Forum - View topicNEWS: SAG-AFTRA Labor Union Members to Vote on Possible Strike Against Video Game Companies
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6180 |
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In general or when it comes to labor disputes? As the former would be problematic in light of some controversies over the last few years.
Bad games have little to do with worker rights. |
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Nigel Planter
Posts: 96 Location: London, UK |
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And they're most likely still not be worth it even at that. The only recent AAA games I've had any interest in are Baldur's Gate 3 and Starfield, but I'm waiting a year until all the DLC/patches are out and they're 5 bucks on a Steam Sale. That's been the best way to play AAA games for almost a decade now. And also by then the community will have all their own unofficial patches and mods that fix the game even more that the devs never bothered to fix themselves if past Bethesda games are anything to go by. Otherwise it's all stuff like Forspoken and the Saints Row reboot that are all so bad they kill their own studios. Would this strike have made those games good or would it just have given them more money and the studio would have shut down even faster? I don't know how accurate the claim that "better pay = better work" is. Unless the money goes to hiring good developers and writers and not just settling for new and inexperienced people because it's cheaper. Either way, I'm perfectly fine with just playing Armored Core VI for the time being. |
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flamemasterelan
Posts: 484 |
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Most actors? No. I'd say the bulk of anime talent over the years have moved to LA by this point. But the majority of anime dubs are non-union, due to the two largest dubbing companies being based in Texas (Crunchyroll and Sentai). This is why you see things like Laura Bailey no longer getting roles in anime other than reprisals, or Todd Haberkorn and Cherami Leigh, once regulars for Funimation, rarely appearing in recent dubs for the companies. Also why so many new dubs have casts full of less experienced actors. There's nothing inherently wrong with the latter, the industry does need to grow, but it points to the rather predatory nature of the industry. Chances are, if you're hearing a familiar voice like Patrick Seitz, Cherami Leigh, or Johnny Yong Bosch, Crunchyroll has either contracted a union studio to do the work for them (Bang Zoom!, for example) or they're working non-union, probably as a favor (Kyle McCarley did this for several seasons of Mob and was willing to do so for the final season, so long as they agreed to just meet with the union). |
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Cecilthedarkknight_234
 Posts: 3820 Location: Louisville, KY |
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they have everything to do with worker rights, if a game is bad people won't buy it. In-turn the studio's will blame dev's, do lay-offs to find someway to recoup the cost of the game or go completely under, as in the case with Volition. However I'm going off topic a bit given we're talking about games that are getting an english dub. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 12852 |
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So basically a new voice actors video game strike?
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flamemasterelan
Posts: 484 |
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There's actually a variety of ways that worker's rights tie in to better game development. One of which is better scheduling, which means less crunch, which means less factory developed games. Promoting a better work-life balance will also help with employee retention, mental health, and happier, more well-trained individuals will develop better games. Even with just this strike, we can foresee improvements. First, the highly publicized chain of strikes might lead to game developers unionizing, which would result in the results listed above. But just by the English VA's striking, it means that these companies' games will be held up in development, which means the dev team gets more time to polish them. |
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DKL
 Posts: 1957 Location: California, USA |
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Did this affect The Evil Within 2 development? I sort of remember them powering through the strike at the time by just recasting everyone, but someone probably recalls this more accurately than me. |
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MysticGon
Posts: 44 |
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Unionizing would really only have an impact on games developed in the country the game developers work in. A likely response would be publishers creating studios outside of those countries. With how competitive the market is and the need for talent most big studios would need to improve working conditions to compete with Nintendo and Sony. By it's nature game development is all about being more efficient. When Epic Games Studio pours R&D money into making a toolset that can create detailed environments quickly the last thing they or the studios that use Unreal Engine want to deal with are individuals threatening to stop work because the technology will take jobs away from 3D modelers, animators, 2D texture artists and technical artists. Crunch is an issue I think is best dealt with through legislation and regulations just like predatory monetization designs. |
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flamemasterelan
Posts: 484 |
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Legislation and regulations would be met with the exact same response that unionization would be. It would only affect the games developed within that region or country, and big companies would just move out of that country. Unionization is the best answer to this because... 1. Legislation and regulation requires people in the government to side with workers over corporations, which rarely ever happens. 2. Unions will help with further negotiations, instead of crossing your fingers and hoping that your problems will be fixed by legislation every time a new issue arises.
No. "Being more efficient" isn't something exclusive to game development, it exists in literally every industry, and another reason for unionization. That's why nearly every creative field is currently fighting against A.i. replacing their jobs. This is just capitalism. Also, I sincerely don't care how much Epic Games pours into R&D. These are creative fields that people actually want to work in. Those jobs deserve to be protected.
