The SAG-AFTRA Video Game Voice Actors' Strike (Q2 2025)

What a time to be a voice actor, right? Two years ago, SAG-AFTRA went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. It turned into the longest actors' strike against the film and TV studios in Hollywood history. Thankfully, that strike resolved after 118 days. But something that has mostly flown under the radar to the general public is that video game voice actors are also on strike over many of the same issues. That strike began on July 26th of last year. As of the writing of this post, that's 262 days ago - and the strike is still ongoing.

Again, I'm not a member of SAG-AFTRA. But I'd like to be one day, and the union has made it clear that any non-member who crosses a picket line would have future membership called into question. On top of that, I'm a big union supporter. I believe in what the union is doing, and even if it didn't matter I'd still be supporting SAG-AFTRA. But the crux of what the union is striking over does matter and is of central importance to me.

As with the base SAG-AFTRA strike, the video game voice actors did strike over compensation and royalties - but most of those concerns have actually been resolved as of March 11th. The major crux of the strike now revolves around AI.

It's no secret that video games are becoming more expensive, and that companies are looking to automate processes as much as possible. Every tech company and their mother is trying to use AI every way it can... some more successfully than others.

Seriously, don't we all feel this way?

But in the video game industry, major companies have made it clear they want to eliminated the need for voice actors. There's a number of ways they can do this, but the easiest ways to do this is through voice cloning - where a company only needs a few sentences of a voice and can then create a reasonable recreation of that voice, making it say whatever the company wants.

Hopefully you can see how problematic that could become. If you can't, I've already written about it in the past, which you can read here. The bottom line is this - as a voice actor, my voice is my business and my life. I get to choose how it is used and what is says. I have autonomy over it, and I'm never giving that up. (Hey, I bet you can guess my stance on other bodily autonomy issues based on this statement!) Unless I give up those rights, it's unethical and should be unlawful for a studio to take them from me. That's not how they see it, and that's why SAG-AFTRA is on strike (and why I support the union).

This actually really sucks for me. As you saw in the about me section of my site, I love video games. I actually have friends and contacts in the industry that I'd love to work with. I think it'd be the coolest thing ever to hear my voice in a Final Fantasy game, or to join the cast of Borderlands, or to join a franchise that hasn't even been created yet. Seriously, that would just be incredible to me. But until studios respect my voice and my rights, it's not happening.

I liken this to when I was driving for Uber. It was the height of the pandemic, and masks were required in all rideshares. I drove for Uber because they paid a little better than Lyft and I had incredible rankings as a driver (4.99 anyone?). But when Uber refused to suspend a gentleman's account when he spit on my car and used pretty much every sexual preference slur in the book at me when I told him he needed to wear a mask in my vehicle, that was my last day driving for them. For the rest of my rideshare career, I drove for Lyft. I don't do business with people who don't respect me or my time.

I'm hoping that this strike doesn't hit the year mark and gets resolved soon - especially since the money side of things seems to have been resolved. But the more important issue to me was always the autonomy side, and I have to give kudos to SAG-AFTRA for not ending the strike when their mission was only half complete. Will the union get every single protection they want in a final deal? Most likely not. But voice actors deserve to have their future and livelihoods protected, and I'm really proud that a union I hope to join one day recognizes that and is willing to go on strike over it.