EA CEO says the SAG-AFTRA strike won’t cause ‘any significant short-term impact’

The CEO of Electronic Arts says the ongoing SAG-AFTRA strike won’t impact the company, at least in the short term.

The strike, which has been called by the labour union for American actors, started on July 26 after the union said it failed to negotiate acceptable protections around the use of AI for its members.

While the strike remains active, video game companies and their performance production arms likely won’t be able to hire unionised actors to perform motion capture or voiceover work for their games.

In a Q&A following EA’s earnings call for the first quarter of FY 2025, CEO Andrew Wilson was asked how the strike would disrupt the business in the near-term, and when it could start to have an impact on EA’s release schedule.

Wilson replied that while EA is contributing to the negotiation process, the strike won’t have an immediate short-term impact on the company.

“Let me first say we deeply value our talent and actors who are an important part of the work we do to deliver the incredible entertainment experiences that our players enjoy around the world,” Wilson said.

“This is not an EA-specific situation, this is an industry-specific situation, and we’re working diligently to negotiate at the table. The way it works now, in terms of our products specifically, is that the strike is limited to games commencing production after September 2023, including live service games.

“So we don’t expect any near-term disruption to any of the games we have in development, or any of the live services we’re currently running.

“That being said, we’re committed to continuing to bargain in good faith, and are hopeful that the parties can expediently resolve our issues at the bargaining table. But we’re not anticipating any significant short-term impact at EA.”

Last September SAG-AFTRA members approved strike action if the union was unable to get terms it considered acceptable while negotiating the Interactive Media Agreement.

SAG-AFTRA had been in negotiations with several video game companies and their performance production arms since October 2022, including Activision Productions, Blindlight, Disney Character Voices, EA Productions, Formosa Interactive, Insomniac Games, Epic Games, Take 2 Productions, VoiceWorks Productions and WB Games.