Prolific French video game voice actor Pascale Chemin has revealed through a post on Instagram that the entire voice cast (32) working on a game have quit over a controversial AI document they were expected to sign from the publisher.
According to Chemin, signing the document would mean giving up their voice for use in training AI models which exposes them to being replaced. Although the post was made in French, GameBaba Universe machine translated it to English, and it read:
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“Before even being summoned to a video game recording session, the studio sent me (and the 31 other actors in the cast), by email, a confidentiality and assignment annex from the publisher directly. To be summoned and therefore work, I must first accept these clauses.
“At first reading, they are not acceptable, which was confirmed to me by a lawyer specializing in audiovisual. I feel forced to ‘let go’ of the role to which I have lent my voice for almost 6 years. In no way can I ‘force’ the rest of the cast to do the same, but one thing is for sure: if we all refuse, it can have an impact. Otherwise, it is a waste of time.”
Eventually, the 31 other voice actors refused to sign the document without hesitation and wrote a letter to the publisher announcing their collective refusal. At the time Chemin published about the matter on social media, they were yet to get a response from the publisher.
“If we do not stand together now, so that a clause protecting our voices is officially put in our contracts, and this, for all the studios that record video games, we will never have it and we are heading for a wall,” read the post.
Chemin’s post on Instagram
Chemin has voiced characters in popular video game franchises including Mass Effect 2 (as Commander Shepard), The Assassin’s Creed: Rogue (as Violet Da Costa), Mortal Komat X (as Li Mei), Days Gone (as Rikki), just to mention a few.
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“We are not simply being asked to work, we are being asked to give up our know-how to train the generative AI that will replace us tomorrow,” read the post. “We are being asked to accept what we are fighting against. We are being asked to shoot ourselves in the foot. We are being asked to endorse #AI.”
There has been a pushback against the use of genenerative artificial intelligence in video games. Many blame it for the ongoing mass layoffs in the industry. However, there are no signs that big developers and publishers are willing to give up the millions they have invested in bringing genAI to video games.
Note: This post was updated to remove any reference of a game or studio as none was mentioned in the original post.
