Video game performers approve contract to officially end nearly year-long strike

By Canadian Press on July 9, 2025.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Unionized video game performers have overwhelmingly voted to approve a new contract with their employers.

The vote, whose results were announced Wednesday night by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, ends a nearly three-year-long effort from union negotiators to obtain a new contract for the performers. The process, which included an 11-month strike against several major game makers, hinged on how artificial intelligence would affect performers in the industry.

SAG-AFTRA said 95% of the members who voted favored ratification.

The new contract delivers pay raises, control over performers’ likenesses and artificial intelligence protections. A tentative contract agreement was first reached in early June between the union and an industry bargaining group consisting of several major video game companies, including Activision, Disney and Electronic Arts.

The 11-month strike “was a grueling and excruciating process, ” Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the SAG-AFTRA national executive director and chief negotiator said before the voting period closed.

“I hope and I believe that our members, when they look back on this, will say all of the sacrifices and difficulty we put ourselves through to achieve this agreement will ultimately be worth it because we do have the key elements that we need to feel confident and moving forward in this business,” Crabtree-Ireland said.

The new contract secures “industry-leading” AI protections, Audrey Cooling, a spokesperson for the video game producers involved in the deal, said before the voting closed. The proposed contract delineates clear restrictions on when and how video game companies can create digital replicas, which use AI to generate new performances that weren’t recorded by an actor.

What’s part of the tentative video game performers contract

Employers must obtain written permission from a performer to create a digital replica — consent which must be granted during the performer’s lifetime and is valid after death unless otherwise limited, the contract states.

The time spent creating a digital replica will be compensated as work time, according to the agreement. The agreement also requires the employer to provide the performer with a usage report that details how the replica was used and calculates the expected compensation.

The contract also secured an increase in performer compensation of just over 15% upon ratification and an additional 3% increase each year of the three-year contract.

Increasing awareness and knowledge about the new AI provisions among union membership is crucial moving forward if the contract is ratified, Sarah Elmaleh, a voice actor and chair of the union’s interactive branch negotiating committee, told The Associated Press before the voting period closed.

“Actually applying these guardrails in our work is going to take members paying attention, understanding what they should look out for, being engaged with their union and reporting things that look fishy or that are actually violations,” she said.

Itzel Luna, The Associated Press