Amazon Games head Christoph Hartmann has suggested that AI won’t affect the videogames industry because “We don’t really have acting.” Er…
In comments that will surely come as a surprise to the dozens of actors working in and around the videogames industry, Amazon Games head honcho Christoph Hartmann says that the rise of AI won’t affect game development because “we don’t really have acting.”
Hartmann said this in the context of a broader interview about Amazon Games’ recently-announced title King Of Meat – a co-op game that marks something of a departure for a label more commonly associated with such MMOs as Lost Ark and Blue Protocol. IGN's Kat Bailey (as picked up by VGC) then asked about the recent Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) strikes, which began in July and were triggered over concerns about the growing use of AI in the games industry.
“I mean, I got to be careful what [I say] here because we are a big company and have to deal with all those organisations, so I don’t really want to get in the middle of it,” Hartmann said, before promptly marching right into the middle of it. “But when we talk about AI, first of all, hopefully it will help us to have new gameplay ideas, which has nothing to do with taking work away from anyone. And especially for games, we don’t really have acting… The majority of the team sits in programming and that’s not going to go away because that’s all about innovation.”
According to this piece on The Conversation, around 2,500 of SAG-AFTRA’s 160,000 members work in the games industry in one form or another, whether it’s voice acting or via performance capture. That’s a fair percentage, and there are likely many more non-union actors also working in videogames.
SAGA-AFTRA’s strike began on the 26th July when the union failed to reach an agreement with a panel of major videogame companies, among them Activision-Blizzard, Electronic Arts and Take Two. At the time, the union’s executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland said that the guild is seeking “the same fundamental protections as performers in film, television, streaming and music: fair compensation and the informed consent for the AI use of their faces, voices and bodies.”
For his part, Hartmann insists that AI won’t “replace human creativity and […] uniqueness” in videogames, but adds that the technology could potentially speed up development and help save costs. He also says “if it takes something, it will be really the boring parts,” including translating games into other languages – seemingly overlooking that hundreds if not thousands of people work in the industry’s localisation sector.
Other studios, including EA, have said similar things about AI speeding up game development. But while those on the corporate end of the industry see cost-saving opportunities, there are fears from the creative side of the business that generative AI could soon see the countless artists, animators – and, yes, actors – lose their jobs.
Large sectors of the videogames industry is un-unionised, leaving its workers vulnerable to the whims of bosses who might suddenly decide to replace them with a shiny new piece of software. We already heard last year that Blizzard already has its own piece of generative AI software that creates concept art in its fantastical house style. At present, there doesn’t appear to be much in the way of legal protection for actors should a videogame company, say, take their voice and synthesise new lines of dialogue without their consent.
The SAG-AFTRA strikes are still ongoing, and it remains to be seen whether it will affect the games industry in the same way it did Hollywood in 2023.
Said Crabtree-Ireland in July, “Frankly, it’s stunning that these video game studios haven’t learned anything from the lessons of last year – that our members can and will stand up and demand fair and equitable treatment with respect to AI, and the public supports us in that.”
