RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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The first Rockstar workers who are embroiled in a legal battle with the company have told fans they shouldn’t boycott GTA 6 to protest on their behalf.
With GTA 6 due out in November, and the final hearing of the workers’ proceedings against Rockstar set to begin in Glasgow next month, the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) asked backers to buy T-shirts to help fund the legal battle instead.
Rockstar has insisted the employees it fired late last year were dismissed because they leaked game features for upcoming and unannounced titles in Discord, not because they were trying to unionize. 34 members of staff at Rockstar were dismissed — 31 in the UK and three in Canada — sparking protests outside the office of GTA 6 developer Rockstar North in Edinburgh, Scotland, and outside parent company Take-Two’s office in London.
Rockstar believes the alleged leaked information to be significant and related to game features around GTA 6. This includes specific game features, comments on the overall progress of GTA 6 development, timelines to launch, and company IT security protocols. Rockstar believes that if the comments in question had leaked they would have been big gaming news and might even have affected Take-Two’s share price. When Rockstar officially announced that GTA 6 would be delayed by six months to November 19, 2026, the market value of Take-Two plummeted $3.75 billion in a single day.
Rockstar has also pointed to its well-established zero tolerance approach to leaks, highlighting that it dismissed a Rockstar employee in Lincoln, UK in April 2025, who it alleged disclosed confidential information about GTA 6 to a third party who published the information to social media, and dismissed an employee in the U.S. in November 2023 and another in India in November 2025 for two separate acts of information leaking.
Now, the fired workers have filmed a video in which they outline their case, and urge fans not to boycott GTA 6. They are pointing to a range of T-shirts launched to raise money towards their legal costs.
Jack Hoxby, IWGB Game Workers Branch member fired by Rockstar last year, said: “We poured years of our lives into helping build this game. We don't want you to boycott it. We want you to help us fight for justice.
“Since Rockstar fired us suddenly last year, we’ve seen an incredible outpouring of support from gamers and workers around the world.
“Some people have asked whether they should boycott GTA 6 to protest on our behalf. But there’s a better way to support us and hold Rockstar to account.
“Buy one of our T-shirts. You’ll be helping to win justice for us and to defend the right of workers everywhere to come together and unionise.
“That way, when GTA 6 comes out in November, you can enjoy it knowing that you had the backs of the people who made it.”
While this apparent boycott was never going to put a dent in GTA 6’s sales success (Take-Two chief has already hailed GTA 6 preorders as “unprecedented”), the IWGB is aiming to maintain a presence in the public eye as the crucial final hearing gets underway in September.
In June, Rockstar developers applied for voluntary recognition of the IWGB Game Workers Union in a bid to make the celebrated developer the second UK games studio with a recognized union.
If recognized, the union would give its members additional protections and rights via a formal structure for collective bargaining on issues including pay transparency, flexible working, and excessive overtime (crunch), the IWGB said in a statement. Disco Elysium developer ZA/UM is currently the only UK studio with formal union recognition.
The IWGB claims to represent a “significant portion” of the Rockstar workforce across its offices in Edinburgh, Dundee, Lincoln, Leeds, and London, and that its existence has contributed to “unprecedented” average pay rises and financial incentives for crunch for the first time ever.
A spokesperson from Rockstar Games issued IGN the following statement at the time: “We strive to make the best games possible by giving our talented teams world-class work environments and ongoing career opportunities. We have fostered a culture which is focused on teamwork, excellence, and kindness, and where we support and reward the team across all levels of the business through competitive compensation and benefits policies. We are proud that as a result, our employee retention is well above the industry standard.
"We have received a request from a union seeking to discuss voluntary recognition. We value an open and constructive dialogue with all stakeholders and will arrange to meet.”
Rockstar can refuse to acknowledge the union, which would then open the door to the IWGB submitting its application for statutory recognition from the Department for Business and Trade's Central Arbitration Committee (CAC). But could its members go on strike? The IWGB told IGN “members will decide on the organising strategy they use to secure” recognition.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
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