Game voice actors picket E3, vote on strike

The mainstream success of games has resulted in some not-so-mainstream profits. Several publishers, developers, and licensees have all seen some new wealth as a result of gaming's popularity, and now the industry's voice actors want a piece of the pie.

Since last month, the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists have been trying to negotiate a new labor agreement with top game publishers with regard to voice acting. A strike was narrowly averted when both sides decided to extend contracts. The extension ended May 13, however, and now actors are saying, "Enough is enough."

Actors had previously been working for one-time up-front fees, but now, with some games eclipsing the box office take of some of Hollywood's top films, the actors are asking for residuals. The residuals would pay actors based on the success of the game, rather than providing a simple union hourly wage.

"AFTRA deeply regrets the producers' intransigence in being unwilling to acknowledge the significant contributions of our members to this exploding and profitable sector of the entertainment industry," stated AFTRA national president John P. Connolly last week. "To deny working class performers their fair share of the tremendous profits their labor helps to generate is illogical, unreasonable, and unjust. It is simply shortsighted to believe that consumers don't care about the artistic quality of the characters."

Both AFTRA and SAG have sent ballots to their members to determine whether a work stoppage should indeed go into effect. The ballots are due June 7, and a 75 percent and 67 percent vote in favor of a strike from SAG and AFTRA members, respectively, is needed to initiate a strike.

Howard Fabrick, the lawyer representing the game publishers, says the union actors are asking for more than they deserve. According to Fabrick, the sessions to record voice acting in games are mere blips in the thousands of man-hours put into the development of games.

Aside from the occasional A-list actor signing on to do major voice work, such as James Caan and Robert Duvall in EA's The Godfather or Charlize Theron in Majesco's Aeon Flux, others don't think voice acting influences game sales.

"[The voice actors] have no leverage," Yankee Group analyst Mike Goodman told the Associated Press. "In 99 percent of all games, the voice actors are irrelevant. You replace one voice actor with another nonunion actor, and no one will know the difference."

Publishers have offered raising the hourly wage for actors by more than a third, but the unions say residuals are standard practice in the entertainment industry.

Earlier in the month, SAG national president Melissa Gilbert noted, "[Game] producers rejected even a modest proposal of a residual structure that would cost them less than 1 percent of the revenue generated on only the highest-grossing games. There is only one way to describe their position: completely unreasonable and lacking in any appreciation of the contributions made by actors to the enormous profits enjoyed by this industry. If producers want their games to maintain a professional quality, they need to offer an agreement that shows greater respect to the professional performers who make these games come alive."

GameSpot will have more on the story as it develops.