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SAG-AFTRA Reaches Tentative Agreement to End Video Game Strike (no sales royalties)

A union mandated sales-based royalty is unheard of in any medium, so this doesn't surprise me at all. From the beginning it was an unrealistic request. However, I believe they knew that and included it as a bargaining chip.
 

jett

D-Member
They were never going to get royalties so it's better that they ended this shit. At least they got something.
 
Of course they didn't get sales royalties, it was a ridiculous request to begin with.

Sounds like the entire thing was a big old waste of time, if this is what was initially offered to them.
 

Vibranium

Banned
Sucks for the voice actor, but unfortunately things never work out the way we want. Royalties in particular weren't going to happen.

I just hope the non-union actors Capcom went with in RE2make (they were going to recast anyways though) are good.
 

Bluth54

Member
A union mandated sales-based royalty is unheard of in any medium, so this doesn't surprise me at all. From the beginning it was an unrealistic request. However, I believe they knew that and included it as a bargaining chip.

Actors, directors and writers of TV shows and movies get paid residuals for DVD/blue ray sales, streaming sales and TV airing of the content they work on thanks to their guild contracts.
 

Lime

Member
I wish voice actors and developers had cooperated and striked simultaneously for more compensation for the work they put in, as well as get a share of the profits made on the games they've produced.
 

Lork

Member
It's really frustrating how thoroughly this "Royalties / Residuals" meme has spread. A corporation can just put out any anti union smears or propaganda they like, and the uncritical media and public will just lap it up.

From the old Waypoint article on the strike:

SAG-AFTRA insists that they're negotiating for bonuses, not residuals. Jones bristles at the suggestion that they're asking for the latter.

"There's a lot of talk about residuals. We are not asking for residuals. We're asking for bonus payments. It's a different scope. For every two million units sold, up to eight million… so if Call of Duty goes on to sell 30 million units, which it has, we only ask for bonus payments on eight million of those sold. That's really not a bad thing. But that's where the developers, who are putting in crunch time, could see a change for themselves as well."

The fight over language isn't accidental. A debate centered around bonuses would be happening on familiar ground for devs. But a fight for residuals places the voice actors apart from the developers, since they may appear well beyond what game developers could ever hope for, given the culture differences. By insisting the fight is over residuals, whatever the truth, a wedge is created between voice actors and developers who might look to SAG-AFTRA as inspiration.
 
One reason a lot of people take issue with VAs getting something like sale based royalty kick-backs is because they already have a ton of protections and safety nets thanks to being unionized.
There is literally 0% chance that developers would get something similar as there are not unions in place to fight for them.

So while it's great to say that you are for both, the reality is that there is only one side that has someone fighting for those bonuses,
with developers/artists having absolutely no means to make something like that happen. So it honestly comes off as a bit of a hollow or empty statement IMO, even if it isn't intended to.

So yeah, as someone working for a developer I would personally be a bit pissed if I knew that VAs were going to be profiting more off my own work than I ever would.
I know it probably sounds a bit selfish but I got kids and shit to feed too and no union fighting for me!

If the VAs strike had been more successful, hopefully that would've driven more devs to finally unionize. Unions need to be created by workers.
 
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