Earlier this week, Rockstar Games made headlines for laying off dozens of employees across its UK and Canada offices. More recently, the video game giant made headlines again for delaying GTA 6 to November 2026. Rockstar then announced its reasoning for the layoffs, citing that some employees were leaking GTA 6 info. Now, however, a Rockstar employee has come forth and explained that the layoffs were mere union-busting efforts with senior devs as the casualties.
This information came from an alleged Rockstar employee who wasn’t laid off but wanted to remain anonymous for fear of “retaliation from the company.” The anonymous Rockstar employee, who went by the name “Organize,” posted on the GTA Forums website on November 6, stating that the 34 employees terminated by Rockstar didn’t exactly leak GTA 6 information based on what he saw, and that most who were fired or laid off are tenured workers and/or Union members.
“Let me make this clear! I never saw any discussion/leaking of Rockstar projects in the Union Discord. The only ever discussion was around unionisation efforts and the working conditions at R. The Discord wasn’t public. It was a private Discord group that only contained R employees and the IWGB Union officials.
This was Union Busting and nothing else! Everyone fired was a Union Member, they were also predominantly from those who were on the Union Organising Committees of each UK studio,” according to the alleged Rockstar employee
It’s not clear just how much these layoffs have directly affected GTA 6‘s development or contributed to GTA 6‘s most recent delay, but the Rockstar employee also alleged that, “These colleagues of mine were hard workers who have spent many many years at R* in critical roles. With colleagues who have been at R* for more that 18 years and none of them have ever had a disciplinary in that time. They are not easily replaced and will certainly affect us in making our project deadlines.”
“Organize” then further clarified that some of the members were also sick or recovering from medical issues and paternity leaves, but Rockstar still allegedly fired them without pay, and in such a crucial time of the year. Those of them who were left behind now apparently “work in fear.”
Rockstar employees are fighting back
Following the rather abrupt layoffs and GTA 6‘s 2nd delay, some of Rockstar’s employees and even those who were laid off have created a fundraiser in Action Network to help them “fight back against this vicious targeting of staff, who we believe have been fired unfairly for exercising their legal rights.” Their fundraiser contributions will go to the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain.
Part of the fundraiser’s purpose and the Union’s demands to Rockstar are to reinstate the employees they laid off. However, the anonymous Rockstar whistleblower, as well as the Union itself, has laid out the bigger picture, calling it a “seismic event for the gaming industry and the trade union movement.”
The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain itself has supposedly reached an important 200-member milestone just a week before Rockstar’s layoffs. This membership threshold would’ve given the Union not just recognition but better collective bargaining. Part of the key issues they planned to address were crunch, inadequate pay, and more flexible working arrangements. It appears Rockstar’s layoffs might have derailed those plans; hence, the Rockstar employees, both former and current, have launched this campaign.
