Video game performers struck over unenforceable AI language

The shot

At 12:01 a.m. on 26 July 2024, SAG-AFTRA members working under its Interactive Media Agreement, Interactive Localization Agreement, and Interactive Low Budget Agreement struck against video-game companies signed to those contracts, following what the union's own strike order describes as "more than a year and a half of negotiations without a deal." The action was separate from the union's television and theatrical strike, which had ended the previous November.

What the documents show

SAG-AFTRA's own strike announcement states the dispute's cause in its own headline: "SAG-AFTRA Members Who Work on Video Games Go on Strike; A.I. Protections Remain the Sticking Point," reporting that "the employers refuse to plainly affirm, in clear and enforceable language, that they will protect all performers covered by this contract in their A.I. language." The union's strike order, dated 25 July 2024, instructed members to "cease rendering all services and performing all work covered by the IMA," effective the following midnight, while stating productions already signed to an Interim Interactive Media Agreement or a Tiered-Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement "are not struck." Both are the union's own procedural and public statements, not an independent record of the employers' bargaining position.

The workflow

The strike order directs members to check whether a production is struck against a union-maintained list by production ID or code name, rather than assuming every interactive job is covered, since productions "signed to a Tiered-Budget Independent Interactive Media Agreement... are not struck and members are encouraged to work these programs during the strike." The order carves out one timing exception, promotion and publicity services at that week's San Diego Comic-Con, and states members must report strikebreaking activity to the union by email, with non-member strikebreaking treated as a bar to future union membership.

What the tool does not change

Neither document specifies which AI use case, digital replicas, generative dialogue, or another application, the employers declined to address in enforceable terms; the announcement names AI protections broadly as the sticking point without quoting the specific language each side proposed. The strike order does not describe how long the action lasted or the terms on which it resolved; those facts are outside the documents opened for this note. What both preserve is that the dispute is procedurally distinct from SAG-AFTRA's television and theatrical contract and its own separate AI terms.

• What specific AI contract language did the employers decline to make enforceable, beyond the union's general description of the sticking point?
• Which productions were exempted as non-struck under an interim or tiered-budget agreement, and did that shape the strike's practical impact?
• How long did the strike run, and what changed in the employers' position between the July 2024 order and any eventual settlement?

SAG-AFTRA's own strike materials from 25 and 26 July 2024 establish that the union called a dedicated action over video-game and interactive work specifically because employers would not commit to enforceable AI protections, while carving out productions already operating under separate, non-struck interactive agreements. The documents opened here describe the strike's start and stated cause, not its duration or resolution.