SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland On The State Of Negotiations With Video Game Industry & Possible Strike: “We’re Getting To The End Of The Road”
SAG-AFTRA's Duncan Crabtree-Ireland spoke with Deadline about the state of negotiations with the video game companies
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SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland On The State Of Negotiations With Video Game Industry & Possible Strike: “We’re Getting To The End Of The Road”
By Katie CampioneMarch 9, 2024 10:04am
Duncan Crabtree-IrelandGetty
Will Hollywood experience another actors strike in the coming months?
After more than a year of negotiating with the video game companies on a new Interactive Media Agreement, SAG-AFTRA National Executive Director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland indicated the guild might soon be walking away from the table due to sticking points regarding artificial intelligence.
“We have strike authorization on that contract and it is, at this point, at least 50/50, if not more likely, that we end up going on strike…in the next four to six weeks because of the inability to get past these basic AI issues,” he said during a conversation with Brendan Vaughan, Editor-in-Chief of Fast Company, at SXSW focused on the intersection of Hollywood and AI.
In September, members overwhelmingly authorized a strike authorization on this current contract.
This is talk of another strike comes on the heels of the actors’ 118-day work stoppage last year to achieve the latest film and TV contract, which did manage several gains when it comes to language regulating artificial intelligence. Many of the issues between the two contracts are similar, including wages and AI.
Following the panel, Crabtree-Ireland spoke with Deadline about the state of negotiations on the Interactive Media Agreement and how imminent a strike may actually be.
DEADLINE: You mentioned that some “basic AI issues” were the current sticking points in the video game negotiations. Can you expand upon what those issues are?
DUNCAN CRABTREE-IRELAND: I think some of them are very similar [to the film and TV contract issues], but I think the one that I mentioned [that is different], is applying AI protections to creature performers and other types of movement performers that don’t have lines. They don’t speak but are creating a performance and really central to the action of the game. I think that is an area where we haven’t been able to achieve the results we need just yet. We’ve been in this bargaining for over a year. The results of the strike last year did move things a little bit in the right direction. A couple of the major video game companies are companies that are also part of the AMPTP, specifically Disney and Warner Brothers, for example. But I think what has to be recognized is that all performers should be entitled to the same type of AI protections and companies that are trying to distinguish performers from other performers and say, ‘Only some of them are gonna get protections and not the others…’ That’s not something we’re going to be able to go along with.
DEADLINE: I know you had hoped the Replica Studios agreement might move things along. Did that yield any progress in these negotiations?
CRABTREE-IRELAND: I mean, I think the movement that we see is really the pressure that comes from having other legit companies in the space saying, ‘We can work with this, and we’ve signed a deal that says we will work with this.’ So I think that creates pressure. On the other hand, these are very big companies, the ones that we’re talking about in this bargaining group. So they aren’t necessarily always as nimble as you might like. And of course, the acquisition of Activision Blizzard by Microsoft, it remains to be seen what impact that might have on the landscape
