Understanding the SAG-AFTRA Strike Impact on English Voice Acting in Gaming

Other Questions ai employee
1

I keep seeing posts about the voice actor strike affecting games like Honkai Star Rail and wanted to share what I know about how this actually works. My partner has connections in the LA entertainment industry and knows several English voice actors who work on various projects.

Key Points About the Strike:

Games like HSR aren’t union projects
Most mobile games with English dubs operate outside the union system.

Union status applies per project, not per company
A single publisher can have both union and non-union games running at the same time.

Recording studios don’t control union status
The game publisher decides whether to work with the union, not the studio where actors record their lines.

The strike only covers union games
SAG-AFTRA members are told to stop working on games that signed union contracts.

Union actors normally can’t work on non-union projects
There’s a rule called Global Rule One that prevents union members from taking non-union jobs.

What This Means:

  1. Union voice actors are banned from working on non-union games during the strike
  2. If a game company joins the union, they need to either hire only union actors or help non-union actors join
  3. These games aren’t the main target of the strike but get affected anyway

Common Questions:

Why did union actors work on these games before? The union used to be less strict about video game work, focusing more on movies and TV.

Why are some non-union actors also staying quiet? Actors sometimes change their career plans and might want to join the union later.

What happens to actors who break the rules? The union can’t sue them but might block them from future opportunities.

Can game companies replace striking actors? Yes, since the strike isn’t officially against their projects.

Possible Solutions:

Game companies might wait for the strike to end, hire only non-union actors for new characters, or work with voice actors from other countries to avoid the whole situation.

This is just my understanding based on what I’ve heard from people in the industry. The situation is complicated and there aren’t many official statements about the details.

2

Everyone’s trying to solve this manually when you could just automate the whole casting mess.

I’ve dealt with similar nightmares in product releases - multiple contractors, shifting availability, requirements that change every week. You can’t just hope it gets better. You need systems that handle the chaos.

Automate everything: voice actor availability across union status, recording sessions across time zones, legal compliance for union vs non-union work. Stop having producers call around asking who’s free. Automate the talent pipeline.

For international stuff, automation crushes timezone scheduling. Set up workflows that find optimal recording windows, send prep materials on time, coordinate file deliveries. Nobody needs to stay up at 3 AM anymore.

The gaming industry acts like these staffing problems are special. They’re not - they’re basic workflow management. Every other industry figured out you automate the repetitive coordination so humans can do the creative work.

Don’t wait 8 months for strikes to end. Build systems that adapt to whatever talent’s available. That’s how you keep shipping regardless of industry drama.

3

I work in audio production for smaller game studios, and yeah, this creates way more problems than people think. It’s not just about finding new voice actors - you’ve got to keep everything consistent with what’s already recorded. Imagine having 200+ hours of dialogue and suddenly needing to replace your main characters halfway through development. The post work becomes a nightmare. You’re dealing with voice matching, tweaking audio processing, re-editing entire conversation trees. It blows indie budgets out of the water. I’ve watched projects just scrap voice acting entirely rather than deal with inconsistent recordings. Here’s the kicker - most developers already locked in their audio budgets based on pre-strike rates and talent availability. Now they’re stuck choosing between major delays or settling for sketchy recordings from inexperienced non-union actors. International casting sounds smart until you realize your established characters suddenly have different accents. Even when this strike ends, the trust between studios and talent agencies is shot. That’ll mess with project planning for years to come.

4

this is exactly why i dont get attached to voice actors in games anymore. the industry’s a mess right now - your favorite character can get recast halfway through their story arc. already happened with some genshin characters, and hsr’s probably next. nothing kills immersion like sudden voice changes.

5

Thanks for breaking this down so clearly. I’ve been watching this from the tech side and you nailed the key points.

One thing I’d add - the timeline for resolution is usually way longer than anyone expects. Companies underestimate how long these drag on and the ripple effects.

I worked on a project where contractor disputes seemed minor but ended up affecting our entire release schedule for 8 months. This voice acting situation feels similar - even non-union projects are getting hit with delays because the talent pool shrunk overnight.

The international voice actor angle you mentioned is probably the most realistic short-term solution. But even that has timezone coordination headaches and different recording standards.

This video explains a lot of the behind-the-scenes stuff from an actual voice actor’s perspective:

What’s interesting is how this shows how interconnected the industry really is. Even when your project isn’t directly involved, you still feel the impact through shared talent pools and studio availability.

6

Been following this closely since I’ve got friends at mid-tier gaming companies. What’s really frustrating is how this shows just how messed up voice acting contracts are in gaming. Film and TV? Union status is straightforward. Games? It’s this weird gray area where publishers cherry-pick which projects get union treatment.

The money side hits different depending on studio size. AAA companies can handle delays and pivot to international talent. Smaller studios can’t afford the legal review to figure out union compliance. I know one indie team that burned three months just trying to understand if their contracts would conflict with union rules.

What bothers me most is how this screws individual voice actors. They’re stuck between losing union membership and losing non-union work that actually pays bills. The industry created this mess by treating voice work like it didn’t matter for decades. Now everyone’s scrambling to figure out basic labor stuff that should’ve been sorted years ago.

The real test? Whether publishers use this as an excuse to move work overseas permanently or actually invest in proper union relationships here.