The Screen Actors’ Guild’s rejection of a contract with video game makers can be seen as a tempest in a teapot – 80 percent of voice work in games is non-union. But the L.A. Times goes further to see what’s really at stake.
A contract proposal hammered out between the Screen Actors Guild and video game publishers was shot down after a union vote. A key sticking point seemed to be “atmospheric” work, in which one actor voices multiple minor characters.
Two major unions supplying voice actors for video games have both won pay raises under provisional new contracts, which also spell out terms for “vocally stressful” work and “atmospheric” roles in which one person voices multiple minor characters.
