Hollywood’s nearly four-month hiatus in 2023, prompted by a strike by the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), forced some performers to get creative about their craft and income streams.

“Dubbing work is one of the realms of acting that is still permissible due to the SAG-AFTRA strike and it is here that I am very thankful to still be working during these chaotic times,” actor Edward Hong wrote in a 2023 LinkedIn post showcasing his dubbing work for the English audio soundtrack of “some squid show,” a.k.a. Netflix’s runaway Korean hit series Squid Game. 

As Hong mentioned, at that time, the union’s strike did not prohibit members from providing dubbing into English or Spanish for films and streaming series. 

Members were also able to provide any and all services for video games, including voice acting in the original source language and dubbing into English and Spanish. Now, however, SAG-AFTRA’s latest strike has upended plans for actors providing voice acting and dubbing for video games.

Effective July 26, 2024, SAG-AFTRA called for a strike that would see members cease their work for any and all video games covered by the union’s Interactive Media Agreement. The current strike applies exclusively to video games and not to other forms of entertainment.

“Localization for foreign video games covered under the Interactive Localization Agreement (ILA) is struck work.”

The list of prohibited services includes acting; singing; “voice acting, including performing sound-alike voice services;” and “authorizing the use of your voice or likeness (which includes integration or reuse of work already performed).”

While the strike notice does not specify “dubbing” as a prohibited service, it could reasonably fall under the umbrella of voice acting, the term SAG-AFTRA uses for providing human speech in video games.

Struck Work

SAG-AFTRA does acknowledge dubbing, albeit not by name, in its FAQs section on the strike. According to the union, “Localization for foreign video games covered under the Interactive Localization Agreement (ILA) is struck work. However, an Interim Interactive Localization Agreement is available to video game companies who agree to our protective A.I. and other terms.”

As reported by the BBC, SAG-AFTRA’s last Interactive Media Agreement deal was set to expire in November 2022, but has since been extended on a monthly basis as contract negotiations stretched out. The strike, which applies to more than 2,500 video game performers, follows a year and a half of talks. 

While several key issues, such as wages and job safety, have already been agreed upon, a sticking point is apparently “protections related to the use of AI” — a hurdle successfully cleared by SAG-AFTRA following the 118-day strike in 2023. The new TV Animation Agreements specified that “the term ‘voice actors’ includes only humans and acknowledges the importance of human voice acting.”

GenAI presents a great temptation for video game studios, according to the Coalition of Dubbing Actors (CODA), which wrote on X in December 2023, “We’ve heard from numerous, extremely credible sources that many of the largest game producers want to own, in perpetuity, your movement performances to train your AI replacements.”

Efficient and Strike-Proof

Naturally, the use of AI tools in gaming also applies to voice actors, whether supplying the original audio or a dubbed version. 

One of the most prominent players in the voice cloning space, ElevenLabs, launched its Dubbing Studio in January 2024, following a USD 80m Series B funding round with a billion-dollar valuation. 

That same month SAG-AFTRA made a deal with AI voice company Replica Studios, which the union described as “a great example of AI being done right.” Replica Studios reportedly licenses characters’ voices for a limited period of time, which can be renewed with permission from voice actors.

In fact, during this particular strike, game producers and developers “other than the 10 in the bargaining group are able to sign […] the Localization Agreement (for foreign projects dubbing into English,” contract expert Katie Sikkema explained on LinkedIn.

The opportunities for faster and more cost-effective game localization are, of course, appealing, and the demand is certainly there from the gamers’ perspective. 

For instance, one Italian-language gaming website found, in a survey of 700 readers, that more than half (52%) of respondents do not buy games unless they have “at least” Italian text. 

Seven percent said they would only buy a game if it were dubbed in Italian, and more than a quarter (28%) said that while they would buy an English-only game, they prefer to play in Italian.

So the strike, somewhat like AI-enabled dubbing itself, is a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, AI dubbing could benefit voice actors in any language by reducing some of the physically straining work, such as grunts and shouts, and enable studios to touch up audio without rerecording a voice actor, saving time and effort all around.

On the other hand, voice actors wonder — with good reason — whether AI dubbing will replace them, including during this or a future strike. 

The potential, or perceived, threat to human voice actors emerges as dubbing companies stand to gain from growing demand. Some entertainment companies, such as Kartoon Studios, are already signing deals to experiment with AI dubbing.

For the time being, it seems most likely that the strike may influence how AI dubbing providers market their services and interface with skeptics, but will not necessarily increase or decrease demand for AI dubbing — at least not yet.