In a world of content and community moderation on business models as low as free-to-play, using AI to make a video game is entirely a different beast as opposed to a film or TV show.
At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this past March, representatives of Meta, Xbox and SAG-AFTRA attempted to address the biggest questions about AI in a panel discussion titled, “What Companies Need to Know about Deepfakes.” At this time, agreement over equal AI protection policies with the biggest game studios remains unsettled. This umbrella term encompasses equal recognition among performance types (voice recording, motion capture, etc.), fair compensation rates, and specifically when to notify performers about AI usage, intent of use and negotiating portions of an actor’s performance to create a digital replica.
This “standstill” puts the Union in such a posture to strike in “a matter of weeks,” said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA. The first tiered game agreement was announced earlier in the year for low-to mid-sized game companies, including best practices and workplace language for AI deepfakes, or “digital replicas,” according to the agreement.
The GDC panel emphasized that in order to determine who is protected from being replaced by AI, we must first determine how the AI is used. For production processes or for performance capture? In defense of on-the-rise, or “indie” developers, Meta representative Wei Wang stated that AI could introduce a “lower barrier of entry to creating high-quality experiences” for platforms as content-rich as virtual reality.
AI has a historical use in game development to engineer the behavior of non-player characters (NPCs) because of the labor-intensive process of designing crowds. However, even after launch, an unofficial production phase unique to games lies outside of the studio’s hands: user-generated modified content, or “mods” — to which Xbox/Microsoft representative, Jessica Henderson, nods to censorship tools, “younger players who may be vulnerable to bullying… AI could actually yield a content mod solution.”
Capabilities of technology cannot be considered without discussing the impact of what implementation actually means, Crabtree-Ireland said During the week-long conference. Alongside Sarah Elmaleh, the interactive media agreement negotiating committee chair, Crabtree-Ireland connected with the co-party of their latest successful agreement, indie developers (where students fall under), who also represented a whopping third of GDC attendees — the highest percentage in any one category according to the annual GDC State of Industry survey report.
In a sense, the push for an AI protection agreement reflects the top workforce concerns felt in GDC. The same 2024 attendee survey also reveals questions developers had about AI at the workplace, along with layoffs from major studio companies.
Just as developers adjust to AI tools as part of their programming skills, Elmaleh discussed whether performers consider digital replicas as part of their portfolio.
“Yes, you could start to have [digital replicas] as a new revenue stream. But that big ‘if’ is if those protections are in place,” Elmaleh said. “Everyone in the community all at once, has to stand up and say here’s the baseline. Anything above is opportunity and below is exploitation.”
Elmaleh, an acting workshop teacher at USC, continues to directly speak to students and new talent, saying that now more than ever actors must treat themselves as business people by understanding that building a career in this space, means building a business.
As for new developers, Elmaleh herself began her actor/director career voicing mods for her favorite games before joining household name franchises like Final Fantasy, Halo Infinite and Fortnite. She states that the spirit of collaboration is crucial and irreplaceable no matter the budget.
“I think it is possibly convenient to sit at a machine and get something back out of it,” Elmaleh said. “It’s not actually impossible for anyone at any budget level to collaborate with a performer.”