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SAG-AFTRA Gears Up For Possible Strike Against Video Game Industry As Board Approves Authorization Vote By Guild Membership

Fake

Member
People fighting for their jobs and to avoid being replaced by AI just for companies to make some more free money.

Neogaf: "lol fuck off".

Never change nerds.

Or maybe, just maybe, those people 'fighting for their jobs' could think twice before making defensive posts against the company they work, lootboxes or anti-consumer tatics over social media?


BTW, you came to a gaming forum to call other folks nerd? Don't you have a mirror in your house or something?
 
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ByWatterson

Member
We're about to learn about a lot of brilliant, non-union actors.

I can't imagine a faster way to kill your already dying industry than to tell streaming giants, fueled by a massive back catalog, that you're not going to work anymore to make too-expensive content that no one watches. The hubris of these actors, man.

HOT TAKE: I'm cheering for the studios.
 
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StereoVsn

Member
That's fine. I just don't think "tyranny" is the right word. I see news stories around the world where people suffer from true tyranny. This doesn't rise to that level, imo.
That's fair, but also at the same time I see their point. Actors (not the top stars) got the short end of the stick over last 10 years. With rise of streaming services they really got hosed in residuals and now with AI Corpos are trying to pull a fast one.

A lot of folks are stuck between a rock and a hard place, so while the "tyranny" terminology is hyperbolic, the gist of it is valid. IMO of course.
 
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StereoVsn

Member
We're about to learn about a lot of brilliant, non-union actors.

I can't imagine a faster way to kill your already dying industry than to tell streaming giants, fueled by a massive back catalog, that you're not going to work anymore to make too-expensive content that no one watches. The hubris of these actors, man.

HOT TAKE: I'm cheering for the studios.
You are cheering for huge corporations against normal working people? Because you may be inconvenienced in getting new content or video games?

Ok then.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
7xrjxv.jpg
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
No.

Because I find actors smug and self-important and I enjoy watching them slowly realize they're no more important than anyone else.
Yup. Media people have a way of being annoying. I find them similar to sales people at the office. There's 7 or 8 different kinds of departments on the floors and sales people always think they are the smartest people on the block. Something goes well they want credit and recognition. Things go lousy and they blame every other department.

This SAG strike thread is similar to the ones in the OT forum.

End of the day for me is you get what you earn and despite people claiming companies and bosses are the cheapest slavemasters ever, that is totally untrue. Companies love money, but they will pay good wages to keep talent. If it was all about being cheap to the last nickel, every person on earth would be paid minimum wage and every company wouldnt budge.

Also, it's gaming. Not exactly award winning scripts. If anyone thinks movies and tv shows have crummy scripts, gaming is probably about 6 rungs down the ladder. Childish, predictable, and stereotypical. At least for movies/TV, you can get awful content but also awesome scripts.
 

ByWatterson

Member
You realize more than 90% of actors are "nobodies" who barely make a living and have no celebrity status whatsoever, right?

Yes I'm aware.

And I'll change my mind as soon as all those working actors start demanding that no-talent ass-clown movie stars no longer get $30 million per picture plus revenue splits for films that lose hundreds of millions.

Are the execs worth their salaries? Probably not. Are the movie stars?

100% no. Completely replaceable.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Yes I'm aware.

And I'll change my mind as soon as all those working actors start demanding that no-talent ass-clown movie stars no longer get $30 million per picture plus revenue splits for films that lose hundreds of millions.

Are the execs worth their salaries? Probably not. Are the movie stars?

100% no. Completely replaceable.
For all the people moaning about execs and VPs getting millions, all the highly paid celebs collectively make tons more. Tom Cruise made $100M alone off Top Gun Maverick.

There's lots of money to go around, but the bottom feeder workers are focusing on the wrong pie slice to divvy up. Even if all the execs dumbed down their compensation to a fraction of what they make, thats not a lot of money to go around across 1,000s, 10,000s or even 100,000s of no-name media workers. But highly paid celebs paid $10M, $50M, $100M can contribute to the pot a lot more.

But you'll never get any union member blasting one of their own because it looks bad to be infighting. You can tell the big wig celebs dont give a shit about their own members because they make tons and arent going to be splitting abny of their money. Not a dime. When Tom Cruise was asked to help out with the protest he brushed them off and said he's not joining the line. lol. Guy made $100M and basically told the union organizer asking for help to fuck off. lol
 

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Yes I'm aware.

And I'll change my mind as soon as all those working actors start demanding that no-talent ass-clown movie stars no longer get $30 million per picture plus revenue splits for films that lose hundreds of millions.

