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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Sarah Elmaleh’s March 2024 interview captured SAG-AFTRA’s video game performers arguing for transparency, consent and compensation when artificial intelligence replicates their work. Those negotiations were unresolved when she spoke; members ratified a new Interactive Media Agreement on July 9, 2025, ending the strike and setting specific rules for covered digital replicas.
What Sarah Elmaleh argued in the 2024 interview
Elmaleh, a voice actor and chair of SAG-AFTRA’s Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee, described the IMA as the union’s principal agreement for performers doing interactive work. Talks had been underway since 2022, and AI protections were the final sticking point at the time of the interview, published March 28, 2024 and updated June 18, 2025. Her comments describe that negotiating moment, not the terms of the agreement ultimately ratified in 2025. GamesBeat’s interview frames her position around three connected principles.
Transparency, consent and compensation
Elmaleh’s framework was that performers need information about how their work will be used in order to make a meaningful choice, and that compensation should follow when a performance carries value into new material without the performer present. She put it this way: “Transparency creates an opportunity for meaningful consent, not partial consent or misled consent. And then proper compensation.”
SAG-AFTRA’s 2024 strike announcement similarly described its demands as consent, compensation and transparency for digital replicas and generative AI used to create synthetic performances. The union reported that members had approved a video game strike authorization by a 98.32% yes vote in 2023. SAG-AFTRA’s strike-authorization announcement dates the start of negotiations to October 2022.
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Why notice matters in game performance
Elmaleh said game performers can receive limited information about a project, making a recording session an important opportunity to ask about a line or portrayal. In her view, AI use can increase the stakes while removing that direct moment of collaboration. Clear contractual information and consent provisions could restore some of that discussion as an obligation. As she said, “The contract is trying to recapture that conversation and make it a contractual obligation, as much as we can.”
Her view was not a blanket rejection of AI
Elmaleh discussed possible uses that could extend rather than displace an artist’s work: a performer authorizing a voice modification, an estate participating in posthumous use, or a digital vocal double for strenuous effort work. She presented these as possibilities requiring disclosure, meaningful participation, consent and compensation—not as blanket union approval for any technology or use.
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What the 2025 agreement changed
SAG-AFTRA members ratified the 2025 Interactive Media Agreement on July 9, 2025, by 95.04% to 4.96%. The vote concluded the video game strike, which had begun July 26, 2024, after bargaining failed to resolve the parties’ dispute over AI protections. The agreement’s term runs from November 8, 2022 through October 31, 2028. SAG-AFTRA’s ratification announcement reports the vote and end of the strike.
The contract delivers a 15.17% increase upon ratification, followed by compounded 3% increases in November 2025, November 2026 and November 2027, according to SAG-AFTRA. These wage increases are separate from the agreement’s rules on compensation for replica creation and use.
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How digital-replica protections work
Consent must describe the intended use
For covered digital replicas, consent must be written, conspicuous, separately signed or initialed, and tied to a reasonably specific description of intended use. The agreement’s examples of relevant details include the project code name, game genre, whether the performer is reprising a prior role, relevant content characteristics, the role’s size, and whether the replica will generate real-time dialogue. A use that departs from that reasonably specific description is no longer permitted under the consent.
Vocal and visual replicas have different coverage
The agreement does not treat every kind of replica or performance identically. SAG-AFTRA’s official 2025 IMA FAQ and member materials say vocal-replica terms cover material whether it appears in-game or in a cinematic. Visual-replica terms cover scripted cinematic scenes; visual replica use in-game falls outside those replica terms and may be eligible for a secondary performance payment. SAG-AFTRA and the employer bargaining group also retain differing positions on some performance-capture coverage issues.
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Replica work and use can trigger compensation
The member booklet sets minimum compensation rules for covered replica work. Under the vocal digital-replica provision, a session fee applies for every 300 generated vocal lines. For visual replicas, compensation is no less than scale, based on the employer’s good-faith estimate of production days. These terms do not mean that every AI-related use falls within the contract’s replica definitions or triggers the same payment.
Consent is limited, but not ordinarily revocable at will
The FAQ says consent generally cannot be revoked at will after it has been granted, except where suspension conditions have been separately bargained or the agreement’s strike provision applies. Consent for new replica-generated material is automatically suspended during a strike affecting the interactive program in question; the agreement also provides for written suspension in certain other covered circumstances.
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Ordinary processing is excluded from replica terms
The contract excludes specified routine processing practices from its replica provisions, including editing for clarity, noise reduction, timing, speed, pitch and tone. The distinction matters: changing a recording through one of these listed processes is not automatically the same contractual category as creating a digital replica.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How enforcement is addressed
The official FAQ describes member usage reports, claims, arbitration and information requests under the National Labor Relations Act as enforcement channels. Those mechanisms show how issues may be raised, but the available official materials do not establish how often they have been used or the outcomes of disputes under the ratified terms.
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