Setback for dismissed Rockstar employees

Philipp Rüegg

13.1.2026

Translation: machine translated

Last year, Rockstar dismissed 34 employees for allegedly leaking sensitive data. Those affected see the reason in trade union efforts. Now there has been a first setback in court.

A UK employment tribunal has rejected a claim by dismissed Rockstar employees to receive transitional payments while they await their hearings. The British labour union IWGB accuses the company of unfairly dismissing the individuals and is demanding their immediate reinstatement.

The «GTA» studio has been in the crossfire for months over possible union-busting. Last autumn, the company laid off 34 employees in Scotland and Canada. According to the IWGB, they used a private Discord group to organise. Some were already part of the union, others wanted to join. Alex Marschall, president of the IWGB called the incident «the most obvious and ruthless union-busting measure in the history of the games industry».

Protests followed outside the Rockstar offices in Edinburgh and outside Take-Two's headquarters in London. Over 200 employees wrote to their superiors to complain about the redundancies. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer described the redundancies as «very worrying» and promised that Parliament would investigate the case.

Data protection or union busting?

Rockstar said it dismissed the individuals because they had leaked sensitive information. This includes features about games that are in development or have not yet been announced. Rockstar referred to its zero-tolerance policy and to the fact that it had already dismissed a person in April 2025 who had passed on confidential data about «GTA 6» to a third party.

In the meantime, the IWGB demanded interim payments from Rockstar for those dismissed until the case is resolved. This has now been rejected by a Scottish court. The judge based her decision on the fact that not all of the 350 people in the IWGB discord were union members and some were no longer employed by Rockstar. One person had written press articles, at least one of which was about Rockstar and the development of «GTA». In addition, the three Canadian dismissed employees were not part of the union, so their dismissal could not be related to this.

«We regret that we were put in a position where layoffs were necessary, but we stand by our actions, which have been vindicated by the outcome of this consultation», a Rockstar spokesperson told Bloomberg and IGN. The IWGB remains optimistic. «Although we were denied a preliminary injunction today, we are more confident than ever after last week's hearing that a full and substantial court will find Rockstar's calculated attempt to bust a union not only unjust, but also unlawful», the president explains in a statement.

Investigations by the investigative YouTube channel People Make Games (PMG) also suggest that not everything went according to plan with the dismissals. According to PMG, a new Slack rule from Rockstar was debated in the Discord channel, which prohibits talking about private topics - such as the formation of a union.

The IWGB also added that Rockstar had not complied with various guidelines. There had been no disciplinary procedures, no possibility of appeal and no indication of an investigation.

«GTA 6» is unlikely to be affected by all this. The game is expected to be released on 19 November and according to Rockstar «will be the biggest game launch in the history of».

Philipp Rüegg

Senior Editor

Philipp.Rueegg@digitecgalaxus.ch

As a child, I wasn't allowed to have any consoles. It was only with the arrival of the family's 486 PC that the magical world of gaming opened up to me. Today, I'm overcompensating accordingly. Only a lack of time and money prevents me from trying out every game there is and decorating my shelf with rare retro consoles. more

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