I have barely remembered memories of the last VA strike. I think The Evil Within 2 is a rather rare case, since it's a Shinji Mikami game, and I don't know that it was developed in America, or that English is considered its primary language. They kept JP voices between the two games. Either way, The Evil Within 2 wasn't really a major release, IMO, so it's probably not the best example. I know that Life is Strange's prequel came out during the strike and the VA for Chloe was striking during it, so they replaced her. But the backlash was so strong that they redubbed her lines when the strike ended to bring back the original VA. |
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King Chicken
 Posts: 114 |
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Volition's situation had nothing to do with worker's rights or would have been fixed with unionization, though. Saints Row was bad purely from a conceptual point of view, not just because it had some bugs and QA issues. Everything about the design and direction of the game was a clear and conscious decision, and when pretty much everyone pointed out it was a bad idea and not what fans wanted, the devs decided the best option was to do the old trolling marketing style and put their "haters" on blast rather than take the feedback into consideration. Some things can't be fixed by simply throwing more money or better working conditions at them. They're just bad games made on bad ideas. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2273 |
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The bottom line is regardless of a game's quality, developers deserve to have a good work environment, be paid fairly, and not have to worry about their jobs. If developers were given better environments then games would improve as a whole. They wouldn't all be masterpieces, but at least they would be a result of something not working instead of the director or producer treating their team like crap. As for the voice artists, due to the companies mentioned, this seems more focused on Western studios like EA, WB, 2K, Activision, Microsoft, etc. I went through the companies and the only Japanese ones they've deal with are Sony, Konami, and a couple of times with Nintendo. I'm not sure how it's going to affect companies like CAPCOM, SEGA, Nintendo, Bandai-NAMCO, etc (especially with a lot of them going non-union, with a few union exceptions). We'll see how it goes, especially with the last strike having lasted 11 months |
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AJ (LordNikon)
 Posts: 512 Location: Kyoto |
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Sorry that 90% of ANN readers are too young to remember last writer's strike, but it primary responsible for the rise of reality television where writers were removed from the equation. If major studios were not looking at AI to replace writers before the strike, they are now. Even if strike is resolved, studios are already far ahead looking at future without writers and likely actors. All strike does now is just prolong ending of those jobs.
In roughly 80 years I have seen entire industries transformed from automation to computers, to internet, and AI will do same no matter how much people strike/protest, just like it did in 50s, 70s, 90s, and today; and people in jobs did protest against computers and net in 80s and 90s. What scary is your children will think you crazy when you explain in twenty years from now about a world without AI, just as your generation cannot imagine life before smartphones, internet or even basic laptop PC. |
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ANN_Lynzee
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 2992 Location: Email for assistance only |
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Based on our own demographic data, the average ANN reader was a full adult the last time a writer's strike happened. I think folks just disagree with your outlook on the situation. Also the reality TV increase isn't exactly true. It existed and was already successful, we just got more of it. We aren't seeing a return this time around. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/how-the-ongoing-writers-strike-impacts-reality-and-unscripted-tv Last edited by ANN_Lynzee on Mon Sep 04, 2023 7:35 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Egan Loo
Posts: 1343 |
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ANN's reader demographics aren't that young, and the 2007-08 WGA strike wasn't that long ago. https://www.similarweb.com/website/animenewsnetwork.com/#demographics
But the striking unions aren't against AI ... Despite the popular misconception, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA are not against any use of AI, and they know AI (or what passes for AI now) will be part of their industries and society as a whole. They are against their work being used as AI training data without their say or compensation. They are against contracts (already being foisted upon them) that dictate their faces and voices can be digitized for reuse in perpetuity without their say or compensation. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/why-artificial-intelligence-is-a-central-dispute-in-the-hollywood-strikes https://variety.com/2023/biz/news/wga-ai-writers-strike-technology-ban-1235610076/ https://www.sagaftra.org/files/sa_documents/SAG-AFTRA%20AI%20Letter.pdf |
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4722 |
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Do you really not see the massive false dichotomy between "automating repetitive manual labor tasks to enable human beings to have more leisure time" and "replacing the creative process that is a fundamental part of the human experience"? Like, you seriously think those are one and the same? Tell you what though. If that dystopian hellscape you're prophesying ever comes to pass, then I'm comfortable not giving a single additional cent or moment of my time to the entertainment industry. There's already been more fantastic content that I could consume in a hundred lifetimes. I'll stick with humanity, thanks. |
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