Video game publishers reach deal with voice actor union to end 11-month long strike

The massive video game voice actor strike has officially come to an end after a whopping 11 months of negotiations. The strike was organised by SAG-AFTRA, a union for American voice actors. Over the last year, members of the union have been trying to negotiate better pay and working conditions with video game publishers. Now that a deal has finally been reached, voice actors who are signed with the union are now free to take on projects once again.

In a statement made last night, SAG-AFTRA president, Gabrielle Carteris said that the “negotiating committee has reached an agreement” to end the voice actor strike against 11 video game companies, including Square Enix, Insomniac Games, EA, Take Two, Warner Bros and more.

The group of voice actors were specifically fighting for: more transparency when negotiating contracts, prevention of vocal stress for long recording sessions, secondary pay based on sales of a game and finally, for stunt experts to be on hand during motion capture sessions.

Publishers did agree to secondary payments but not based on sales of a game. Instead, actors will receive bonus payments based on the number of recording sessions they need to attend. Actors can also expect more transparency from companies, meaning they will know the codename for the game they are performing in, the genre and whether or not they are reprising a role or entering an established IP. Finally, the agreement also details an “employer commitment” to help avoid vocal stress during long recording sessions.

KitGuru Says: This strike has been going on for a long time so it's great to see that a satisfactory agreement has finally been reached. While the strike has been going on for 11 months, negotiations actually began long before that, so this has been an incredibly long process. 

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