Grand Theft Auto workers sacked in ‘union-busting’ move: 'I don’t know how I’ll pay my bills'

Three former video game workers at the firm behind Grand Theft Auto (GTA) have spoken out about the brutal way they were dismissed, arguing that it was a form of illegal ‘union-busting’.

US games giant Rockstar Games sacked 34 of its workers on 30 and 31 October last year, 31 in the UK at sites in Edinburgh, Dundee and Lincoln and 3 in Canada, just days before the firm announced that the much-anticipated GTA 6 would be delayed until November 2026.

According to Rockstar, the workers were sacked for discussing, distributing, and leaking confidential information and specific features, which the company said amounted to “gross misconduct.”

However, the dismissed British-based workers and their union, The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), argue that they were part of a secure union-focused online messaging Discord channel that existed to allow members to discuss unionising the company and improving working conditions.

Mark Neil, formerly a developer at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, was dismissed via a phone call with no evidence provided by the company of his alleged wrongdoing.

He said: “I was on paternity leave at the time, my wife had just given birth to our second son: he was nine days old. At about 10.30 in the morning, I got a phone call out of the blue that lasted three minutes. I was summarily dismissed despite having given 12 years to the company.

“We believe that this whole process was procedurally unfair and frankly just took the humanity out of the thing and didn’t even treat us as people. We were just cast aside. There was no attempt to treat us as humans.”

Neil completely rejects Rockstar’s claim that confidential information was shared on the Discord messaging forum, arguing that the channel was secure and that he and his former colleagues were sacked for legitimate trade union activity.

“It’s private, invite-only and non-discoverable, meaning that you have to be invited to join. There are moderators who let people in and verify the identities of people in the group to be Rockstar employees or IWGB officials,” said Neil.

“We believe that all activity within our channel was legitimate trade union activity protected by UK law, and all discussions did not amount to a disclosure of confidential information.

“I don’t believe that an American company should be able to apply American-style law in the sense of a summary firing that they can do in certain parts of the United States.”

Neil also emphasised that shortly before the mass sackings, the IWGB had reached the 10% union density membership threshold that would allow it to apply to the Central Arbitration Committee (CAC) for statutory recognition as the recognised union at the company.

Lloyd Knott, formerly a lead visual effects artist at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, said that his dismissal had been a “bolt from the blue” after being accused of disclosing confidential information on a “social media platform”. However, he said that the company didn’t produce any proof that he had done anything wrong at his dismissal meeting.

He said: “I asked, ‘What am I supposed to have done?’ and they said everything was in the envelope on the desk. It was basically just a dismissal letter; there was no documentation about what I was meant to have done.”

Jack Hoxby, who worked in Quality Assurance (QA) at Rockstar North, was summoned to a meeting at short notice without the right to be accompanied by a union representative. He also believes that he and the other members were targeted because they were union members.

He said: “They said it was because I was involved in a public social media platform.

“Everyone (who was fired) was a member of the union, a member of the Discord that was named Rockstar Workers’ Discord and a huge percentage of the organising committees at each studio were also fired.”

YouTube channel People Make Games have claimed that a Rockstar source told them that there wasn’t a single example of confidential game details being shared, but that discussions on Discord about Rockstar’s changing policy in relation to its internal messaging service, Slack, were frequently discussed.

The mass sackings have led to protests outside Rockstar headquarters in Edinburgh and the firm’s parent company, Take Two Interactive, in London as well as outside their Paris office by the French game workers union Le Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV).

Meanwhile, over 220 Rockstar employees signed a letter demanding “the immediate reinstatement of their colleagues”, and the dismissed workers are hoping to take Rockstar to an employment tribunal with the support of the IWGB.

Read more:

• Pokémon Legends Z-A features anti-homeless hostile architecture: ‘Are you for real?!’
• The Employment Rights Act is here. Will 2026 be the year that work gets better?
• UK has some of the ‘weakest’ workers’ rights in the Western world. Can Labour fix this?

A total of 29 workers applied for interim relief, meaning they would be reinstated onto Rockstar’s payroll until the case concluded. However, following a hearing in Glasgow in early January ahead of a full tribunal, their application was rejected because the judge could not be certain that the case would succeed at the full tribunal.

Chris Bratt from People Make Games, who attended the hearing, said that Rockstar had argued that employees had created a channel with top-secret information about GTA 6, and that disparaging comments had been made about management on the Discord channel.

The sudden sackings have had a devastating impact on those forced out, financially and personally, with some non-British former Rockstar employees facing the prospect of having to leave the country. Mark Neil has started work at an Edinburgh supermarket in an attempt to support his family.

For Jack Hoxby, his termination has left him struggling financially, like many of his other former colleagues, and he is worried about getting employment in the future.

“I don’t know how I’m going to pay my bills. I live in Edinburgh; it’s a very expensive city. There’s just a big question mark about everything at the moment,” said Hoxby.

“It’s been very distressing in general. I mean, obviously, as I’m sure everyone has seen, the games industry is a particularly hard one to break into. As a QA tester, there aren’t many companies that have a dedicated QA department, so it’s actually quite a hard position to get. 

“It’s put a big question mark on my future in the industry, which is a bit of a shame as I do genuinely love the games industry.”

For Lloyd Knott, the brutal way he was fired has also had a very negative impact on his health and general well-being.

“It took me about a week or two to recognise what had happened,” said Knott. “My stress levels were through the roof. I wasn’t sleeping properly, I wasn’t eating properly, and I was just getting ill. It’s been up and down ever since.”

When asked by Chris Murray, Labour MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, about the sackings at Prime Minister’s Questions in December, Sir Keir Starmer said that the issue was “deeply concerning” and that “every worker has a right to join a trade union.”

Shortly after the sackings, Rockstar told Bloomberg: “Last week, we took action against a small number of individuals who were found to be distributing and discussing confidential information in a public forum, a violation of our company policies.”

Following Sir Keir’s comments, Rockstar said in a press release: “We took action against a small group of individuals, across the UK and internationally, 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. Claims that these dismissals were linked to union membership or activities are entirely false and misleading.”

In response, Spring McParlin-Jones, chair of the Game Workers branch of the IWGB, said that the union “does not believe Rockstar’s claims about the Discord leaks to be credible.”

“If they felt concerned about insecurity, they could have approached the IWGB, they could have attempted to have certain posts removed, or they could have requested that the server be taken down entirely. Rockstar did none of this,” said McParlin-Jones.

“All the alleged ‘top secret’ information was found in the context of legitimate discussions about working conditions. Most of this allegedly risky information is now already in the public domain. Rockstar themselves included it in their evidence in the hearing and made no effort to redact it despite repeated reminders from the judge that it would now be publicly available.

“At the interim relief hearing, Lord Hendy contended that the gross misconduct allegation was a “smokescreen” for a coordinated mass dismissal aimed at suppressing trade union activity.” 

Alex Marshall, IWGB president, added: “We are confident that what we’ve seen here is plain and simple union busting, and we will mount a full legal defence with our expert group of caseworkers, legal officers and barristers. Employers like Rockstar would do well to understand that private spaces such as trade union Discord servers have protections, and that their company’s contractual clauses do not supersede UK law.

“This case stands as a warning to any employer in the games industry and beyond who thinks they are able to act with impunity against organised workers – we will not be intimidated.”

Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this? Get in touch and tell us more. 

Change a vendor’s life this winter.

Buy from your local Big Issue vendor every week – and always take the magazine. It’s how vendors earn with dignity and how we fund our work to end poverty.

You can also support online with a vendor support kit or a magazine subscription. Thank you for standing with Big Issue vendors.