Game Studios Launch Attack Site Against Striking Voice Artists

On Monday (24th October), members of SAG-AFTRA, the voice actors union, began a strike, withdrawing their labour from particular companies within the video game development industry after negotiations for more favourable treatment of voice artists collapsed. A number of affected companies – including Disney, Activision, and EA – issued a stark response on Friday (28th October), launching a website that attacked SAG-AFTRA, accusing it of manufacturing the strike by withholding details of negotiations from its members.

“SAG-AFTRA never communicated to its membership what was on the table when, on October 19, it declined to counter the Companies’ last proposal and pushed away from the negotiations,” the site, sagaftravideogames.com, reads.

“Our offer of a 9% wage increase accelerates the entire payment into the first year – an improvement over the three-year, 3% per year increase that the Union was seeking. It also includes for the first time Additional Compensation for Principal Performers (who work on more than one session on a game),” the post on the front page of the site continues. “This structure for Additional Compensation is so close to what SAG-AFTRA is demanding monetarily that we believe most performers would conclude the differences are not worth striking over.”

The full list of companies affiliated with the SAG-AFTRA attack website:

• Activision Productions, Inc.
• Blindlight, LLC
• Disney Character Voices, Inc.
• Electronic Arts Productions, Inc.
• Formosa Interactive, LLC
• Insomniac Games, Inc.
• Take 2 Productions, Inc.
• VoiceWorks Productions, Inc.
• WB Games, Inc.

SAG-AFTRA has taken legal action against the site, sending a cease and desist to the companies responsible in order to get them to take the site down.

“Management has a responsibility to negotiate in good faith,” Ray Rodriguez, Chief Contracts Officer and Lead Negotiator, said in a press release. “We could be making actual progress on the crucial economic, health and safety issues that led to this strike rather than having ‘Top Gun for Hire’ crisis PR advisors setting up misleading websites in an attempt to confuse people.”

“The companies are spending more for a week of service from their PR hired gun than video game voice artists are asking for in secondary compensation on the most successful games in the world,” he added. “This is the crux of our problem with these companies. They are not seriously addressing critical issues including how human beings are valued in the brutal technology marketplace. Our members want a deal. They want the respect they deserve for the extraordinary contributions they make to these companies’ products and bottom lines. They want serious consideration of their issues, not the indignity of a deceptive website.”

“Our members have a message for the companies and their hired guns: Let’s get serious about getting a deal,” Rodriguez said.

The SAG-AFTRA attack site is still operational at the time of writing.