are having their careers downgraded or replaced by AI.
This tentative deal is not enough, not by a long shot. Many of these actors have no monetary residual for their work once the recording process is done via a sound booth or motion capture. The first fix the industry would have to make is to give these actors payments once the product is out there, even for cash cow franchises such as Graft Theft Auto or Call of Duty, games that have a consistent revenue stream.
Steel bars must also be put against the AI that is worming its way into actors’ shoes. The video game companies that signed the deal, like Electronic Arts and Activision, must put clear guidelines against AI so that actors can know what projects they are working on and the amount of time they will spend in those motion capture suits.
The SAG-AFTRA strike, while on hiatus, is not over. These actors, creators and crafters of some of gaming’s best have stepped forward, which does not keep their jobs safe. The game industry without these individuals would not be what it is now, and instead of fixing that, companies kicked the can further down the road.
As Swen Vinckle, director of Game of the Year-winning “Baldur’s Gate 3,” said last year at the Game Awards, “If the developers didn’t have fun, nobody was going to have any fun.” This includes the actors as well as everyone who works in the industry.
Real change does not come from half-witted compromise. For the game industry and these actors, it will come with the willingness to push back against an industry that is overdue for a wake-up call.
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