#gaming Industry

[iww-gnv]

SAG-AFTRA is going on strike again. This time, the union is calling a work stoppage against the major video game companies after nearly two years of trying to renegotiate its Interactive Media Agreement. The decision to hit the picket lines comes 10 months after the union’s initial strike authorization vote. The strike goes into effect July 26 at 12:01 a.m. The 10 companies facing the strike are Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Epic Games, Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc. “We’re not going to consent to a contract that allows companies to abuse A.I. to the detriment of our members. Enough is enough. When these companies get serious about offering an agreement our members can live — and work — with, we will be here, ready to negotiate,” SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said in a statement.

[necromancy-enthusiast]

To help everyone understand the gravity of the situation with Unity's recent bullshit, here are some games made in unity:

Cult of the Lamb

Bendy and the Ink Machine

Untitled Goose Game

Road 96

Cuphead

Power Wash Simulator

Genshin Impact

Getting Over It

Inside

Tem Tem

Kerbal Space Program 1

Kerbal Space Program 2

Rust

Rimworld

Outer Wilds

Dream Daddy

Thomas Was Alone

I Am Setsuna

Tunic

Night in the Woods

Pony Island

Return of the Obra Dinn

Among Us

Pokemon Go

Hollow Knight

Ori and the Blind Forest

Ori and the Willow of the Wisps

Vampire Survivors

Two Point Hospital

City Skylines

The Long Dark

Firewatch

Oxenfree

Subnautica

Subnautica: Below Zero

Fall Guys

Many, MANY MORE

Unless you only play tRIpLE A titles this will most likely affect a game you like. Hell, it can even affect really big games like Pokemon Go.

For a long time, starting years and years back, a lot of people have been talking about the preservation of games and being against moving to digital only games for reasons like this, and how the greed of various big companies in the game industry will negatively impact access to games and their preservation. It's happening. This will impact games that are already out. This will impact games being made. This will impact games made in the future. So if you care even a teensy tiny bit about a single game made in unity, or you care about the future of game development period, I suggest you pay very close attention.

A good article from an indie developer detailing the changes and exactly how it screws devs over:

[heartspark]

Have you ever wanted to play a cute monster taming game with lots of love and heart put into every inch and corner of it by a Team of fantastically talented artists?

Me too!! Too bad it got cancelled literally a few weeks before it was going to be anounced!

Artist Nicholas Kole on twitter along with many other talented artists have been sharing their work of nearly 4 years on this game. I cant imagine the heartbreak of working so hard on this project only for it to get canceled right before Release and everyone on the Team to get laid off.

It was meant to be an open world, minecraft inspired builder, with all sorts of unique creatures with various skins, variations depending on biomes, and even petting animations. That you could tame! It also had a large amount of beautiful and unique character customization. Here's some of the art ( NOT MY ART ) for the project!

Apparently alot of this game was near finished, coded, etc! ( ART ABOVE IS BY NICHOLAS KOLE , JOHANNES FIGLHUBER, INES MARSAL, AND MARIA LOBANOVA )

I dont know if the artists can look into crowdfunding ( the Studio still may own the IP ) , but myself and a few others have been trying to get the hashtag #bringbackprojectdragon get some traction on twitter! Maybe if the internet raises enough stink, the Studio might pay attention. Im not sure how likely that is but I desperately want thus game to exsist, it would be a dream game for me and many others im sure. So please consider joining in if you have a twitter.

[xamiipholia]

This is a really important read. (fyi the title refers to the upcoming LIS, not True Colors)

Rebekkah Valentine is the real deal, she does great fucking investigative journalism.

Honestly it seems like a miracle that True Colors is as good as it is. Fuck Square Enix.

[yusuke-of-valla]

So, Video Game Voice Actors Are On Strike: A Quick and Dirty Guide for Tumblr Users

Starting on July 26th, SAG-AFTRA members that are part of the Interactive Media Agreement (so mostly voice actors for video games) will be on strike. If you're a member of SAG-AFTRA with questions, I would speak to them.

Most of this information is coming from the SAG-AFTRA website, feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about anything or ask if you need anything.

If you are a random tumblr user who wants to know what's going on, here we go.

Why are video game voice actors striking?

AI, as one could expect. From the union's statement:

Although agreements have been reached on many issues important to SAG-AFTRA members, 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.

Which Games Are Being Struck?

Games from: Activision Productions Inc., Blindlight LLC, Disney Character Voices Inc., Electronic Arts Productions Inc., Formosa Interactive LLC, Insomniac Games Inc., Llama Productions LLC, Take 2 Productions Inc., VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and WB Games Inc. are all being struck.

There is also a website to confirm which union projects are being struck but you'd need to be a member actively working on it to use it.

