Publishers Respond To Video Game Voice Actor Strike, Says Union Is To Blame

Right now, the voice actor strike for video games is still going on, with heavy hitters like Nolan North putting their considerable influence on the industry behind their union. The Screen Actors Guild -- American Federation of Television and Radio Artists or SAG-AFTRA are demanding for video game publishers to provide its voice actors with royalties from game sales post-release. Affected publishers are finally responding to the strike.

The whole thing started when Michael Andrew Hollick, the voice actor for the protagonist Niko Bellic of “Grand Theft Auto IV” complained about his pay. The game itself sold phenomenally well and Hollick felt that he deserved some of the money that Rockstar made, Cinemablend reports.

Rumblings about a voice actor strike were already starting at the time, but it wasn’t until mid-October this year that SAG-AFTRA made good on their warning to break off from negotiations when they couldn’t get what they wanted. As a result, some of the most prolific video game voice actors are now refusing to work on some of the biggest upcoming titles.

In order to address the issue, several publishers got together and created their own website, detailing some of the things that went down during negotiations. According to Video Game Companies, SAG-AFTRA may have failed to disclose certain details to its members that could have influenced their decision to join the strike.

Included in the offers placed on the table by publishers is the 9 percent increase in wages for the first year. Publishers note that this is a jump from the incremental 3 percent increase that the voice actors would have gotten over a 3-year period.

The post also asserts that many of the deals that were proposed were so close to what the voice actors union was asking that it would have made little difference to its members. Instead, SAG-AFTRA chose to walk away.