Rockstar Games, the company behind the hit Grand Theft Auto franchise, said that the dozens of employees it fired last week were leaking company secrets, disputing allegations by labor leaders that it was disrupting workers' attempt to unionize.
The employees had been sharing company information in a forum that included non-employees, a Rockstar spokesperson said in a statement to Bloomberg on Wednesday.
"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," the spokesperson said. "This was in no way related to people's right to join a union or engage in union activities."
The company, part of Take-Two Interactive Software Inc., fired between 30 and 40 employees across offices in the UK and Canada for what it said was "gross misconduct." The Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain, the first to organize video-game workers in the UK, told Bloomberg that the employees had all been involved with union efforts at Rockstar, calling the firings "one of the most blatant and ruthless acts of union busting in the history of the games industry."
All of the affected employees were part of a private trade union chat group on Discord and the only outsiders in the chat were labor organizers, the union said.
Alex Marshall, president of the union, said in response to Rockstar's allegations that the gamemaker was "afraid of hard-working staff privately discussing exercising their rights for a fairer workplace and a collective voice. Management are showing they don't care about delays to GTA VI, and that they're prioritizing union-busting by targeting the very people who make the game."
Rockstar has always been strict about security. The company has taken extra precautions since a massive 2022 leak released dozens of videos of unfinished footage from the company's next game, Grand Theft Auto VI. In early 2024, Rockstar asked workers to return to the office five days a week, partly for security reasons. At the time, the union called it a "reckless" move.
Grand Theft Auto VI is slated for release on May 26, 2026 and is expected to be one of the top-selling video games of all time.
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