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Next year's Grand Theft Auto 6 won't be impacted by the decision to call a SAG-AFTRA union strike — effective today — over concerns surrounding AI replacing video game performers, like voice actors. Confirming to Kotaku, a spokesperson for the publishers included in negotiations said GTA 6 "is exempt" from the strike. Then, on the official SAG-AFTRA page, it's stated union members can "work on the game and will not be disciplined for doing so".
Given how far out GTA 6 still is — the PS5 release window has been narrowed to Fall 2025 — it's possible Rockstar still requires voice talent to record lines and make alterations, so the fact those actors will remain available during the strike means it won't play a part in any potential delay. There had been murmurs of a 2026 launch if work fell behind, and then pushing it that far back was seen as an emergency option.
Members of the SAG-AFTRA union are striking as of today over concerns relating to the use of AI in the video game industry. Negotiations with some of the biggest publishers have failed to reach a conclusion after more than 18 months of discussions, so a strike has been called.
"SAG-AFTRA is striking this contract so that members working in interactive media (video games) can continue earning a living doing the job that they love. Our members’ work and likenesses are being exploited by artificial intelligence, and video game companies have refused to plainly affirm, in clear and enforceable language, that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their A.I. language." Some of the companies involved in the talks were Activision, Warner Bros, EA, Disney, and Take-Two.
In response to the strike, Interactive Media Agreement spokesperson Audrey Cooling said: "We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations. We have already found common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, including historic wage increases and additional safety provisions. Our offer is directly responsive to SAG-AFTRA’s concerns and extends meaningful AI protections that include requiring consent and fair compensation to all performers working under the IMA. These terms are among the strongest in the entertainment industry."
[source kotaku.com]
Comments 18
Solidarity with the strikers, they’re completely taken for granted by the moneygrubbers.
Gaming is a business and profits need to be made I understand that.
But is it just me but since this new generation it’s turned a bit greedy and over the top from the companies.
Then they wonder why across the board console and game sales are down, just one reason of many why.
@OldGamer999 outside of Xbox console sales arnt really down. The software sales are… but I think that’s more due to the subscription services entering the console space. Overall I think the push for more revenue is just coming from the decrease in profits caused by ballooning development costs.
@OldGamer999 no new generation, it's been like this. It just keeps getting progressively worse.
I stand with the strikers. Still, this will make quite a few people happy.
@OldGamer999
This is not just the gaming industry. Food, medicine, petrol, heat, housing, other forms of entertainment etc...etc... It's like the world's wealthiest are vacuuming up wealth in preparation for something big on the horizon.
I think SAG-AFTRA is full of GTA fans
GTA6 and probably many other games are """exempt""" because SAG-AFTRA knows they hold no leverage over anything.
Okay then. Why is GTA6 "exempt"? Doesn't make sense to me why one game wouldn't be affected. At least w/o more info than is provided here.
@MikeOrator I think it was Ted Turner that once said "life is a game and money is how we keep score."
I don't think it's about gathering the money before something big happens. I think for them it's just a game. It's about getting everything there is to get just so they can show they got it. It's an ego thing more than a wealth thing for them at this point. Whoever has the biggest boot on the neck of humanity while having gilded bon bons rain down on them won the game.
Funny thing is we don't even know who these "wealthy" are. It's not the Bezos's and Gates' of the world. Yeah they're rich. But them, all together, don't account for most of this money. So where IS the money?
"Nobody gives a care about the fate of labor as long as they get their instant gratification"
-Squidward Tentacles
@jorel262 In the Kotaku article, a spokesperson from the game companies said it doesn’t impact games that started production before last September. A lot of games were started well before the cutoff, so won’t see an impact soon.
@NEStalgia
It's all diversified so well that we can't tell. Black Rock, Vanguard, Morgan Stanley. Trillions of dollars in assets are spread over multiple companies with very few people having a stake in these firms. They are just portfolios in a ledger.
@MikeOrator I think there's also an aspect of the new world modern economy that's overlooked which is that all this "wealth" actually goes absolutely nowhere at all, and nobody but a handful skimming at the top of the pyramid actually really get any further ahead at all. That technology that was supposed to "generate wealth" actually turned into a monumental money hole, where, "wealth" is a representation of material assets and labor. And technolgy, more than anything, primarily results in a treadmill of spending ever more money, labor and material resources, to simply discard it's total output and value every few years and replace it. Some individuals got rich out of it, but I sometimes think it's a pyramid scheme that "wealth" meaning labor and material resources, are basically endlessly depleted, resulting in very little value, and almost the whole world's economy is endlessly poured into producing more technology to belatedly pay for the previous technology.
We assume someone's hoarding all the money, meaning rights to all the assets of the world...but...what if there basically are no assets in the world to hold rights/money to? We just basically burn all our resources until there's nothing left, and basically nobody's really hoarding any wealth from it?
Case in point, AI. Tons of labor, tons of research, tons of design and engineering, tons of labor and energy and materials to product all the technology and infrastructure to run it, then to build the massive datacenters, then to POWER the massive datacenters.....all to do the work that the people who are already here could have done without any of those resources or any of that labor having been expended at all. Ever since tech arrived we seemingly invent ever more ways to dispose of more resources at a net loss than then need new technology disposing of new resources to pay for the previous. (inb4 PS5 Pro..............)
Last year JP Morgan the biggest US bank and owner of Morgan Stanley itself, stated that by June (last month) 99% (so even the rich except for the ultra-rich) would be worse off than they were in 2019. If everybody is moving downward.....where did the money go? Or did all that "wealth" just burn up as expended waste (including wasted labor?)
@NEStalgia
It's a merry-go-round of exploitation. If even the richest on the planet are worse off that means we're truly bleeding the planet dry and that once the resources run out and wealth can no longer be generated we will have the death of capitalism and possibly a new dark age. Either that or the merry-go-round will all keep spinning faster and faster and fewer and fewer people will be able to hang on.
Anyway, I am sure glad Rockstar is still able to exploit their labour and use AI without consequence. Not sure, is that what the article said?
@MikeOrator I'm all for a new dark age. Some of us are down to using all that technology to purchase a virtual reality so we can pretend we're living in a reality that sucks less than the one we live in, and that reality often consists of people overtly trying to kill us, which somehow our brains perceive as more comforting than our real reality consisting of people covertly trying to kill us. Yet I fear the latter of the faster and faster acceleration will continue. I don't know exactly how that unfolds, but I'm pretty sure whatever it is will make WWII, and TLOU2 look like a dreamy utopia.
Yeah the article is about how the Rockstar gulag is grandfathered in and can continue operating under its original charter.
@NEStalgia
I'm guessing that even the union bosses, regulators and lawmakers want GTA6 to hit its fall 2025 release date too.
@OldGamer999 yeah because all the studios are being gobbled up by a few huge publicly traded companies.
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