Strike Looms as Actors' Contract Talks With Game Publishers Break Down

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on May 17, 2005 - 8:15am.

Los Angeles -- Contract negotiations between video game publishers and the labor unions that represent actors who lend their voices and likenesses to video games have broken down, although publishers still believe they can avoid a strike, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Representatives of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA) have argued that actors should receive compensation based on game sales, in addition to up-front payments for their work. Members of both guilds have voted to authorize leadership to call a strike. "It is not that we don't value their (actors') professional talent ... (but) we do not value it to the extent of giving them a lifetime income stream from the product," Howard Fabrick, an attorney for the video game publishers, told Reuters -- adding that actors' contributions represent 1/2400th of the labor that goes into making a game. Screen Actors Guild president Melissa Gilbert responded in a statement: "There is only one way to describe their position: completely unreasonable and lacking in any appreciation of the contributions made by actors to the enormous profits enjoyed by this industry."
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