Just like movie studios, video game makers need actors and animators to bring their creations to life. While voice actors perform sound effects and dialogue, motion capture actors wear special suits with markers to record movements like walking, running, climbing, and fighting. Animators then link those sounds and images together to create an immersive and engaging environment for the player. 

But all that’s starting to change with AI, which can use actors’ previous performances as digital reference points to generate new animations or dialogue. That means gaming companies could create an all-new video game without involving — or paying — any of the people who originally performed those sounds and movements. “The big issue is that someone, somewhere has this massive data, and I now have no control over it,” said Ben Prendergast, a voice actor who has worked on video games like Apex Legends. “Nefarious or otherwise, someone can pick up that data now and go, ‘We need a character that’s nine feet tall, that sounds like Ben Prendergast, and can fight this battle scene.’ And I have no idea that that’s going on until the game comes out.”

To combat potential situations like these, in July video game performers went on strike to demand protections from the use of AI in video game production. More than 2,500 members of the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA are part of the strike and have stopped voice acting, stunts, and more for big gaming companies like Disney, WB Games, Microsoft’s Activision, and Electronic Arts. The union wants those firms to notify actors when using their performance to generate an AI double so that actors can grant permission and receive fair compensation for their work. “It reminds me a lot of sampling in the ‘80s and ’90s and 2000s where there were a lot of people getting around sampling classic songs,” said Pendergast. “This is an art. If you don’t protect rights over their likeness, or their voice or body and walk now, then you can’t really protect humans from other endeavors.”

Questions:

1. Why are video game voice actors going on strike against major game companies?
2. How could the use of AI potentially affect the livelihoods of video game actors and animators? 

Sources: Mandalit del Barco, “AI Is Changing Video Games — And Striking Performers Want Their Due,” NPR, Aug. 14, 2024; Sarah Parvini, “Can AI Truly Replicate The Screams Of A Man On Fire? Video Game Performers Want Their Work Protected,” The Associated Press, Aug. 18, 2024.