Rockstar Games Faces Union-Busting allegations Following Developer Firings
Grand Theft Auto 6 developer Rockstar Games is facing accusations of union-busting after terminating the employment of between 30 and 40 developers across its Canadian and UK offices. The dismissals have sparked outrage from labor advocates who allege the firings targeted employees involved in union activities.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the affected developers were participants in a private Discord chat group dedicated to unionization efforts, and were either members of a union or actively organizing within the company.
Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar’s parent company, maintains the developers were terminated for “gross misconduct,” with spokesperson Alan Lewis stating, “take-Two fully supports Rockstar’s ambitions and approach.”
However, Alex Marshall, president of the Autonomous Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), condemned the firings as “one of the most blatant and ruthless acts of union busting in the history of the games industry,” adding, “This flagrant contempt for the law and for the lives of the workers who bring in their billions is an insult to their fans and the global industry.”
Rockstar Games has not issued a public statement addressing the accusations of union-busting.
The controversy comes shortly after Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick discussed the role of artificial intelligence in game progress, asserting that AI lacks the creativity necessary to produce a game on the scale and complexity of GTA 6. He stated, “no creativity… can exist by definition in any AI model.”
