Take-Two CEO Says a Long-Term Video Game Actor Strike 'Wouldn't Be Good for Anyone'
Video game voice actors continue to strike in an effort to push gaming companies toward a deal on AI protections for all actors. But while CEOs at major publishers like EA and Take-Two don’t think the strike will have a short-term business impact, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick acknowledges that a “long-term strike wouldn’t be good for anyone.”
Speaking to IGN today ahead of the company’s Q1 earnings, Zelnick responded to a question about whether or not the strike would impact the company’s business broadly. Like EA CEO Andrew Wilson, he doesn’t expect an immediate impact to the business. That’s to be expected, given that technically games in production before August 25, 2023 are not officially struck work. While actors can still opt to express solidarity by refusing to work on them, it seems likely that most of Take-Two’s upcoming slate of games already has most of its acting work complete anyway. GTA VI, for instance, isn’t expected to be impacted.
But should the strike wear on for longer, potentially impacting projects signed since last year or which don’t have acting work captured yet, Zelnick admits it wouldn’t be a good thing.
“We deeply value our talent relationships. Historically, we’ve worked really successfully with all the guilds, including SAG-AFTRA. We’re going to continue to work hard to come to a resolution. We’ve already reached common ground on 24 out of 25 proposals, so I’m confident we can find a way to get to a deal and we certainly hope that we will. That said, we do not expect the strike to have an impact on our business in the near-term. Obviously, a long-term strike wouldn’t be good for anyone.”
As Zelnick notes, SAG-AFTRA and game companies have come to an agreement on 24 out of 25 proposals, with the remaining proposal concerning use of artificial intelligence to create digital replicas of actors for use in games. Union members are demanding that companies disclose use of generative AI to create such models to actors and receive consent before doing so, as well as compensation for that use.
SAG-AFTRA claims that among other disagreements, companies are attempting to exclude certain types of actors from these agreements, while the union wants these agreements to cover everyone: face, motion, and voice actors. We’ve written elsewhere about what this strike and its impacts might mean for gamers.
Take-Two reported total net bookings of $1.22 billion for the quarter, within its guidance, and projects net bookings between $1.4 billion and $1.47 billion for Q2. Its full year guidance remains unchanged, expecting between $5.55 billion and $5.65 billion in net bookings. The company also reported that GTA V sales have exceeded 200 million, and Red Dead Redemption 2 has sold over 65 million units today. Its expectations for GTA 6’s release in Fall of 2025 remain unchanged.
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to [email protected].
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