The largest actors union in Hollywood officially called a strike Friday against several prominent video game companies after the two sides failed to agree on how to pay performers who do voice-over and motion-capture work for popular games.
SAG-AFTRA said the work stoppage began at 12:01 a.m. Friday and covers games made by the companies that went into production after Feb. 17, 2015. Many of the most sophisticated games take years to develop and bring to market, and employ large casts of actors over that development process.
Union members are planning to picket one of the companies, Electronic Arts, at its location in Playa Vista on Monday.
Other companies affected by the strike include some of the largest names in the industry —Activision Blizzard, Take Two, Warner Bros. and Disney.
The chief negotiator for the video game companies said that when negotiations failed, the two sides were not very far apart.
“The only difference is the semantics,” said Scott J. Witlin of the law firm of Barnes & Thornburg. “The sad thing is that people are going to lose work.”
SAG-AFTRA, however, contends the gap was much more substantive.
The union was asking for a new compensation structure that would allow actors to start receiving residual-like payments based on a game’s commercial success. They were also asking for improved safety conditions for voice-over and motion-capture performers.
The proposed bonus system would allow actors to receive additional payments for every 2 million copies or downloads sold — or, for online-only games, unique subscribers — with a cap at 8 million.
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