Topic: The screen actors Guild is seeking a strike against video game companies

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What’s that

@EaglyBird no, I mean, what’s sag-aftra. Honest question.

@EaglyBird aaah, I see. thanks.

@EaglyBird might make it more immediately understandable for others like me

Uh oh- somebody at Ubisoft.

I mostly play Japanese deved games so I suspect this won’t impact me as much but if it delays/impacts TES6 when that game is already like 5 years away… I won’t be civil is all I can say.

I would hope that if any job opportunities are opened by the proposed strike that others take them. Especially since product delays/production halts impact more than than the just the folks putting on the strike. Wages are stagnant everywhere, don’t prevent everyone else from doing their jobs to strong arm pay just for yourself.
Unions only look out for Unions and they don’t care whom else they impact trying to force a change that favors themselves. I’m all for pay negotiations but I will never support anything that totally halts work. Or that strong arms people into joining a union if they don’t want to.
I’ve seen Unions run midsized companies into the ground and because voice actors are essentially freelancers that want to impose a set standard but their members work for devs of all ranges of funding, I suspect they will do the same eventually to smaller/cash strapped devs or force them to shelve ambitious projects in favor of what sells and that they can afford the voice acting budget.

if a bunch of people trying to earn a fair wage causes you inconvenience because you don't get your product on time, well, then, actually, that's just fine, now that i think about it. you can be inconvenienced. that doesn't affect anyone. people getting paid fairly is waaaaay more important than you getting a video game.

you will be perfectly civil if there's a delay lol. you'll make an angry message board post and then go back to being mildly inconvenienced without anyone noticing or caring.

Voice acting really does bring a game to life, I mean look at Charles might be a really bad example he doesn’t really talk, but his voice is iconic and is the reason why Mario feels the way he does today! There’s also many RPG where voices are really important, in short Voice actors are very important and I don’t mind if some games need to go on pause so they can get paid fairly, and the game devs they are planning to strike really don’t have an excuse to be doing doing that, like seriously there not some small company’s, it’s not really acceptable. And just messed up. (Sorry if this opinion is straight up trash, I normal avoids anything I might lack some knowledge in, but I think I have enough to give an opinion on this)

I hope this strike can bring some results AND. good changes. Though, that's all I'm saying since I have A SOLUTELY no idea on how strikes & unions work.

UK info, but should still be applicable to US.
https://www.nidirect.gov.uk/articles/introduction-trade-unions

When you strike, you don't get paid, but also, you cannot be sacked. You can only strike if the union strikes.

They sure are making it easy for companies to switch to AI haha. For people who don't think the tech is there yet, it is. There's a 24/7 AI stream on Twitch of Trump/Biden that uses AI voice models that are indistinguishable from the real things (and that's just one simple example) . It even uses the chat as prompt to decide what to talk about.

So yeah, they're on a slippery slope with this one. They should be happy to be collecting checks while they can because they can picket all they want but that won't stop the progression of technology and the rich folk who exploit it to become richer.

You’re not necessarily wrong, but the voice actors still deserve to get paid fairly.

While I think that is an accurate - if super pessemistic - reading of the future, I also think that the use and abuse of AI will be curtailed, and it could be for stuff like this. There is enough noise out there from the scientific communities and politicians for this to be a possibility.

AI is a lot like CGI, it’s one of those things people will complain about it’s very corporate/non-arty but really they want that corporate non-arty entertainment as real art is too boring. AI will be programmed to make sure the plotting has that warm comfortable feeling of familiarity of predictability, the most popular trending references are sure to be included and has an appropriate ratio of jokes per lines in the script.

The same way people pay attention to a script when it’s written by someone like Aaron Sorkin or Charlie Knaufman they will be excited to see Chat Script Bot 3000!

When you have greedy woke corporations up against insufferable woke union activists, the only thing to do is root for casualties. But at the end of the day, every A-list Hollywood actor can be replaced by someone equally talented with less baggage at 5% of the cost (or outsourced to another country, as foreign media like Squid Games and Parasite can hit big ratings) to make a movie just as good. When the most famous voice actor in gaming retired, people were sad but the show went on and we can be reasonably confident the next Mario game will be just as good as the last one. Many traffic cops got laid off the day the traffic light was invented, but it improved public safety and user experience. The same will be true for AI in other areas. It comes down to adapting (e.g. learning to code).

@EaglyBird I explained my thoughts, hence I discussed the matter thoughtfully. If lived experience and emotions and stuff are essential to art (artists’ compelling personal stories can indeed add value), they can indicate as such and consumers can choose to buy their works over those produced by AI (just as people can choose locally sourced handcrafted furniture over those produced in factories).

For those wondering, here are the studios that could be effected by the strike
Activision Productions Inc.,
Blindlight LLC, (Bethesda, Halo, and others)
Disney Character Voices Inc.,
Electronic Arts Productions Inc.,
Epic Games, Inc.,
Formosa Interactive LLC, (Naughty Dog, Riot Games, Mihoyo*)
Insomniac Games Inc.,
Take 2 Productions Inc.,
VoiceWorks Productions Inc. (THQ Nordic)
WB Games Inc.

*Mihoyo might of dropped this studio because of them withholding paychecks from their English Voice Actors, possible legal action could also take place because of it.

Interesting interview with one of the inventors of Deep Mind

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/02/i-hope-im-wrong...

@Euler - what's a woke corporation?

@Rambler Here's a few examples: