Riot distances itself from League of Legends SAG-AFTRA strike

Developer Riot has issued a statement to distance itself from a strike by SAG-AFTRA actors' union members against its League of Legends game.

Last night, the actor's union called a strike against Riot's online game due to its connection to Formosa Interactive LLC. Formosa Interactive is a production company involved in making League of Legends, and one which SAG-AFTRA has accused of trying to "subvert the video game strike", which was announced in July.

The union's press release stated Formosa - which has also worked on the Call of Duty series, Zelda and God of War, among others - attempted to "cancel" one of its games affected by the SAG-AFTRA video game strike in order to continue with non-union actors.

Since then, Riot has issued its own statement, writing "League of Legends has nothing to do with the complaint mentioned" by SAG-AFTRA.

"We want to be clear: since becoming a union project five years ago, League of Legends has only asked Formosa to engage with Union performers in the US and has never once suggested doing otherwise," Riot wrote on social media platform X.

"In addition, we've never asked Formosa to cancel a game that we've registered. All of the allegations in SAG-AFTRA's press release relating to cancelling a game or hiring non-union talent relate to a non-Riot game, and have nothing to do with League or any of our games."

In the press release announcing SAG-AFTRA's League of Legends strike, the union said it believes the actions by Formosa to be "a flagrant violation of labour law" . As such, SAG-AFTRA "has filed an unfair labour practice charge against the company with the National Labor Relations Board".

SAG-AFTRA claims that when Formosa was told it was not possible to "cancel " one of its struck video games, the company "secretly transferred the game to a shell company and sent out casting notices for 'non-union' talent only". In protest, the union called its strike on League of Legends, as this is one of the most high-profile games Formosa has worked on.

"It's bad enough that Formosa and other companies are refusing to agree to the fair AI terms that have been agreed to by the film, television, streaming, and music industries, as well as more than 90 other game developers," said Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, the national executive director and chief negotiator of SAG-AFTRA.

"To commit illegal unfair labour practices is beyond the pale and won't be tolerated by SAG-AFTRA members."

Many video game performers, including Solid Snake actor David Hayter and Commander Shepard actor Jennifer Hale, have shared their concerns about AI and its impact on their work. In April this year, our Ed spoke to several BAFTA-nominated Baldur's Gate 3 actors, who revealed the darker side of success, fuelled by AI voice cloning.