In light of the recent criticism that Rockstar Games has been facing for its firing of over 30 employees, one employee from the studio has taken to the GTA Forums to talk about the company’s actions. Under request of anonymity, and having been verified as a real Rockstar Games employee by an admin, the person – using the name Organize – has further criticised the Grand Theft Auto developers, calling the company out for union busting.
They make so much money on their games. I don’t understand why they have to be like this.
Happy healthy employees will just take these amazing games to the next level. WTF.
these rockstar execs are not only greedy but they are also dumb as shit
Same thing as return to office. It’s not even about the money, it’s about power and control.
It feels like we’re in such an advanced stage of capitalism that even profit motive has become secondary to completely insane sociopathic power tripping. Even the ideas of having a content workforce to improve productivity and a good product to retain a loyal customer base have gone down the toilet. Large companies now just flagrantly lie and cheat more than ever.
That is my observation too. Money is no longer the end goal, it’s now the means for unlimited power play with the general society.
You’d think the studio that gives you missions in RDR2 to shoot dead the actual fucking Pinkertons would not resort to this kind of bullshit. Even fucking MICROSOFT has accepted multiple unions forming on its studios, including in one of the COD studios. Like, what the fuck? How do you even manage to be more cartoonishly evil than Microsoft???
To be fair, lots of American media has rebellious motifs, but its mostly merely product packaging and doesn’t really reflect American society.
I lived in the US at one point and while repetition of various freedom themed polemics was extremely common (it initially got annoying, until I learned to simply filter it out), I didn’t really find the whole thing convincing. It felt more like posturing.
That being said, there is a lot of American literature, cinema and art more generally that is truly non-comfortmist.
Different people, probably. And a company can change a lot in 7 years (in recent times, usually not for the better).
I’m genuinely tired of companies just picking up the villain ball more and more as the years pass…
That’s what happens when regulators like the FTC, Department of Labor, etc. have been essentially destroyed by neoliberals and crony capitalists.
For sure. The people that made RDR and other great are long gone. I was debating whether or not to get GTAVI when it comes out, but with the union busting they’ve made the decision for me.
Lazlow, Dan Houser, and the rest of the old creative team at Rockstar are no longer with the company.
GTA6 is gonna sell like mad regardless, but unlike the last several Rockstar blockbusters I’m waiting to see if it’s good before giving them any money.
I’m not sure I could even enjoy it anymore - the satire on the radio will hit different after this. And my non-gamer friends would just see a scab.
the actual fucking Pinkertons
Are they based on real people?
The Pinkertons are real and still exist today. They got hired to harassed some YouTuber that had unreleased Magic the Gathering cards
Fucking WotC are racing Rockstar to the bottom. Like imagine spending actual money with that agency thinking “this’ll be good pr”. Just saw a movie where they were the antagonist and decided to look into them. JFC my life was a tiny bit better before then.
They were a group of mercenaries formed in 1850 that got hired by Lincoln as sort of a primitive Secret Service, but after the war they were usually hired to fight against organized labor. Usually by beating up/harassing or straight up shooting the workers. They’re still a thing today, apparently…
And this right here is a great reason to buy anything else other than pre-order GTA6.
Been on an indie buying spree on Steam, it’s awesome.
yup, this is the way.
also side note, GTA6 probably won’t be out on steam for a couple years after console release
I have to ask why they’re not starting a defamation lawsuit over this.
I think they’re planning to take legal action, not sure through which means though
The union remains unbowed and is fighting to win the reinstatement of every dismissed member of staff at Rockstar through legal means and campaigning.
I you would be so kind, you can contribute to the fundraiser to support those fighting their dismissal here: https://actionnetwork.org/fundraising/support-rockstar-workers-fighting-unfair-dismissals/
I believe they’re going through some kind of arbitration process.
Part of me thinks that this game will always sell gangbusters no matter what.
Part of me thinks that this is going to be the one where no one fucking gives a shit because of all the BS that R* have been doing since GTA5, and the oversaturation of open world games, and the stagnation of the series is going to make it sell WAY less than expected and fuck them over significantly.
I barely gave a fuck about 5. I’m 100% not going to buy this one.
I work at a computer parts store at we already have people coming in asking for “GTA 6 ready PCs” so its at least going to have a huge launch just from hype alone.
