The Silicon Valley Media Law Blog reports that two major Hollywood unions, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (AFTRA), have announced that contract negotiations with the videogame industry have broken off over profit participation for talent (SAG Interactive Talks Break Off Over Residuals). I wonder if the game industry is resisting this because some of their programmers might start getting big ideas?

UPDATE 0615 PT

From Backstage.com (Actors Tilt Toward Video Game Strike):

"Voice-over work represents a small fraction of a video game's development and consumer enjoyment," Fabrick [attorney and the videogame companies' lead negotiator] said. "The union's demand for an equity stake, or residual structure, is unreasonable and not fair to the hundreds of people who often spend years in developing a game."