Negotiations are still underway, but the vast majority of voice actors in the screen actors guild support a strike.
Earlier in the month, we learned that a lot of video game voice actors were not happy with their working conditions, and were threatening to strike, and send us back to the silent protagonist days of Gordon Freeman and Link. Now, it looks like things are moving forward, with The Screen Actors Guild – American Federation of Television and Radio Artists announcing that it has taken a vote on the strike, with a whopping 96.52% percent of members approving the action.
While this doesn’t necessarily indicate that a strike is imminent, it does mean that if negotiations between the voice actors and publishers such as Electronic Arts, Activision, Disney, and Warner Bros. break down, a strike can be called right away.
As we reported earlier, the threatened strike has to do with bonus payouts for successful games. “The truth is, back end bonuses are not uncommon in the video game industry. Last year, Activision’s COO took home a bonus of $3,970,862. EA paid their executive chairman a bonus of $1.5 million. We applaud their success, and we believe our talent and contributions are worth a bonus payment, too.” wrote SAG-AFTRA in a statement.
SAG-AFTRA is asking for it’s actors to be rewarded a bonus after two million sales/downloads/online subscriptions of any particular game, and then for every two million thereafter up to eight million.
I hope this gets sorted soon before developers have to resort to drastic measures. Bungie may have to get Peter Dinklage back!
Source: GameSpot
