The Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) announced on Thursday afternoon that its members who work in the video game industry are going on strike starting today in order to negotiate a better deal with companies like Activision, Disney, EA, and WB Games.
SAG-AFTRA, a union that works with Hollywood, has been renegotiating its Interactive Media Agreement with those game companies since October 2022. While a lot of progress has been made, SAG-AFTRA does not believe these media agreements offer enough protections against the use of AI “We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse AI to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough,” commented SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drecsher.
Its members voted to approve a strike last year, and now the union feels that it has no choice but to strike to get what it wants out of the updated contract. SAG-AFTRA wants “clear and enforceable language” that will protect its members from being taken advantage of by video game companies that use AI. The organization has already made some efforts to address this issue, but wants verbiage protecting its members codified in the next Interactive Media Agreement.
This work stoppage follows strikes that hit Hollywood last year over pay and AI-related issues. Starting at 12:01 a.m. on July 26, any actors who are members of SAG-AFTRA will no longer be able to participate in the production of games from companies who signed the initial Interactive Media Agreement and haven’t agreed to the better terms in interim agreements that SAG-AFTRA has offered up. Actors can see if their project is affected by using a search option on SAG-AFTRA’s website.
The SAG-AFTRA website directly named Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Llama Productions, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks Productions, and WB Games as the video game companies it is negotiating with.
The strike will remain active until SAG-AFTRA can finalize an Interactive Media Agreement contract with them.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.