Featured Image Credit: Rockstar Games
Topics: GTA 6, GTA, Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games, Take-Two, News
Topics: GTA 6, GTA, Grand Theft Auto, Rockstar Games, Take-Two, News
Rockstar Games has issued a formal statement regarding the firing of several UK employees earlier last week, accusing said employees of “distributing and discussing confidential information” relating to their work on Grand Theft Auto VI – and, for once, not even the die-hard fans seem to be on Rockstar’s side.
Rockstar Games, and by extension its parent company Take-Two, aren’t exactly well-known for treating their employees fairly.
Even though they have supposedly fixed their crunch-focused culture since the release of Red Dead Redemption II, it’s clear that they’ve got some work to do regarding their stance on workplace unionisation.
Last week, Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier broke the story that dozens of Rockstar Games employees, hard at work on Grand Theft Auto VI, had been unceremoniously fired for their attempts to form a workplace union.
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Or at least, that’s what it clearly looked like from the outside. However, Rockstar Games has released an official statement that implies otherwise.
A Rockstar Games spokesperson reached out to Bloomberg regarding their story, and they had this to say: “Last week, we took action against a small number of individuals who were found to be distributing and discussing confidential information in a public forum, a violation of our company policies.
"This was in no way related to people’s right to join a union or engage in union activities.”
It would seem that, if this is true, Rockstar Games is trying to get its ex-employees on a bit of a technicality here.
From what we understand so far, the now fired employees were discussing their issues with a union representative in a Discord server. Obviously, there are a lot of specifics we’re missing out on here, but there has been a clear clash between the let go employees and the company top brass.
Unfortunately for Rockstar Games, the people they fired were from the United Kingdom. Unlike the USA, worker rights are a lot more secure over here, the likelihood of a lengthy court battle feels more certain as a result. Employment tribunals galore.
Away from those losing their jobs, Rockstar this week were the focus of a fair bit of criticism from those wanting more on GTA 6.
With a third trailer expected to drop on Tuesday (4 November), followers of the Rockstar X account were not best pleased when admins posted - given that the post was about Red Dead Online.
Back to the Reddit releases theories then.