After the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) called for a strike against League of Legends, Riot Games released a statement aimed at showing that the developer had nothing to do with the allegations that sparked the walkout.
The Screen Actors Guild and the Television and Radio Artists Guild issued a strike call to their union members yesterday. In a press release on their website, the Screen Actors Guild and the Television and Radio Artists Guild explained why they chose to take this action and pointed out that Formosa Interactive, which produced the sound effects for “League of Legends”, was suspected of “unfair labor practices.”
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In its post, the Screen Actors Guild and the AAF claimed that it had filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against Formosa Plastics, which also cited games such as God of War: Ragnarok, Destiny 2’s Final Form expansion, and Apex Legends as its past productions. The guild claimed that this was “an attempt by Formosa Plastics to ‘cancel’ one of its strike video games shortly after the AAF video game strike began.”
“When they were told that was impossible,” the union claimed in the post, “they secretly moved the game to a shell company and issued casting notices only to ‘non-union’ talent. The Screen Actors Guild and the Television and Radio Artists Guild allege these egregious actions are serious violations of core principles of labor law – that employers may not interfere with actors’ rights to form or join unions, and that they may not discriminate against union actors. The unilateral, secret transfer of union work to a ‘non-union’ shell company is an impermissible and egregious attempt to evade strike action and undermine actors’ rights under labor law.”
“It is bad enough that Formosa and other companies are refusing to accept fair AI terms that have been agreed to by the film, TV, streaming and music industries, as well as over 90 other game developers,” added Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, national executive director and chief negotiator for the Screen Actors Guild. “The imposition of illegal unfair labor practices is intolerable, and SAG members will not tolerate it. Formosa will be held accountable, starting with the immediate suspension of production of League of Legends.”
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In response, Riot released a statement on Twitter: “League of Legends has nothing to do with the complaints mentioned in the press release from the Screen Actors Guild and Television and Radio Artists Guild,” it wrote. “We want to be clear: Since becoming a union project five years ago, League of Legends has only asked Formosa to work with unionized actors in the United States and has never made any other demands.”
“In addition, we have never asked Formosa to cancel games we have registered. All allegations in the SAG and TRA press releases regarding canceling games or hiring non-union talent are related to non-Riot games and not League of Legends or any of our games.”
Formosa also released its own statement, writing, “We completely reject the allegations made by the Screen Actors Guild and Television and Radio Artists Guild and have not taken any action to undermine employee or union rights or our relationships with the unions. We believe the League of Legends strike is inappropriate as the game has nothing to do with the unions’ allegations. We stand with developers, publishers, platform holders, and talent to support global game development in a safe and ethical manner.”
Members of the Screen Actors Guild and the Television and Radio Artists Guild initially walked out earlier this year over the possibility that artificial intelligence could be used to provide voiceovers for video games.
