Rally outside Rockstar against Grand Theft Auto studio’s ‘union busting’

Grand Theft Auto VI coming 2025 to PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. (Graphic: Business Wire)

Dozens of people protested Thursday outside Rockstar Games’ offices in Edinburgh, accusing the multi-billion dollar studio behind the smash “Grand Theft Auto” open-world carjacking franchise of “blatant union busting” by firing 31 people.

Rockstar Games, whose upcoming sixth edition of the cash-cow series is among the hottest releases of 2026, has accused the employees of “distributing and discussing confidential information in a public forum, a violation of our company policies.”

But the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), which called the demonstration, rejected that claim, arguing that the sacked workers were all members of a private discussion channel linked to the union.

“Rockstar has just carried out the most blatant and ruthless act of union busting in the history of the games industry,” the IWGB’s President Alex Marshall said in a statement.

Branimira Yordanova, a lighting artist fired by Rockstar, said that she came into work to find her teammates in a huddle, “and they told me that my colleague Jordan had just been fired.”

“After that, it was chaos until I was called into a meeting, and I was handed my dismissal letter,” Yordanova told AFP on the sidelines of the protest.

When contacted by AFP, Rockstar, a subsidiary of American behemoth Take-Two Interactive, had not replied by Thursday evening.

A Rockstar spokesman insisted to Bloomberg on Wednesday that the firings were “in no way related to people’s right to join a union or engage in union activities.”

At the rally on Thursday, IWGB organizer Fred Carter said the company had “given no evidence” for that.

“We’ve submitted appeals of what we see as unfair dismissals of these 31 workers... in fact, we’ll fight for the reinstatement of our members,” Carter told AFP.

GTA VI, whose development ahead of its May 26, 2026 release has been shrouded in secrecy, is on course to become one of the biggest entertainment product launches of all time.

As popular as it is notorious for its sexual and violent content, the franchise has allowed players to roleplay as criminals doing dirty deeds across sprawling cityscapes since its first entry in 1997.

According to the IWGB, the last entry -- 2013’s GTA V -- grossed more than US$7 billion. The union expects GTA VI’s takings to surpass US$10 billion.