Video game voice actors have finally been heard after voicing out their complaints in a months-long strike within the industry. A tentative compromise has finally been agreed upon between the actors' union, the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and the 11 video game companies they protested against.
Approximately 11 months after the strike began on Oct. 21, 2016, a tentative agreement has been reached by parties on both ends of the said strike. The two new changes focused on transparency and secondary compensation. Union leader Gabrielle Carteris discussed the changes in a letter to SAG-AFTRA members.
She wrote, "First, [the compromise] instituted a new bonus structure that provides an additional payment to performers beyond their session fee. The newly-bargained terms also include significant improvements in the area of transparency. This expanded information will empower performers and their representatives to bargain knowledgeably for compensation and to understand the nature of the performance that will be required, both of which have been a challenge for our members in an environment characterized by code names and secrecy."
In the new bonus structure, the payment must be delivered no later than the game's release date and will be calculated by the number of sessions that the actor has worked on a title. The payment will start at $75 for the first session and will be adjusted to $2100 after 10 sessions.
A back pay program was also initially proposed by the SAG-AFTRA. It aimed to give performers a full-scale payment for every 500,000 digital or physical game units sold. As an added bonus, actors would also get up to a maximum of four secondary payments should the game sell 2 million copies. Unfortunately for the union, this was rejected by the game companies.
Before the agreement, the payment scheme for video game voice actors was $100/hour, plus benefits. The gaming companies targeted by the union's strike were Activision, Blindlight, Corps of Discovery Films, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Interactive Associates, Take-Two, VoiceWorks Production, and WB Games. Gamers playing the most recent AAA gaming titles such as "Grand Theft Auto V" and "Battlefield 1" may recognize most of these companies.
With the new and improved benefits and payment structure, video game voice actors believe they will be adequately compensated for the hard work they put in bringing video game characters to life.
