Screaming, Shouting, NDAs: Video Game Realism and New Danger for Actors
While SAG-AFTRA continues its strike against the sector, U.K. talent is under pressure to meet the needs of hyper-violent, sophisticated play — but not without a fight
Manori Ravindran covers international TV from London for Series Business. She recently wrote about Ted Sarandos and Netflix’s impact on the U.K. as a production hub, the death of mid-budget TV and what’s selling and who’s buying in the global TV market.
When David Menkin gets hit in the chest, he emits around five different sounds. Every oof and ARGH! sounds distinct. For the London-based games performer, his “fights” take place in a sound booth, but they feel real. For a major AAA game — the label applied to such big-budget titles as Assassin’s Creed and Resident Evil that can cost twice as much as a Hollywood blockbuster and the biggest hits will make hundreds of millions within days of going on sale — there’s even more variation, and Menkin is expected to deliver at least 15 noises for low-, mid- and heavy-impact blows.
“Then you think about my stomach, my legs, my head,” says Menkin, who performed in 2023’s Final Fantasy XVI. “Or I get shot, or hit with a bat, or somebody comes at me with a sword. [The sounds] multiply and multiply and multiply.”
Trained in musical theater, Menkin employs his voice as a resilient instrument. “I love being tasked with creating sounds that don’t sound like me,” he tells me.
As flexible as the performer can be, a few years ago he was pushed vocally during a job and badly injured his voice. “I was speechless for three days,” he says. “I was working on a production with a company I thought I could rely on, but they said that my vocal health was my responsibility.”
There wasn’t anyone looking out for Menkin at work that day. And now with video games the next frontier of entertainment labor fights as the sector outpaces traditional film and TV in growth and revenue, a symbiotic protest is underway between video game actors in the U.S. and U.K. For two months, SAG-AFTRA actors have been striking against video game makers — including Disney Character Voices, Electronic Arts Productions and WB Games.
The U.S. labor action has brought more scrutiny to the plight of U.K. performers, so it’s no coincidence that Equity, the union that covers U.K. actors, published recommended minimum rates and guidance for performers for the first time in August — mere weeks after its U.S. counterpart went on strike.
With more voice work suddenly arriving on U.K. shores — replete with all the problems — the “I don’t want to deal with SAG, let me take my production elsewhere” situation that certainly plays a role in where video games are shot and recorded (not to mention film and TV) may be changing.
But unlike in the U.S., there are no collective bargaining agreements in place between Equity and interactive entertainment trade body Ukie to enact uniform production standards. Video games are perceived to be a path to more stable employment, but they lack the basic worker protections that performers fought for on film and TV sets ages ago. (The U.K’s video games market is currently valued at $10.5 billion — dwarfing the film and TV industry, which generated $5.7 billion in 2023.)
Worse, technological advances are putting a premium on performances that can match the ultra-realistic graphics on screen, so actors are being subject to more physically and mentally rigorous demands. “People are being asked to scream authentically and hemorrhaging their voice,” says Menkin. “After a certain amount of time, it doesn’t matter how good your technique is, the muscles will fatigue. People are hurting themselves.”
If games are going to be a career safe harbor — well, if AI doesn’t swallow up jobs, as American actors fight for AI protections as part of SAG-AFTRA’s strike — performance work in video games is now under new scrutiny.
In this column, I’ll tell you about Equity’s kick-off to fight for protections in the U.K.’s biggest screen industry as well as:
The creepy realism of today’s video games that is now requiring intimacy coordinators
Why Equity isn’t striking along with SAG-AFTRA
The tax relief that’s turned gaming into the U.K.’s largest entertainment sector
Why British game actors are on the rise
Why restrictive NDAs have kept actors closed off from salary transparency and how studios treat performers on set
How the SAG-AFTRA strike is impacting U.K. actors
The state of collective bargaining talks between U.K. actors union Equity and game developers
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