Ok so I'm not a voice actor, union or otherwise, I just like games. What should I do.

I can NOT stress this enough. Do NOT stop playing games. The union has not asked for this, and is instead asking for people to amplify our messages online using #LevelUpTheContract, #VideoGameStrike and #SagAftraStrong."

You can also sign this petition in support of voice actors getting a fair deal.

I'm not a union representative but if a game you're looking forward to is being covered by the struck companies, I'd blow up your social media and their mentions with how much you love the voice acting and the actors deserve a fair contract, but other than that you are not being asked to boycott any games or not cosplay or attend events.

A Streamer is playing a struck game! Is that crossing the picket line?

No, SAG-AFTRA explicitly says that is fine, and in fact encourages it.

An actor is promoting/promoted a struck work at SDCC, is that crossing the picket line?

No, the statement explicitly says those attending SDCC can still do work there because of the short notice, they are also fine.

Wait didn't SAG-AFTRA already do some weird bullshit regarding video game voice actors and AI?

Yes, at the Consumer Electronics Show in January, SAG-AFTRA signed a deal with Replica AI to allow their members to create digital replicas, it was a whole thing and many voice actors were pissed.

So they're hypocrites?

Ok it's more complicated than that. Their logic for the Replica AI thing is rather than allow companies to do whatever they want, it was better to have a system in place to be able to clearly say when a company was breaking the rules and ensure that talent got some compensation.

We can debate the efficacy of that strategy all day and voice actors at the time were not happy, BUT the companies being struck here refuse to even rise to THAT standard and will not agree to the most basic protections for actors, which is worse.

People and organizations contain multitudes and it is not a betrayal or hypocritical to disagree with SAG-AFTRA leadership on the Replica AI situation and side with them, and more importantly their members in this case.

Why aren't game devs striking/ It's not devs on strike so I don't care

The Screen Actors Guild covers actors, so it would not be in everyone's best interest if they were to try and negotiate on behalf of people in different fields with different needs.

However, one way to build support for the various movements to unionize at places like Activision-Blizzard and Bethesda is to support labor movements everywhere and show solidarity whenever it comes up.

Why are the actors striking when the developers should be paid more.

They should be paid more! And they should not be laid off as much. One way to help with that is to be able to point to voice actors and say, hey they got a raise, I want one too.

[videogamepoc]

Before Israel’s war in Gaza, Palestinian programmer Doaa Ghandour was working on Palestine Skating Game’s grind rails. Any skater — be that skateboarding or roller skating — knows rails are essential to street-style skating. In Palestine Skating Game, these grind rails weave through the West Bank, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-style, for use as you spray graffiti on the Israeli-built separation wall. It’s easy to see the appeal of Palestine Skating Game in its early prototype on Itch.io: The futuristic Bethlehem is made all the more colorful with paint splatters and graffiti, set to what the team describes as “Arabic electronic music.” And it’s designed to be enticing: “The idea is that if you immerse Westerners in that kind of art and music from the region, you’ll start to actually see people from the region as human beings,” Palestine Skating Game’s current project lead told Aftermath in November.

Palestine Skating Game has been in development for roughly two and a half years. The inspiration initially hit after the project lead, who was granted anonymity by Polygon, saw We Are Lady Parts, a TV show about an all-women Muslim punk band. Development has changed since then — it had to. “We have to acknowledge the existence of a lot more suffering,” the project lead told Polygon. “We are having to do the thing where we had one creative vision for the project, and now we have to figure out how that changes with respect to the events unfolding.” Israel’s war in Gaza is entering its fourth month. Nearly 28,000 people have been killed in Gaza, 388 in the occupied West Bank, and 1,139 in Israel, according to Al Jazeera. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is currently hearing a genocide case against Israel, wherein it argues that “the acts and omissions by Israel complained of by South Africa are genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group,” as reported by Vox. Israel denies the accusation, saying its attacks are justified as a response to Hamas’ terrorist attack in Israel on Oct. 7, where roughly 1,200 people were killed. “Israeli Occupation Forces have cut off all medical supplies, as well as water and food, from Palestinians in Gaza, amidst the continued carpet bombing and genocide. It has left our friends to navigate the most severe humanitarian crisis of our time,” the fundraiser reads. Palestine Skating Game has been in development for roughly two and a half years. The inspiration initially hit after the project lead, who was granted anonymity by Polygon, saw We Are Lady Parts, a TV show about an all-women Muslim punk band. Development has changed since then — it had to. “We have to acknowledge the existence of a lot more suffering,” the project lead told Polygon. “We are having to do the thing where we had one creative vision for the project, and now we have to figure out how that changes with respect to the events unfolding.” The project lead said the team, which is Ghandour, writer Hadeel, and himself with four other developers and volunteers, want to make it easy for people — even those unfamiliar with the conflict — to see what’s happening in Gaza. “We want to make it easier for people to see, Oh, here’s how the West Bank has been slowly eaten up and balkanized,” he said. “We also just want it to be something that people want to share with their friends. There should be so many fucking cool things in this game that people will immediately want to say, ‘Hey, you’ve got to see this.’” The Palestine Skating Game team — the core group, four paid developers, and roughly 15 volunteer developers — is working on a full vertical slice, or a polished, short demo, of the game. They’re also hoping to run a Kickstarter, GoFundMe campaign, or other investment to fund more development.

