Developers behind 80 games sign deals with SAG-AFTRA

ARK: Survival Evoled creator Studio Wildcard and Vampire Therapist dev Little Bat among those working with union

Performers union SAG-AFTRA has secured agreements with the developers behind 80 upcoming games as it continues to strike over better conditions for actors, including protection against the use of AI.

The union announced that several developers have now signed either tiered-budget or interim video game agreemeents, including some who have not been targeted by the strike action.

Named studios included Studio Wildcard (the team behind ARK Survival Evolved), Little Bat Games (an indie studio currently working on its debut title, Vampire Therapist), and Francisco Gonzales (the developer of a series of retro-style point-and-click adventures, including Rosewater and Lamplight City).

The news follows SAG-AFTRA announcement that it had secured its first agreement with Lightspeed LA, the Tencent-owned developer behind upcoming open-world sci-fi game Last Sentinel.

“We applaud those video game companies signing our tiered-budget and interim agreements,” said the union’s national executive director and chief negotiator Duncan Crabtree-Ireland. “Not only are they doing the right thing by their workers, they’re also helping to preserve the human art, ingenuity and creativity that fuels interactive storytelling.”

Union members have been on strike since July after 18 months of negotiations failed to secure better working conditions and, among other things, reassurance that their voices will not be modified or replicated using AI.

Companies that SAG-AFTRA had been negotiating with included a collective bargaining group encompassing Activision, Blindlight, Disney, Electronic Arts, Formosa Interactive, Insomnia, Llama Productions, Take-Two Productions, VoiceWorks Productions, and WB Games.

Crabtree-Ireland added: “These agreements signal that the video game companies in the collective bargaining group do not represent the will of the larger video game industry. The many companies that are happy to agree to our A.I. terms prove that these terms are not only reasonable, but feasible and sustainable for businesses.”