Grand Theft Auto VI is less than six months away, and developers on the open-world blockbuster are seeking voluntary union recognition before it comes out. “Rockstar leads the industry in the games we create,” said senior QA tester Josh Walter in an emailed statement. “We believe it can also lead the industry in how it treats the people who make them.”
The union has been organizing with the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) since 2019, and now claims to represent “a significant proportion” of the workforce across Rockstar’s Edinburgh, Dundee, Lincoln, Leeds, and London offices. Developers credit Rockstar with making improvements to working conditions, including “unprecedented average pay rises and financial incentives for crunch for the first time ever” leading up to the release of GTA VI. Formal recognition, the union says, would allow developers to work more directly on improving pay transparency and flexible working arrangements, as well as codifying further rules around crunch, an industry term for prolonged periods of excessive overtime during game production.
“There is so much that is special about the studio and the work we put out,” Walter said. “We want to protect that. When people are confronted with pay disparities, excessive overtime or a lack of flexibility in arrangements, they are not in the best position to do their best work. We want to sit down with management and build a future where both the games and the conditions of the people who make them are as strong as possible.”
Shanti Easton-Steel added, “This recognition bid only comes after years of effort by our members and could not have happened without the support of many of our non-member colleagues too. We hope lots more people will now feel comfortable to join the union, but even for those that don’t, we ask that they remain supportive of the cause as we move forward with momentum towards our key objectives of pay transparency, fairer crunch practices and better flexible working arrangements.”
The latest push by Rockstar union members comes amid an ongoing legal fight with the studio over the firing of over 30 developers last fall. The IWGB claims it was an act of union busting aimed at weakening the organizing effort. Rockstar maintains that the workers were let go for gross misconduct, including leaking sensitive details of GTA 6‘s production in a non-secure group chat on Discord. While that battle continues to play out in a UK labor tribunal, the IWGB is leveraging the upcoming launch of one of the most anticipated games of the decade to pressure Rockstar in the court of public opinion.
A formally recognized union at Rockstar would be the second game union in the UK. The IWGB organized Disco Elysium and Zero Parades maker ZA/UM last fall.