The layoffs of several employees at the makers of the video game Grand Theft Auto came as a complete surprise, according to one Canadian employee who was laid off last fall.
“I had no idea what was going on. I was shell-shocked,” said one of the three game developers fired from Rockstar Toronto (actually in Oakville, Ontario). CBC News is not naming the developer for fear of retaliation, including being blacklisted from future work in the gaming industry.
Thirty-one Rockstar employees working in the UK were fired the same day. Rockstar Games, which has several studios mainly in the US and UK, claims they were fired for “gross misconduct” and revealing company secrets.
Alex Marshall, president of the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB), called the dismissals “one of the most outrageous and ruthless acts of union busting in the history of the games industry.”
It's the latest lightning rod for the union debate in a hugely lucrative international industry that has historically been very resistant to it – even amid reports of employees burning out from unpaid overtime and thousands of layoffs in recent years.
An employee told CBC News that on Oct. 30, three Rockstar Toronto employees were “brought into a room with an HR person” and told they were being fired for violating a non-disclosure agreement that every employee must sign before working there.
“They ended up just giving us the bare essentials and… security immediately escorted us out of the building.”
CBC News reached out to Take-Two Interactive, Rockstar's parent company, for comment on the fired Canadian developers but did not receive a response.
Layoffs have 'chilling effect' on industry: union spokesman
Nasr Ahmed, a staff organizer for Communications Workers of America (CWA) in Canada, took part in a small solidarity march outside the Rockstar Toronto office in early December. He called Rockstar's claims that fired workers were divulging confidential information “patently false.”
“They have provided no evidence of these allegations, either from the Canadian workers or from the British workers,” he said.
He confirmed the IWGB's report that all 34 workers were members of an online discussion group on the Discord app, where industry workers interested in unionizing or learning about unions in the UK could discuss working conditions.
The fired employee told CBC News that the workers were from different departments and had varying lengths of tenure at the company, both in Canada and the UK, and that “the only common connection between us” was that they were all part of a Discord group. CBC News has not reviewed the chat messages from the Discord group and could not verify their content.
“As far as I know, it is not against the law to discuss your working conditions in either Canada or the UK, which is exactly what these workers were doing,” Ahmed said.
Ahmed described the actions of Rockstar management as “disgraceful.” He says this creates a “chilling effect” that discourages gaming industry employees from discussing working conditions and joining or forming unions.
Taboo on union talk in video games
The games industry has historically resisted unionization, and Aurelia Augusta of the United Video Game Workers Union CWA says it's “incredibly scary” to even talk about it, as it could effectively blacklist them from future employment or lead to them being de-credited from games they already work on.
“People are scared, especially in Canada where … a handful of big studios control a huge number of game development jobs,” Augusta said.
Ahmed said that when video game workers organize, their intention is not to “burn down the studio” but to “make the studio better.”
In a statement to CBC News, Ontario Labor Minister David Piccini said, “I want all Ontario workers to know that they have the right to raise concerns about their workplace, and Ontario labor laws exist to ensure that these concerns are addressed through fair and established processes.”
Earlier this month, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer called Rockstar's dismissal “deeply troubling” and said he would look into the situation.
In the past month, other studios have made significant moves toward organizing.
US based Id Software, creators Rock gamesAnd Ubisoft Halifax voted to fully unionize with the CWA in the US and Canada respectively.
A former Rockstar employee told CBC News they hope more video game studios, including Rockstar, can unionize in the future. “The company has demonstrated a commitment to doing right by its employees in the past when push comes to shove,” they said.
Overtime culture in video games
Rockstar came under scrutiny ahead of release Red Dead Redemption in 2018. Many employees were reportedly working overtime in what is known in the industry as a “crisis.”
Co-founder Dan Houser said in an interview that he and a small group of writers worked 100 hours a week shortly before launching. Houser left the company in 2020; his brother Sam Houser is currently its president.
Jim Munroe, a writer and artist who also works in the independent games industry, attended the protest outside Rockstar Toronto. He says he doesn't know anyone who works there now, but he knows some developers who used to work there and burned out.
“I'm a huge fan of Rockstar and I just wish they would treat their employees better,” he said.
“In some ways, I feel like the GTA games are the modern world equivalent of the pyramids: incredible feats of art and engineering, but built at enormous human cost.”
Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported that Rockstar crunch culture was virtually destroyed. But it was also reported that employees were disappointed after asked to return to work full time in the officeabandoning work-from-home policies in the pandemic era.
A former Rockstar Toronto employee said that ultimately, laid-off workers in both Canada and the UK just want their jobs back.
“We put our heart and soul into our work. Everyone who was there was talented in some way. If we hadn't done this, we wouldn't have been hired by Rockstar and wouldn't have worked there for so long,” the developer said.
“All we wanted to do was make the game the best it could be. We are all passionate people.”
