Video game performers are pushing for more transparency regarding the projects they sign up for, as secrecy in the industry can lead to unexpected and distressing situations. A new report from the BBC highlights numerous accounts from motion capture and voice acting performers who are advocating for the industry to be more open about the content of the games they work on.

Casting director Jessica Jefferies explained to the BBC that performers are often left in the dark about the nature of the game or the scenes they will be performing until the very last moment. “We’d get an email or a call from a studio saying we need you on these days for a shoot,” she said. “That was all the information we’d get.”

Jefferies shared a particularly disturbing experience where she was asked to play the victim of a sexual assault without any prior warning. “I turned up and was told what I would be filming would be a graphic rape scene,” she recounted to the BBC. “This act could be watched for as long or as little time as the player wanted through a window, and then the player would be able to shoot this character in the head. In my opinion, it was purely gratuitous.”

She added, “There’s no nudity involved, but it’s still an act, and there’s an intimacy in that act, as well as violence in this situation. So yes, there may be a layer of Lycra between us, but you are still there and still having to truly immerse yourself in this scene.”

Jefferies refused to perform the scene, which ultimately wasn’t recorded that day, but she argued that performers should never be put in a position where they have to “kick up a fuss” about explicit scenes they weren’t informed of, especially if they’re the only woman on set.

The article also notes that during the development of Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian Studios employed intimacy coordinators—one for voice actors and another for motion capture—to ensure the well-being of performers during explicit scenes.

A voice actor, who chose to remain anonymous, also told the BBC that despite signing non-disclosure agreements, performers are “told almost nothing” about the games they’re working on. She recalled an instance where she arrived to record audio for a major game, only to discover that it involved “a full-on sex scene.” “I had to [vocally] match the scene, and through the glass in the booth was the entire team, all male, watching me,” she explained. “It was excruciating… at that stage, I had been in the games industry a while, and I had never felt so shaken.”

She added, “What upset me so much about the situation is that I was put on the spot, nobody thought to ask me if I was okay with it, and nobody checked to see if I was okay afterward.”

Performing arts union Equity is demanding that the games industry take action by providing cast members with a summary of the story, scene breakdowns, and scripts in advance, allowing performers to request a closed set if needed, and hiring intimacy coordinators.

Source: VideoGameChronicles