It really depends how Rockstar gauges success, whether its copies sold or total profit from transactions. Those goals lead to different games, although to be fair they did make two different versions of GTA 5 and just packaged them together, the single player game and GTA Online, so they might be able to achieve both goals this time too.
I mean, based on their previous most recent titles, and what the ad budget is going to be, they are going to expect at least a billion dollars in profit
Part of me thinks that this is going to be the one where no one fucking gives a shit because of all the BS that R* have been doing since GTA5,
Zero chance.
Sucker Punch fired one of their senior devs for a mario and luigi joke when kirk got got. EVERYONE was angry, the studio heads came out to say they stand by their decision, and plenty of people were keyed in to the hell that Erika Ishii has had to put up with on social media for daring to portray a female character in a video game.
Ghost of Yotei comes out. Metacritic of 86 and just about every outlet had to cover it and talk about how much they love it. A few of the more independent outlets stood true but… there are just so few video games that come out in a given year that you can’t possibly dare to deprive yourself of something over things like workers rights or politics. I mean, what else could you possibly play in September of 2025!!!
Sucker Punch fired one of their senior devs for a mario and luigi joke when kirk got got. EVERYONE was angry, the studio heads came out to say they stand by their decision, and plenty of people were keyed in to the hell that Erika Ishii has had to put up with on social media for daring to portray a female character in a video game.
(I didn’t know about any of this before this comment so apologize if I’m misinterpreting)
From what I read though, there were A LOT of angry people even because of the joke, weren’t there? I’m guessing they had to take a stance and went with the “killing is bad” to not get too politically involved. Which is still a coward move, but personally not something I’d boycott a game over.
What happened with Erika Ishii? Social media was being social media and I know that, but did Sucker Punch themselves do anything to contribute to that?
It was literally a joke about wondering if the killer would be named “mario”. It was far tamer than what many of the chuds have said.
It was sheer and utter cowardice and abandoning the people who actually make the games that got them there. And when even god damned paramount reversed course with kimmel, the head of Sucker Punch doubled down on standing by their actions.
As for Ishii: “Social media was being social media” sums up how much you care on that front.
And THIS is why GTA6 will sell like hotcakes no matter what happens.
As for Ishii: “Social media was being social media” sums up how much you care on that front.
I didn’t minimize what happened. I just asked if Sucker Punch had any role in that since I wouldn’t boycott a game just because there’s assholes in its fanbase.
I didn’t minimize what happened
No, you 100% did. All while also justifying chudlike behavior because the company that released the game about a Native American (who was Troy Baker in brownface but we try to ignore that) fighting against the cops in Seattle can’t afford to have any policality to their games. Also that ignores the actual Ghost games themselves.
Maybe you didn’t intend to. But your actions sure as hell did. So… either get pissy and insist you didn’t and the problem is everyone else or engage in some self-reflection.
At the very least every single streamer in the world is going to buy it to cash in on the media storm. Then fomo kicks in and they make a billion minimum. They could be constantly publicly sacrificing puppies from now to release and it wouldn’t have an effect on that sales floor.
I mean yeah, because the majority of sales are 1000% gonna come from the PS5 crowd, and I’d bet that most are not going to read reviews or news about rockstar beforehand.
PC might genuinely be impacted tho, especially if these layoffs translate to a more unstable game/unpolished jank.
PS5 players are some of the worst when it comes to buying games incessantly regardless of whatever evil decisions the company makes.
Capitalists be as capitalist does.
A few points:
- You misunderstood why you were shooting the Pinkertons. It wasn’t because you were forming unions, it’s because you were costing the government money.
- You are overestimating the amount of people actually care about that sort of thing. The sheer numbers of people who say one thing and then spend their money however they want is exponentially more than any that would abstain.
- GTA6 is going to be a zeitgeist touchstone game. People are going to buy it and play just so they won’t miss out and to be able to be a part of any conversation.
- People aren’t going to pirate it. “But it’s easy! And it doesn’t give money to R*!”. Is it as easy as giving a clerk $80USD? Then people who couldn’t care less about the ethics of R* aren’t going to pirate it.
It is actually easier to pirate it though
Five year olds know how a store works.
Five year olds won’t figure out how to pirate a game.
Is it as easy as handing a clerk $80? Not is it as easy for you.
It’s extremely difficult for me to pay $80 for a game already!
I mean, fair.
Was this meant to be a reply to a comment? Because it currently shows as a top-level one
I bit in response to the article itself and a bit in response to your(perceived) opinion on it.
