Topic: The screen actors Guild is seeking a strike against video game companies

@Euler Woke refers to both general awareness and care about social issues. The examples you show are depicting corporations selectively choosing their image in order to best present themselves to their different markets. That is the exact opposite of woke.

Depends if it uses actors from the striking unions or not, I guess? The union in question is US based, and for US actors only. The UK equivalent is Equity, for example.
Not sure how international affairs work in this context.
Edit: um, sorry for the rubbish response!

@EaglyBird
I'm way out of my depth, and I can't seem to compose a decent reply.
But I have found this, which may be useful
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016%E2%80%932017_video_game_...

Edit: sag-aftra actions affect members world-wide, so not just American productions.

@Rambler don’t know about vidya games but with movies it’s largely because productions are so international nowadays, half the Marvel and DC films are made in the Uk, so that you have to be apart of Yankee union even if you work in the UK, even British productions have international partners as they do life cycle costing for their budgets to include overseas market plus as Hollywood is seen as the leader a lot of international unions follow them.

I know a few people who work in the industry and everything is slowing down now. The UK has made some major investments in the last few years in creating new studio lots around London Town, one has been paid up for 7 years by the Lord Of The Rings show, so it’s buggered alot of people even non-actor and writers. Some are now doing telly commercials but a lot aren’t working still as there’s not enough work going around at the likes Film4 or BBC.

I’m glad I’m no the only one who feels like they can’t give a good reply.

I agree! There work makes people like me happy, so they should be treated fairly.

@EaglyBird Right? It’s messed up what company’s are doing to VA, animators, developers, and all the like, it’s terrible and they don’t deserve it. So I’m all for the strike.

“Also no British va means no xenoblade”

(I couldn’t find any good gifs for this, next time I’m making my own)

At least the VAs have a union.

Most of the rest of the people involved in games development don't, and would probably get fired on the spot if they tried to start one.

@Matt_Barber That’s so messed up.

@EaglyBird You know, I agree with you, it would actually give me a reason to finish stuff like during the 19, so I think I too wouldn’t mind.

That’s kinda crazy when you think about, to overwork them that much, like what’s wrong with people, but company’s are company’s, money starts looks more human then the people working for them.

Ok good lol! Because for a second I thought I missed something, however I do look forward to it all! Wouldn’t be the same is right, it just, everything, so much charm from the game comes from the story and so much of the story comes from the characters and so much if the characters comes from, you guessed it voice acting.

I couldn’t agree more, I made a pretty silly meme with chainsaw man a while back and I have still yet to see anyone make a gif out of it, that or I just don’t pay attention. Guess I should grow my memes more often.

@EaglyBird It depends. Formosa also worked on BOTW and TOTK, so Nintendo COULD be effected, but also not. It all depends what they have in the pipeline for 2024 and 2025.

I honestly don’t understand why people would want to do that, you’d think with like two decades worth of movies telling you that’s a bad idea, you would think it’s a bad idea no?

@EaglyBird So money is the root of all evil eh?

Would this affect Indies? I know indies have hired professional VA's without going through the VA agencies as kind of a side-job before...would that still be a thing during a strike? If so I guess we can live with this for awhile, but if this strike lasts years as suggested by some analysts we might see the entire entertainment industry disappear if nothing new is released for years...

I personally root for this. AI should not be used for lazily pushing out games, movies, television, books, etc.

I also hope this strike also makes a change to overly-rough crunch times somehow someway, no game developer should have to endure weeks of intense crunch.

@EaglyBird and sadly history has shown us this to be the case ): time, and time again, gosh, the idea of A.I being used for movies is just, I don’t like the thought.

If you only watch big CGI blockbusters films like Marvel I’m not sure you’d be able to tell the difference between a hu-man writer and an AI one anyway since they are rightly or wrongly formula made anyway.

I’d think people would probably prefer it, if you look at something like Velma that was a show written in the personal voice of Mindy Kaling but if an AI wrote the show it would have sourced the most popular Scooby Doo google results making the most typical Scooby Doo-ish type show possible. Thinking about it they should do a Batman AI movie, instead of making him Nirvana sad Batman or kooky Tim Burton Batman they may actually use some of the decent Batman comics as the base source and have him not kill people for a change.

@EaglyBird
AI also has uses for healthcare, and I would imagine uses in physics as well. But yes, it has no place in the arts outside of avant-garde messing about.
(Although if laws and ground rules are established, I can see it being used as a beneficial tool - if we attempted this stunt, what would all the risks be and are these the same risks that a stunt pro would state?)

@EaglyBird
Totally agree with you.

It's probably been mentioned before, but as well as removing jobs, reducing artistry, etc, the idea of AI-produced films and TV is an absolute end goal in the concept of mass-market, consumerist product.

Baudrillard would've loved it.

You make it sound like people don’t actually want mass market consumerist product movies though.

We are at the point where a bog standard straight forward drama is viewed the same way as an experimental arthouse film nowadays whilst people complain franchise X has too much personal voice in it or the franchise isn’t franchisesy enough. Unfortunately the audience have cultivated the perfect breeding ground for AI written movies to be successful already and it’s just a knee jerk reaction to hearing it’s AI that people aren’t already celebrating AI movies.

@EaglyBird
He was a French philosopher of pop culture and consumerism who came up with the idea of hyperreality. Really good fun to read - I was being a bit ironic, in that he wouldve probably been fascinated with machine-generated consumerism, rather than a cheerleader for it.

But it will be - I hope - a boon for humanity. The fact that these discussions and strikes are taking place now is, I think, a good thing. People from scientists to artists to politicians are aware of the negative consequences of AI before they have been implemented. Hopefully they will be able to do something, and only the benefits will be realised.