- Rockstar Games has reiterated that recent firings of GTA 6 employees were because they were leaking company secrets on Discord
- The Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) has denied these claims, accusing Rockstar of union-busting
- In a new statement, Rockstar hit back at the counter-allegations, saying the IWGB doesn’t know who was in the Discord channel
Rockstar Games has once again addressed accusations of union-busting from the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB), claiming that it fired over 30 Grand Theft Auto 6 developers for sharing company secrets in a Discord channel.
Last week, UK Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer said the UK Parliament would investigate union-busting allegations against Rockstar Games after the studio fired 31 in the UK and three in Canada in October, calling the case “deeply concerning.”
Following Starmer’s words, Rockstar released a statement, reiterating on its initial defence, saying that it took action against a small group of individuals who “distributed and discussed confidential information (including specific game features from upcoming and unannounced titles) in a public forum, in breach of company policy and their legal obligations” and that claims of dismalls due to union membership or activities was false.
In response, the IWGB denied the claims, saying that the game developer’s latest statement is “littered with falsehoods and disinformation” and that Rockstar has “given multiple, conflicting reasons to explain why the workers were fired, as if attempting to reverse engineer a rationale for the dismissals.”
“Once again, they have chosen to mischaracterise workers speaking about their working conditions in a private forum as ‘leaking information’,” the statement reads. “It is hard to understand this statement as anything but a desperate attempt to deflect from the global scrutiny they have come under over the last month. From the UK Prime Minister in the House of Commons, to the game developers across the world erupting in protest – all eyes are on Rockstar and their lawless attack on the people who make them their billions.”
According to IGN, Rockstar said that the Discord channel, which it claimed was used to spread company secrets, included non-Rockstar employees, including a game journalist, an employee of a rival developer, and multiple anonymous members.
It also claimed that current employees who were aware of Rockstar’s policies informed the GTA developer of the alleged sharing of confidential information and expressed concern about what the now-fired employees were discussing in the channel.
In yet another statement, IWGB communications officer Jake Thomas has reaffirmed that all members of the Discord were either union staff, Rockstar employees, or officials, and that moderators removed any members once they left the company.
Thomas also denied that any game journalists were in the union Discord, but admitted that one union official had previously written “a couple of articles for a paper, but is a game worker and union rep and was in the group in that capacity”, but there were no discussions of game features in the chat.
“We’re not entirely sure what game features from upcoming titles is referring to, and as far as I have seen nothing that was discussed on the Discord lines up with that, all conversations were to do with working conditions,” Thomas said.
Now, in Rockstar’s latest statement to IGN, the studio hit back at the IWGB’s counter-allegations, saying, “As we suspected and as evidenced by the response to our statement, they have no idea who was in this Discord”, but didn’t elaborate.
GTA 6‘s delay came shortly after the firings, and the game is now scheduled to launch on November 19, 2026.
The IWGB is currently representing the dismissed employees and filed legal claims against Rockstar in November, alleging that the studio’s conduct “constitutes trade union victimisation and blacklisting”.
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