Are the execs worth their salaries? Probably not. Are the movie stars?

100% no. Completely replaceable.
That's not how this works. If actors getting $30m per movie all of a sudden get capped at $15, studios and those exects will pocket the suddenly available $15. They're going to see it as additional profit for themselves and shareholders.

If those actors making $30m all of a sudden no longer bring in value worth $30m, they'll stop making $30m.

Let these writers and actors fight for better pay. Doubt it'll happen on a large scale, but animators and VFX actors need to get in on this. A lot of people are getting taken advantage of.
 

Kilau

Member
That's fine. I just don't think "tyranny" is the right word. I see news stories around the world where people suffer from true tyranny. This doesn't rise to that level, imo.
Leave to actors to be over dramatic.

This part though is a bit tone deaf.
The disease of greed is spreading like wildfire ready to burn workers out of their livelihoods and humans out of their usefulness.
 

Loomy

Thinks Microaggressions are Real
LOL, so market pay principles apply to movie stars, but not executives of publicly traded corporations?

Curb Your Enthusiasm Ok GIF
If those executives making $30m a year all of a sudden no longer bring in value worth $30m a year, they'll stop making $30m a year.

There you go.
 

FeralEcho

Member
Good for them. I know a lot of them personally and it's a gruelling gig by all accounts. If you don't believe me, roar like a giant ten times in a row - your throat is probably soar by now, but the director needs another 20-30.takes, then, they need a half-dozen goblin dying screeches, 20 flame elemental growls and 50 assorted zombie grunts.
Oh no a 3 hour job making funny sounds....how will they ever cope with such a weight on their shoulders....Maybe they would prefer my 10 hour job breaking their backs carrying radiators all day and dealing with the most retarded morons on the planet in sales?

Well what do you know.Working is not fun....news at 11.
Shocked Patrick Stewart GIF
 

ByWatterson

Member
Oh no a 3 hour job making funny sounds....how will they ever cope with such a weight on their shoulders....Maybe they would prefer my 10 hour job breaking their backs carrying radiators all day and dealing with the most retarded morons on the planet in sales?

Well what do you know.Working is not fun....news at 11.
Shocked Patrick Stewart GIF

The average truck driver is more important than the biggest movie star.
 

Cyberpunkd

Gold Member
No thanks. You guys can stay out. Don't need to be blowing large amounts of the games budget on that
Do you really think cutting people out will make games better? Money saved will be either put to more bloat, more marketing, or to lift the bottom line.

Is this “trickle down” videogame argument?
 
Hollywood is corrupt, evil, and dead. They need to be quarantined and not infect gaming any more than it has. Gaming is dead too though, so I dont care if it all burns. Return to tradition.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Do you really think cutting people out will make games better? Money saved will be either put to more bloat, more marketing, or to lift the bottom line.

Is this “trickle down” videogame argument?
Comes down to what the final net effect is. Not every production has to be fully staffed or have the same or bigger number of employees than before.

And with media, the big thing lately is AI taking over for dirt cheap and fast. Maybe it'll work maybe it wont. It's really no different than any other automation except this time it's aimed at artsy people, not assembly line workers or payables clerks. If AI stinks, the content will be junk and companies wont use it anymore. If the content is good at good value/costing it'll be kept. One thing too is that automation doesn't strike, talk back, not show up for work too. All additional perks of automation. The biggest drawback is starting cost, ramp up, and the big unknown if it'll work out. If it sucks, it might just end up a big waste of time.

My first job out of university (late 90s) I was an anlayst. There tons of us and the customer service team was giant. At that time everyone knew how to us a PC, but it was still kinda dodgy, Unix screens, not everyone had a cellphone yet etc... It was a lot of ragtag analysis our team did doing the best we could with Excel 97 and whatever shitty reports that green screen unix program we used did. The customer service/order team were almost an entire floor of people on the phone, processing fax orders, paper pushing etc....

Fast forward to now and the company I work at is bigger than that one. Our customer service/order team is 4 people and everything is automated best as possible. Its so little manual work, they work from home most of the time. No need for faxes, print outs etc.... And for my role, I still got to do reports for manual analysis, but we get automated dashboards and Power BI shit that does a lot of the stuff for us by the time we log in every morning. If youre a decent worker you'll be kept and paid well. If you arent a great worker, you'll be cut.

But one thing's for sure, congrats to all the hardworking IT guys who set up and implement all these new ERP programs and dashboards for everyone to use. Worth every dime. When there's an issue or someone needs training, that team is always there to fix things. No talking back. No striking. No ultimatums like if they dont get their way they'll let the systems rot.
 
