Nine major video game studios have agreed to artificial intelligence “guardrails” for performers, ratifying a deal that ends one of the longest entertainment industry strikes over AI rights and forces gaming companies to operate under the same labor standards as traditional Hollywood studios.
The ratification vote, certified Wednesday, saw 95.04% of members approve the 2025 SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement.
It ensures an immediate 15.17% pay bump, followed by three annual increases of 3%, but also “consent and disclosure requirements for A.I. digital replica use” and “the ability for performers to suspend the generation of new material during a strike,” according to the union statement.
The deal goes into effect immediately and ends a nearly year-long strike that began last July over unresolved disputes around generative AI, voice replication, and labor protections in the video game industry.
“We’re setting a precedent for how the workforce in general, both the United States and around the world, is going to be treated,” SAG-AFTRA spokesperson Zeke Alton then told Decrypt.
The new agreement covers major studios including Activision, Electronic Arts, Disney Character Voices, WB Games, and Take 2 Productions.
Overtime rates for overscale performers now calculate on double scale. Overscale performers are paid more than the union’s minimum scale rate. Meanwhile, health and retirement contribution rates jump from 16.5% to 17%, then 17.5% by October 2026, as per the statement.
“Every AI-generated voice or likeness must carry cryptographic proof of consent, not a vague licensing footnote,” Hitesh Bhardwaj, co-founder at Capx AI, told Decrypt.
“The tooling is ready and we can watermark outputs and anchor them to public ledgers in real time,” he added, “but unless an independent standards body, not the studios, holds the keys, big tech will keep patching around the rules.”
The deal hinged on what negotiating committee chair Sarah Elmaleh called “strike suspension language,” ensuring AI couldn’t replace striking performers with digital versions of themselves.
“If they choose to withhold their labor through the use of that tool, they shouldn’t have what is an unprecedented type of scab — meaning a scab to replace their labor with really, a simulation of themselves,” Elmaleh told Variety.
SAG-AFTRA struck against film and TV producers from July 14 to November 9, 2023, securing protections for “employment-based digital replicas” created with actor participation and “independently created digital replicas” made from archival footage.
In California, state lawmakers responded by passing legislation requiring both consent and estate approval for commercial use of digital replicas, dead or alive.
Hollywood actors had been sounding alarms about AI threats throughout 2024.
Robert Downey Jr. told a podcast last October that he would “sue all future executives” who attempted to create digital replicas of his Iron Man character without permission, declaring “My law firm will still be very active” even after his death.
At the Newport Beach Film Festival in October 2024, Nicolas Cage called AI “inhumane” and told young actors the technology “wants to take your instrument.”
But industry tensions spiked in May after an AI-generated Darth Vader in Fortnite used offensive language, prompting SAG-AFTRA to file charges against Epic’s Llama Productions, alleging that it used AI voices without union consent.
Under the new video game contract, companies must provide advance notice and secure explicit consent before using AI to replicate performer voices, faces, or movements.
The deal covers approximately 160,000 SAG-AFTRA members who had been prohibited from working on struck video game projects since July 2024.
