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Unless you’re deeply immersed in the world of video games, you might not realize just how much real actors are involved in modern games.

They offer everything from a few lines for supporting characters in games to hundreds or even thousands of highly emotive recordings, said Amanda Cote, a professor at Michigan State University who studies the game industry and culture.

“In story-driven games like Mass Effect or Far Cry, we record hundreds of lines of dialogue to cover the different storylines the player might encounter, and then try to make it all make sense across the shifting storylines,” she says.

“This isn’t like a film where you only have one version of the script and you might do multiple takes but the overall story is the same. This is about recording potentially different endings, different storylines and making sure they’re all consistent with how the characters develop along those different lines.”

There are also performance capture artists, who wear body suits equipped with sensors and whose movements are digitally captured by a camera and later computerized.

Some of the biggest game studios rely on voice and performance capture artists, all of which generates huge profits: The video game industry made nearly $185 billion in profits last year.

But not everyone is happy.

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Generative AI is a challenge

Video game performers are currently on strike.

Their union, SAG-AFTRA, has been negotiating contracts with the major video game companies for more than a year and a half. Cote says performers want clearer safety and protection measures, like a five-minute break after every hour spent in front of the camera and having medical staff on set while they perform stunts, and that the union and the video game companies appear to have reached good terms on most of those issues.

But those talks have stalled over artificial intelligence.

Veronica Taylor is one of many video game actors who worry that the companies she works for will replace them with artificial intelligence or use their voices and movements in ways they don’t consent to. She says it’s already happening.

“I found my voice on Voicebank, where people can use my voice to say things I’ve never said,” she told NPR.

Companies say they have put in place AI safeguards, but unionists say they don’t apply to everyone.

Stuntmen and others whose movements are digitally captured are concerned that video game companies could create digital replicas of their physical work without their consent.

“What they’re saying is that some of these performances, especially as it pertains to movement, are just data,” says Andy Norris, a SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee member who has worked on games like Predator: Hunting Grounds. “I can crawl all over the floor and walls like that creature, and they’ll argue that’s not performance and therefore not subject to AI protection.”

She insists that her work is not just data points, but something she does as a real person.

The performers who spoke to NPR said it’s important to note that they’re not arguing that AI should never or never be used in games, they just want to make sure that its use is clear, understandable, and compensated.

Members go on strike

Zeke Alton, who also serves on the SAG-AFTRA negotiating committee, said actors are the canaries in the coal mine of new technology.

“We’re setting a precedent for how workers in the U.S. and around the world will be treated,” he said. “Are they going to use this new technology as a tool for efficiency for creative people and workers? Or is this tool going to be used by management to exclude workers?”

Cote says generative AI has the potential to destabilize the creative industries in general, and games in particular.

“When you look at something like AI in a live-action setting, you run into the ‘uncanny valley’ problem, where the AI ​​character’s face looks a little bit odd,” he says. “But if you think about industries like voice acting or motion capture, the work that a performer does in that context is associated with an animated digital avatar. So you don’t get this ‘uncanny valley’ effect, because the end result is a digital avatar. So that might make it easier to use generative AI in games than other industries.”

Video game voice and motion actors say they are especially likely to be replaced by generative AI, as their performances become computer data, and their collective negotiations will likely influence how the technology is thought about going forward.

Spokespeople for the video game companies involved in the negotiations said in a statement that the companies and the union had already reached agreement on 24 of the 25 proposals, and that they were disappointed that the union chose to withdraw when they were so close to reaching an agreement. The video game companies have said they are open to re-opening negotiations.

Editor’s note: Many NPR employees are members of SAG-AFTRA but are under a separate contract and are not striking.

This episode was produced by Brianna Scott. Edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon and Claire Lombard. NPR arts reporter Mandalit del Barco contributed reporting. Executive producer is Sami Yenigan.