You in all probability heard the massive information about Grand Theft Auto 6 final week: Rockstar’s open-world crime drama has been delayed until November of next year. Nonetheless, that wasn’t the one main GTA 6-related bomb that dropped. The studio additionally fired a few dozen workers for “gross misconduct,” together with what Rockstar claims was the public leaking of company secrets. Now, the affected builders are organizing with in-person protests, and getting ready for a doable authorized battle if Rockstar doesn’t reinstate their jobs.
All of those builders had been a part of a rising try to unionize inside the firm’s UK department the place reportedly simply over 10 p.c of the studio’s workforce had been recruited, which might qualify the Rockstar staff there for “statutory recognition,” requiring the corporate to acknowledge the union.
Regardless of what the builders and IWGB Recreation Staff Union are calling an try at union-busting, the handfuls of workers affected nonetheless need to return to Rockstar to complete their work on GTA 6, and relying on how the corporate responds, it might result in a prolonged authorized battle. The employees have been picketing outdoors Rockstar and writer Take-Two’s places of work, with footage from the demonstrations exhibiting they aren’t backing down from the battle.
Fired GTA 6 devs simply need to get again to work
YouTube channel People Make Games was on the bottom at one of many picket traces and interviewed a number of the affected staff concerning the questionable circumstances concerning their termination, the tradition of worry that present workers really feel after these firings, and the underlying want to reunite with their colleagues to carry Grand Theft Auto 6 over the end line after years of labor.
To this point, the union has put in an enchantment for Rockstar to voluntarily reinstate the employees it fired, but when that doesn’t occur, the problem might escalate right into a authorized battle.
“What happens next is up to Rockstar,” IWGB organizer Fred Carter instructed Individuals Make Video games final week. “We’ve just submitted our legal claim. The ball is in their court to respond. We hope they’ll resolve this with us amicably. This is—in the end, this is egregious, and to be honest, shocking. I have never seen a thing like this, not just in the game sector, but in UK trade union organizing in the last 20 years. This is the moment where they can make that right. These are workers who just want to go back to work, to work on a game that they love. If they don’t, they’ve seen what they have to contend with.”
Rockstar’s official stance on the problem is that the builders had been “distributing and discussing confidential information in a public forum,” and that these firings had been “in no way related to people’s right to join a union or engage in union activities.” The one place GTA 6 builders say they had been discussing something concerning the firm was on a personal Discord server the place members of the union spoke about working situations on the GTA firm and arranged union-based actions. Rockstar declined to remark when Individuals Make Video games requested if this server was the “public forum” the corporate referred to, however based on IWGB president Alex Marshall, the conversations ought to have been protected by British Commerce Union laws.
“It looks like they’re essentially trying to decapitate the union when they see it’s gathering momentum, when they see it’s kind of passing this 10-percent threshold, when they can see it’s picking up,” Marshall instructed Individuals Make Video games. “And instead of actually thinking, ‘Oh, our workers are unionizing. Clearly, there’s something we should engage with,’ they’ve just tried to steamroll it, and completely gut the company of a union so they can continue with the behaviors that we’ve seen have been deeply problematic and toxic, and were the exact reason why workers started unionizing. I think what Rockstar has done is just proven, out in the open, what the workers were actually trying to counter behind closed doors.”
A battle for the soul of Rockstar
Along with the continuing protests, the firings is also an enormous hit to the morale of individuals at Rockstar nonetheless engaged on GTA 6. One nameless former worker instructed Aftermath that dropping folks within the recreation’s remaining improvement yr might have catastrophic penalties for the group, however figuring out that many individuals nonetheless within the firm are on their aspect has been heartening.
“It’s heartwarming to see so many of our colleagues supporting us and holding management to account,” they instructed Aftermath. “It’s clear to everyone close to this situation that this is a blatant, unapologetic act of vicious union busting. Rockstar employs so many talented game developers, all of whom are crucial to making the games we put out.”
Essentially the most uncooked account we’ve gotten of those occasions has come from an nameless Rockstar worker on the GTA Forums website. The employee, whose id the location’s moderators say they verified, described a really temporary and dehumanizing firing course of, one which didn’t supply any proof or specifics of the supposed “gross misconduct.”
“Those of us who are lucky and remain for now work in fear,” they wrote final week. “Fearful when talking to each other at the tea prep, fearful that we’re next in line and are easily got rid of, too scared to go outside the studio and talk to (or even acknowledge) our colleagues outside protesting in fear of reprisals. Morale in the studio is at rock bottom.”
They continued,
After we ought to be enthusiastic about what’s to return over the following yr, we at the moment are completely deflated, and our belief and confidence in others is completely shot. Which is the really heartbreaking half, as for us within the Union, all of our ambition was to make Rockstar a happier, fairer, safer, and extra equitable place. That’s all. What has occurred clearly exhibits that we care extra concerning the well-being of our colleagues at Rockstar than the Firm does. The union stays unbowed and is combating to win the reinstatement of each dismissed member of workers at Rockstar by authorized means and campaigning. This battle is crucial; if Rockstar can get away with this, they are going to preserve treating their staff with disdain, disrespect, and subjecting them to continued unlawful remedy.
No matter occurs, GTA 6 has at the least one other yr of improvement to go earlier than it launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Collection X/S on November 19, 2026. In response to business insider Kiwi Talkz, the sport is content material full and simply wants further polish to keep away from a “Cyberpunk 2077” state of affairs. Insider Gaming’s Tom Henderson reports that the sport’s newest delay might value an estimated $60 million extra in improvement prices.
However the battle to reinstate the fired builders goes past a single recreation. If Rockstar doesn’t reinstate them, IWGB Recreation Staff Union co-founder Austin Kelmore tells Aftermath the group “intends to pursue every legal avenue available” to get these builders their jobs again. The bigger ramifications it will have on Rockstar and its public notion received’t cease on the launch of GTA 6 subsequent yr.
