Hollywoods performers union has called a strike against one of the video game industrys most recognizable, marquee titles.
On Tuesday SAG-AFTRA announced that it was telling members to cease work for the multiplayer online game League of Legends after its producer, Formosa Interactive, tried to subvert the unions ongoing video game strike on an unnamed separate title. The union is responding by calling a work stoppage against League of Legends, a game that was not previously struck and is one of Formosa Interactives most well-known projects (the brand has also worked on God of War and Madden NFL 24). Formosa Interactive, the interactive arm of postproduction audio company Formosa Group, provides voiceover work for League of Legends, according to the union.
The union charges Formosa Interactive, a union signatory and one of the members of the bargaining group that is currently at loggerheads with the union over a new Interactive Media Agreement, with representing to the union that it wanted to cancel one of its titles affected by the unions ongoing video game strike. When the union pushed back against that request, it says the company attempted to circumvent the labor group by attempting to hire non-union performers through a shell company for the same game.
The union says it has filed an unfair labor practice against the company with the National Labor Relations Board over the alleged infraction. SAG-AFTRA charges that these serious actions are egregious violations of core tenets of labor law that employers cannot interfere with performers rights to form or join a union and they cannot discriminate against union performers, the union stated on Tuesday.
The Hollywood Reporter has reached out to Formosa Interactive for comment.
Said SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland in a statement, Its bad enough that Formosa and other companies are refusing to agree to the fair A.I. terms that have been agreed to by the film, television, streaming, and music industries, as well as more than 90 other game developers. To commit illegal unfair labor practices is beyond the pale and wont be tolerated by SAG-AFTRA members. Formosa will be held accountable, starting with an immediate strike of League of Legends.
More to come.