After Nearly a Year, Voice-Acting Strike Finally Ends

Nearly a year ago (how time flies), the SAG-AFTRA, a voice acting union that oftentimes works with video games, went on strike until the industry’s big hitters agreed to stop treating their voice acting talent like trash. It was a big deal at the time, but for most people, it didn’t seem to matter much: the strike is why Ashly Burch didn’t return to re-play Chloe in Life is Strange’s prequel, and why Resident Evil’s Claire Redfield, who is played by Canadian voice actress Alyson Court, wasn’t around for the Resident Evil 2 remake, but I think by-and-large the consumer didn’t notice any real big changes.

But apparently, the strike was hurting the industry more than we may have realized, as a deal was just signed between major game developers and the SAG-AFTRA, officially ending the strike, allowing these represented actors to return to their roles in video games.

As part of the agreement, unionized voice actors will receive incremental bonus payments for every session they hold, starting at 75 bucks for one session and capping at $2,100 if they’re in the studio for ten or more. Additionally, actors will be warned ahead of time if the game has excessive profanity, sexual content, violence, or anything racy, which frankly I’m astonished they didn’t get beforehand.

While it’s far from everything the actors wanted, more critically, the agreement DOESN’T include a number of provisions game studios were hoping to slide in there, including fining actors who get distracted during a session or having agents submit performers for low-paying ‘atmospheric voice’ sessions. So while the actors don’t get everything they want, game developers don’t get anything they want… and isn’t that sort of a victory?

Either way, with this, voice actors will be able to return to work, and life will return to normal for most everyone involved. Even if you technically forgot it was going on, like I did.