The long-anticipated release of Grand Theft Auto 6 is (relatively) right around the corner, but developer Rockstar is seeing allegations of union busting after dismissing over 30 employees in both the UK and Canada.
The games industry has seen an increasing number of unions forming due to the more precarious conditions for workers due to economic conditions and greater implementation of AI.
While this is an attempt at securing a greater degree of security for employees, this latest report seems to suggest that companies like Rockstar are keen to prevent such unions from getting a foothold – something that might lead to legal issues down the road.
Rockstar’s reason for the dismissals
As per the Bloomberg report, all of the employees were developers across different departments but were all part of a private union chat group on Discord, with some already part of the union and others planning to join.
While Rockstar themselves have not directly commented on the situation, their parent company, Take-Two, released a statement to PC Gamer saying that they were in “full support” of Rockstar’s decision, and that it was solely due to the “gross negligence” of those who were dismissed.
Rockstar have regularly been accused of crunch conditions, with an especially prominent example being in the run-up to the release of Red Dead Redemption 2, where some employees claimed that the crunch conditions had been lasting for months on end.
With Grand Theft Auto 6 looming, it’s not difficult to imagine that the atmosphere at Rockstar is similarly tense, which is arguably why employees are seeking to unionise in the first place.
The legality of the situation
On top of just being controversial and inevitably unpopular with a lot of audiences, this decision from Rockstar also runs the risk of violating certain employment laws.
While these will vary in the UK and Canada, the two countries where these occurred, at least one large-scale union in the former – the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) – has accused Rockstar of breaching the law, and unfair dismissal would certainly count under these parameters if attempting to organise a union was the only reason for the firings.
However, the question remains of whether or not this will make much of a difference to Rockstar in the long run.
As a company, they’re arguably too big to fall – with many gaming audiences likely more interested in GTA 6 as a product and any crumb of new information about a GTA 6 update than the employment practices of the company behind it. It’s yet to be seen what a potential legal dispute might look like, though.