[gacha-incels]

I hope no one is falling for the same horseshit Korean misogynist men try to barf up when they want “logical” westerners to be on their side regarding 🤏. The thing that always strikes me when they fear-monger about the defunct megalia website is this: if these women writing “cruel” things online and engaging in mirroring techniques is enough to brand them man-haters and have them become some eternal boogeywomen, why aren’t the men stabbing, killing, raping, witch-hunting, sexually trafficking and beating women - because they are women - branded as extreme women-haters in turn? Surely these targeted attacks that have happened, and continue to happen frequently, are enough to label these men extremist misogynists whose actions and texts are dangerous to Korean society? But instead, as we have seen recently, their deranged misogynist thoughts are carefully listened to and their delusions are catered to by major companies.

Secondly, these guys like to portray the women they go after as having dangerous opinions by saying, oh the pinched fingers means they’re megal and therefore it’s a secret signal for all these “hateful” thoughts. However the “radical, hateful thoughts” the men trawl through these women’s social medias to find have always ended up being basic women’s rights: the right to have an abortion, being against sex trafficking, being against molka, condemning misogynist hiring practices, etc. These extremely basic tenets of feminism are what these men consider radical and dangerous to society. When they try to pull the wool over your eyes by saying “feminism is different in korea it’s extreme and evil” THESE are the things they mean. Saying “it’s a megal symbol for crazy female supremacy” is a smokescreen for misogynist men to punish women who want basic human rights. The smaller group of women engaging in 4B there try to live their lives in a female-centered way, away from men. These are the women that misogynist men revile so much that simply existing as a woman with short hair is enough for them to violently attack you with a knife. So how does this make sense? The women branded as evil misandrists live their lives avoiding men and uplifting other women. The men who hate women do the complete opposite: they go out of their way to physically and sexually assault women and get them fired from their jobs. The misogynists in that group who witch hunt women are not labeled extremists, but rather catered to by companies like Nexon. Don’t fall for their shit.

[infrared135-36]

the zoomers playing gachas now get so defensive and aggressive over them compared to what I remember from the early to mid 2010s. I see so many people saying “well Y is a gacha but you totally don’t need to spend like Z gacha! It’s more like a live service!”, or “X gacha fans try playing a gacha that actually respects you like Y!” I see this all the time for people shilling shit like Arknights or Limbus Company. Please for the love of god can we get back to the point where everyone can recognize creating a game in the gacha genre is inherently exploitive. I’m not saying this to shame anyone who plays them because I don’t really give a shit, of course there’s pedo-pandering heavy games like blue archive and increasingly FGO that I wish would EoS but that’s a different discussion. If these “nice” gachas wanted to be “buy an update a month” or whatever live service games, they would have been. It doesn’t matter if you think they’re nice about it, they made these games specifically to be gachas because they make a shit ton of money. In one single “dead” month for Limbus Company they basically made the same amount of money that the entire Pathologic 2 kickstarter made for example. And this is even after alienating half their fanbase pulling that incel shenanigans shit.

You don’t need to defend their money grubbing asses even if idk you see the game as an inherent aspect of who you are and your identity so anyone criticizing the game itself is as if they’re criticizing you as a person, which, because of the growth of SNS sites especially since covid, I think a chunk of this is. I don’t think that makes these games unable to tell interesting and moving stories or have lovable characters - on the contrary, they have to make sure gacha-original characters will be pulled for, so they invest a lot of time into their appeal, even embarrassingly having them break the 4th wall and directly say this is the case like in FGO. However every single character design and story has to be created under the gacha framework and the unrelenting need to appeal to their userbase. Why do you think there’s a lot of “badass old men” designs in FGO but after 8 years there’s not one single woman with even the whisper a wrinkle? Why did they change Frankenstein’s berserker screams to be a cute anime girl voice? Why do many of the male Arknights characters have detailed, shaded and distinguished facial features while most of the female cast has the classic anime bug eyes, dot nose and line mouth, especially with the full animal-faced characters?

