Video Game Union Performers Call for AI Protections at Disney Picket: “This Is Not Something We Can Wait For
Performers from 'Spider-Man' and 'The Last of Us' demonstrated in Burbank on Thursday as their negotiators remained in a deadlock with companies like Disney, Activision Blizzard and Electronic Arts.
It was a scene that produced a sense of déjà vu: a line of performers carrying SAG-AFTRA signs and walking in circles under the blazing Burbank summer sun.
This time, however, the group wasn’t film and television actors calling on studios to cede more ground on an array of demands like greater compensation in the streaming age and more comprehensive AI protections, as they did during the 2023 actors’ strike. (There were, still, some film and TV actors present.) One year later, video game performers in the same union, SAG-AFTRA, were picketing the Disney Character Voices building in Burbank as the labor group remains deadlocked with major gaming companies over an issue that one performer called “existential”: AI.
