User blog:ARTaylor/Voice Actors on Strike

In the first major Hollywood strike in almost a decade, SAG-AFTRA went on strike agains the video game industry at 12:01 AM on Friday morning. It is unlikely to be as disruptive as the Writers Guild of America walkout from 2007 to 2008 and its effect on video games is unclear at this moment.

The strike concerns residuals and new technologies as the union wants secondary payments for successful games while the industry is refusing to grant them. The union is boycotting companies including Activision, Blindlight, Corps of Discovery Films, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions, Formosa, Insomniac, Interactive Associates, Take 2 Interactive, VoiceWork Producions, and WB Games. The strike covers al games made by these companies that went into production after February 17th, 2015. On Monday, union members will picket Electronic Arts in Play Vista, CA.

The union's official strike notice said to its members: "The National Board of Directors instructs all SAG-AFTRA members to withhold performing services and auditioning for work under the Interactive Media Agreement with respect to struck games for the following struck employers effective midnight of October 21, 2016. All covered services must be withheld, including, but not limited to: voice acting; motion or performance capture work; background work; principal on camera work (including singing, dancing and performing stunts); authorizing the use of your voice or of a sound-a-like voice in a videogame; consenting to the reuse of prior work into a struck game; performing on a trailer for a struck game and performing on ‘downloadable content (DLC)’ or other ancillary content connected to a struck game."