It’s like many entertainment industries where the characters must have mass appeal but on steroids because you’re not paying to buy the game, you’re paying for the 1% chance of getting the character, so the game lives or dies based on their appeal. I don’t even mean this in a sanctimonious “therefore don’t play them” way, there are “traditional” video game companies pulling stupid, damaging and illegal shit all the time, gacha is not the one single evil thing within the industry. I would just like to see recognition about what you’re playing. It’s a gacha game. Yes even Limbus Company is made to have you gamble, that’s literally the reason there’s daily log in incentives and a gacha currency…. It doesn’t matter if you think these games are nice or fair to you. They’re gacha games, they were made to make money from you first and foremost. Keep skeptical about what they do, you don’t need to jump in and defend their practices just because you like the game.

[talism4niac]

Actually you know what, here's a Megathread of the folks behind Project Dragon / Everhaven

I figured the least I could do is highlight as many people as I can that had involvement with the project and has posted their work. If there's anyone that I missed please DM and I'll be sure to update this when I can! Go and show these folks some love! </3

Nicholas Kole : Portfolio | Twitter | Instagram

Airborn Studios : Artstation | Twitter

Ines Marsal : Twitter

Camille Peyrebere : Twitter

Leslie Van den Broeck : Artstation

Chloé Labbé : Twitter

Janneke Bruijnes : Twitter

Malte Sturm : Twitter

Andrea Orioli : Twitter

Charlène Le Scanff : Twitter | Artstation

Julien Allard : Twitter

Lucas St. Martin : Twitter | Instagram | Artstation

Andy Hansen : Twitter | Artstation

Florian Coudray : Twitter | Artstation

Malwina Czech (Mawluna) : Twitter

Joey Vergara : Twitter -Game Designer

Mel Ramsden : Twitter -Game Designer

Shaan Joshi : Twitter -Game Developer

Bethany Higa : Twitter -Narrative Designer

Dave Huddleston : Linkedin -Lead Animator

Cris Velasco : Twitter -Composer

Hunter Howe : Twitter -Director

Michael vicente - Orb : Twitter -3D Artist

[iww-gnv]

The entire game industry is still reeling from yesterday's bombshell announcement that Microsoft—hot on the heels of its $69 billion acquisition of Activision—would be laying off 1,900 employees across Activision-Blizzard and Xbox. Inevitably, Twitter is awash with reactions highlighting the human cost, both from dazed devs waking up in a world in which they no longer have jobs, and from others wondering what this all means for the months and years ahead. The posts by former Blizzard devs are too many to count. "After years of applying," wrote former QA learning specialist Cole McElwain in a much-retweeted post, "I finally secure a job at Blizzard. I move to California and am welcomed with an incredible team. I couldn't be more excited to start… "Four months into the job, I'm laid off. What the hell, Microsoft?"

[yellowsugarwords]

ᴠɪᴅᴇᴏ ɢᴀᴍᴇs ɪ ʟᴏᴠᴇ

⎆ firewatch

[faircatch]

In the continuing Unity saga/drama... an interesting take....

[barbex]

A company is supposed to produce a product. Who will make those products if you fire everyone to buy your own share back?

[yusuke-of-valla]

UPDATE 9/26/2023

Strike authorization has passed by 98.32% and SAG leadership are returning to negotiate with game companies to secure a fair deal for voice actors and mocap actors

This DOES NOT MEAN that a strike is happening, it simply means that members are willing to go on strike and leadership can use this as leverage when negotiating. The deadline to come to a deal is is 9/28. If a deal is not reached THEN will there be a strike.

Please remember that the best outcome is that there is no strike and companies simply give workers a fair deal. A strike is a last resort.

While this does not directly affect developers in the game industry, that does not mean it's not important. Voice actors have been treated like shit in the game industry and are under threat by AI. The more people that are unionized, the easy it is for others to unionize. Do not dismiss it just because it is not developers.

The companies that would be affected by a hypothetical strike are:

Activision Productions Inc.,

Blindlight LLC,

Disney Character Voices Inc.,

Electronic Arts Productions Inc.,

Epic Games, Inc.,

Formosa Interactive LLC,

Insomniac Games Inc.,

Take 2 Productions Inc.,

VoiceWorks Productions Inc., and

WB Games Inc.

At the moment, no boycott has been called so there is nothing for consumers or anyone not involved with SAG-AFTRA to do, other than to be supportive on social media and report unauthorized AI recreation of voice actors work. Otherwise sit tight.

I'd really appreciate it if people who reblogged the last post also reblog the update

[chronicallykiki]

Voice Actor Explains the 2024 SAG AFTRA Video Game Strike