As the studio behind one of the most highly anticipated games of all time, GTA 6 developer Rockstar Games has divulged more details on how it keeps its secrets. As part of a hearing, which began yesterday at the Glasgow Employment Tribunal–in which Rockstar Games has been accused of unlawfully firing 34 GTA 6 developers based in the UK and Canada last year–the studio compared keeping a lid on GTA 6 to be on the same level as Apple or the Coca-Cola Company protecting its trade secrets.
“Guarding the secrets of the unique gameplay and design are akin to Apple protecting the iPhone or Coke protecting its formula,” Rockstar said in its opening note (via IGN). “The standards and expectations regarding information security and privacy are exponentially beyond that of most employers.”
The company claims that people are so hell-bent on peeking behind the curtain that it was forced to coat its building windows with a privacy film after aerial drones were used to spy on employees and photograph the inside of the building. Because of that, Rockstar has had to implement numerous security measures, such as enforcing strict no-photography rules for visitors, banning external storage devices on office premises, and restricting remote work for employees. The developer also has a full-time team of five investigators and a director who keep an eye out for potential leaks.
All of those measures are designed to create a layer of secrecy between the studio and the public, but that hasn’t stopped it from being hit by security breaches in the past. Following a massive data breach in 2022, another wave of GTA 6 gameplay leaks started circulating last month, right before the game’s extended premiere on Netflix. “It would be an understatement to say that having videos of GTA 6 gameplay leak in this way has been heartbreaking for our team, and this is obviously not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time,” Rockstar wrote in a statement.
Rockstar’s hearing at the Glasgow Employment Tribunal also relates to matters of internal secrecy, as the company says the 34 dismissed members were fired for leaking GTA 6 game features via Discord. The former employees have hit back at those claims, with the Independent Workers of Great Britain union alleging that Rockstar fired those workers because of their union ties and activities–something that Rockstar has denied.
The former Rockstar workers have asked people not to boycott GTA 6, but instead to purchase t-shirts to help raise funds for their legal battle. While this hearing is underway, great strides have been made across the pond at Blizzard, as the company officially signed a new agreement between its union and Microsoft earlier this week.