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This is how you bring down the costs of games. Remove these entitled fucks and get no names who could otherwise be more enthusiastic about these parts, while making a Name for themselves.
 

DrFigs

Member
Yes I'm aware.

And I'll change my mind as soon as all those working actors start demanding that no-talent ass-clown movie stars no longer get $30 million per picture plus revenue splits for films that lose hundreds of millions.

Are the execs worth their salaries? Probably not. Are the movie stars?

100% no. Completely replaceable.
I see where you're getting at, but the execs are 1000 times more replaceable. Literally any business school graduate can have their job and probably do it better looking at Disney and WarnerBros/Discovery in the last few years.
 
feels game of thrones GIF


Yes, because companies will reduce prices or limit micro transactions if their costs will be lower, right?

Don't be so condescending as to think EVERY company would react the same. I've seen prices inflate with the rise of hiring professionals to voice and mocap. I am no idiot.
I have been following the industry for quite some time. I know some of these companies are greed driven(probably most, lol)
 

StereoVsn

Member
No.

Because I find actors smug and self-important and I enjoy watching them slowly realize they're no more important than anyone else.
Which actors are you talking about? This is an awfully wide generalization here.

Yes, most of "Stars" are as above, but the people striking aren't making $20mil a year, they aren't making ends meet. But sure they are very smug about it. 🤦‍♂️
 

hyperbertha

Member
Yes I'm aware.

And I'll change my mind as soon as all those working actors start demanding that no-talent ass-clown movie stars no longer get $30 million per picture plus revenue splits for films that lose hundreds of millions.

Are the execs worth their salaries? Probably not. Are the movie stars?

100% no. Completely replaceable.
Except this won't change anything for the big stars anyway. Ai isn't going to replace Nolan north or tom cruise. But it can replace the average no name worker. Your bitterness against star power will likely continue.
 

StueyDuck

Member
It’ll be fine. Worst case scenario we just go back to having text instead of voices and no actors/likenesses in games.
Tiktok people are stupid, eventually a vast majority of the public will personally volunteer enough voice samples and image samples to create ai generated characters.

They already give everything to the CCP. Why would an ai farm be any different to the Gen Zers. Isn't there onlyfans models already allowing AI to make chat bots of them?
 
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The strike is reportedly going poorly for the writers and actors on the Hollywood side, now they also want to starve the video game people too?
 

Robb

Gold Member
Tiktok people are stupid, eventually a vast majority of the public will personally volunteer enough voice samples and image samples to create ai generated characters.

They already give everything to the CCP. Why would an ai farm be any different to the Gen Zers. Isn't there onlyfans models already allowing AI to make chat bots of them?
You’re not wrong. But it’s hardly just TikTok. Anyone who has been submitting years of pictures, videos etc. into the internet-void through social media are in for a rough ride as AI keeps growing.

Unrelated, but there’s already lots of news of naked (AI-faked) pictures of influencers being posted online, or used for blackmail etc. etc. I think things are only going to get worse as it’ll take years for regulation to keep up.
 

Hayabusa83

Banned
People fighting for their jobs and to avoid being replaced by AI just for companies to make some more free money.

Neogaf: "lol fuck off".

Never change nerds.

Why should Hollywood be immune to modernization that affects most industries? Did actors support 'fellow workers' when blue collar jobs were phased out for green energy initiatives? These are not people fighting for their jobs, these are people failing to adapt to the fact that the entertainment industry is slowly dying. Where were actors when social media was collecting information from their users and subsequently monetizing it? This is about self preservation, plain and simple.
 
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sXMFeaA.jpg



I every time I hear SAG I think of the Film Actors Guild from Team America
It's originally from South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut

They carried the joke over to Team America because it was funny

Back then they could get away with stuff like that, today they would have been cancelled into the next galaxy

Which is one reason fuck modern Hollywood TBH
 
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Oh no, my amazing video game performances. Whatever will I do?
*keeps playing Armored Core 6

Armored Core 6 is 100% an old school radio drama, an entire narrative propped up by radio artists.

There is no more direct line to AFTRA's ancient history than a product like AC6. The entire thing is the importance of human voice performances (the union's medium) equally sat beside shooting and punching faceless robots (the video game industry distilled into it's truest form)

So they really have a point. AI performances in AC6 would be a hellish product. The prime example.
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
If it's just about the fear of losing a job because you'd get replaced by a computer generated voice (which is never gonna happen because AI is simply never gonna sound good enough and people won't buy it) - fair enough.

But if it's about getting paid more then, eeehhh... yeah, I won't muster any tears if they fail. Actor has to be one of the most overpaid professions in the world and I don't see how they deserve to earn more than me when I'm here busting my ass trying to make other people's lives easier, when they're just entertainers. I don't give a shit how famous they are because of it, no one deserves to be paid millions of dollars for phoning in a performance in some stupid comic book movie.
 
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BbMajor7th

Member
They can have my 12 hour shift, I'll take that 30x dragon roar, 6 hour "job" any day 😂
Honestly, you should give it a whirl. A lot of VAs lose their voice on the regular. There're are health and safety regulations to protect you from long-term injury in areas like construction (won by striking in a lot of cases) - these don't exist in most creative fields.

If you've never tried using you're voice in a professional capacity you'd be shocked at how tiring and strenuous it can be. Try singing with a live band for two hours straight, it ain't easy at all. The vocal folds are very delicate and can easily be damaged by overuse or misuse, and surgery is not uncommon to fix things like polyps and tears.

I know a guy who sang in a covers band for years and ended up having a string of procedures after completely losing his voice. He can't sing any more and talks with with a really light breathy voice. He was doing it as a hobby too - not to pay the bills.

I'm not saying it's the world's most hazardous work, but it's easy to dismiss something you've never tried.
 

Success

Member
Why you're giving preferential judgement to these publishers/studios.


With what fucking money?
This is what I can't stand about games industry discourse. You want larger scoped games with better graphics and presentation, but you don't want them to take more than 5 years to make or cost more than 60 dollars to buy, and you also don't want developers working overtime (and getting paid handsomely for it, including in QA). Now, you throw on unionism on top of it. When do you realise that it's not realistic?

You need to get a larger perspective ProtoByte.

You can't begin to lose your cool and then complain that other people are being irrational.

Stop speaking in hyperbole and realize that there are different pockets of communities with different opinions.

Not everyone wants all of these things you pointed out. Some want 1 or 2.
 

Skifi28

Member
But if it's about getting paid more then, eeehhh... yeah, I won't muster any tears if they fail. Actor has to be one of the most overpaid professions in the world and I don't see how they deserve to earn more than me when I'm here busting my ass trying to make other people's lives easier, when they're just entertainers. I don't give a shit how famous they are because of it, no one deserves to be paid millions of dollars for phoning in a performance in some stupid comic book movie.
Being an actor and being a millionaire are not one and the same. Most of them, usually the VAs you see in games, are being paid peanuts and can barely make ends meet between jobs.
 
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JokerMM

Gay porn is where it's at.
Fighting against AI is a lost cause imo
Especially after seeing the amazing shit they can pull off
 

Drizzlehell

Banned
Being an actor and being a millionaire are not one and the same. Most of them, usually the VAs you see in games, are being paid peanuts and can barely make ends meet between jobs.
I'm not talking about them either. I doubt that the more recognisable names in VA are struggling.
 

HoodWinked

Member
if some nobody channel with less than 5000 views can do this, VA as a profession is pretty much on the way out and some middleware will replace that like speedtree. Only the top end will likely get work like Nolan, Baker, Hale or named celebrities.

 

vkbest

Member
You are cheering for huge corporations against normal working people? Because you may be inconvenienced in getting new content or video games?

Ok then.
I love how people like you ignore those problems when affect to invisible jobs, but come here to be the white knight with those more visible jobs.

So my question to you. Why a VA should get royalties from a game years after they recorded it, but the programmers who made the game don't?. would you accept for example to pay $300 per game to sustain the huge compensations in royalties for every programmer/audio/designer participated in the game?
 
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mdkirby

Member
This seems like a terrible idea. Video games are by far the most primed already to utilise ai for tons of stuff. They are already well know for having poor writing, and usually (but not always) subpar performances.

people can argue ai writing isn’t great. But I’m pretty certain it could write a better script than something like forspoken. And outside of main story quest lines, side quests written by humans are almost universally absolutely terrible and feel like they were lazily written by unimaginative interns. An ai could 1000% write better side quests than the talent and time allocated for humans to write them, with very few exceptions.

All this will achieve will be to force the hand of many studios to more quickly and more thoroughly adopt existing ai driven workflows and to speed up the development of related tools.
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
The big issue for me is that the Writers strike and the Actors strike have been going for months now with little movement towards resolution. Adding another front to a war they apparently are already losing doesn't seem like a sound strategy to me!

I'd also add that pulling games into a dispute that has a great deal to do with the shift from linear tv/theatrical showings of movies to streaming services as the primary target of production and distribution is not a change that's reflected in gaming. Sure streaming services are new, but the "old" paradigm of units sold hasn't fallen off the way that linear TV has as a major economic pillar.
 
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