post
Is not being a shitbag really so difficult?
Pretty sure spying on unions is illegal, but Congress and the DoL are useless; and entirely captured by corporate interests.
Love how they're paying more attention to that shit than to what gamers want out of the next GTA.
I can't say I'm too surprised. It's not uncommon for rockstars to be cunts.
Rockstar management did not have direct access to the server prior to October 2025, but the former workers and their legal team allege that "from at least February 2024, [Rockstar HR director] Charlie Kinloch had been receiving information from a junior employee on trade union activity inside the Server". They claim that "over 21 months, at least 26 meetings or communications took place between Mr Kinloch and [the junior employee] concerning the Server, roughly half of them initiated by Mr Kinloch himself". Related
The "mole" is said to have "supplied screenshots and recordings, reported union meetings, training sessions and union membership numbers, and identified individual union activists". On 7th October 2025, they allegedly informed Kinlock that the union were 12 members away from the statutory threshold for recognition - 10% of the workforce. The union eventually reached this milestone on 18th October, with Kinloch learning of this on 20th October, the fired workers claim. At some point in this period, they go on, Rockstar management got hold of logins for the server, with Rockstar's vice president of information security Abid Ansari eventually signing in to download "the contents of the Announcements and General channels". Rockstar began firing members of the Discord at the end of the month.
Just classic union busting. Srsly. Don't fucking give Rockstar money now of all times. Sales number is the only language they speak. If you support unions, at least fucking wait on GTA 6. Wait until workers get rehired, unions enancted, Rockstar stops breaking employment laws.
If waiting too much of a bother, if you want the game too much, then go ahead and cross the picket line. Know it's full of fired workers with families to support, some losing their homes, some losing the country as work visas getting revoked/being deported, all becoming unhirable in the industry since their last reference is claiming misconduct. But if none of that is a problem, then go ahead and be a scab.
Sales number is the only language they speak.
They also speak violence, but historically that's in the form of the rich and/or the state attacking labor.
Unfortunate that this junior employee is apparently anonymous.
yeah would love to see this chud get recognized for his/her GREAT fuckin work shitting on their coworkers and undermining solidarity.
recognized like never fucking employed by anyone with a soul
Guaranteed the worm isn't skilled enough to rise above his station on his own, so tried to use this to curry favor with the middle managers. Too bad he's useless to them now that the people that trusted him were fired.
Strangely, but understandably, the fired workers do not want people to boycott GTA VI because they poured their heart and soul into it. They would like people to financially support their legal fight instead.
https://iwgb.org.uk/en/post/dont-boycott-gta-back-legal-fight/
Unfortunately there is no realistic way that people would boycott GTA for anything, let alone this. People tried to rally for a Sony boycott and it has as much affect as a bug trying to push back a truck.
Rockstar is a disgusting company. I wish everyone would see them for the filth they are rather than blindly guzzling GTA VI hype. More than ever in their history, their game deserves to fail. But unfortunately, too many people will hold their nose and ensure it's a giant success.
Not that I personally give a fuck about GTA generally, but it does make me upset that one of the few methods we have to "police" these companies as consumers is to not buy the game. To take a massive project that consumed however many years of work by however many developers and artists just and make it a commercial failure just to... stick it to their bosses? It's like refusing to buy a musician's CD because you don't like the record company they made a deal with. Nobody gets to enjoy the music and the musician makes less money. This system sucks.
The employees have already been paid as much as they're going to and will be rewarded by being laid off. Not buying it only punishes the shithead management that will otherwise give themselves massive year end bonuses.
Exactly. The triple A industry pretty much never passes profits to the devs and a game selling well does not lead to job security. Don't buy the game or pirate it, there no moral issue here
will be rewarded by being laid off. Not buying it only punishes the shithead management
While I agree with the sentiment, that's a gross oversimplification.
- While I'm sure the studio will likely downsize and lay off staff, many will stay on.
- Passion and care inevitably went into the game, to some degree. I would be surprised if devs and artists were indifferent to its success, whether they kept their jobs or not.
- It's hugely different to be laid off after a hit game vs a failure of a game, when it comes to finding new work.
- The art itself, if it was of any quality, is wasted.
Again, I'm not advocating people buy it. I just wish we had the power to fight some other way. I won't be buying it, but I wouldn't have bought it anyway. It will also very likely sell like hotcakes, regardless of our posturing.
They won their initial case, the other tribunals will be done before launch
Not sure where your hate is coming from but it doesn’t seem anyone was fired unfairly
When is union busting not an unfair firing?
So far they won tribunals, you saw that as if it was fact
Here's what we know:
A bunch of employees were in a discord server, organizing
Many of those employees were fired
How's that not union busting?
Not all Rockstar employees in that discord were fired, was only the ones leaking information
Leaking information to other employees?
I'm not saying it's a justification here, but the principle of least access is an important part of security best practices.
There are completely valid reasons to restrict what information can be shared.
And others including journalists
The info is out there, easy to look up
You're on the wrong side of history today.
How?; they won tribunals so far and the company is unionising
These people were fired for breaching contracts, wasn’t union busting
For anyone who wants more coverage of this, the "people make games" channel on YouTube has been doing ongoing coverage where they discuss things with the worker and talk about what had been happening
Great channel
Really need to start teaching opsec in highschool and college.
How's opsec going to help against a rat anyway? If an insider gives out information, you're toast anyway, unless you have some kind of a cell network going on like some terrorist organizations and that's, uh, a bit too much for organizing an union
OpSec includes vetting people and structuring your organization in a way that frustrates a rat's ability to gain access to sensitive information.
Having a structured internal network for the union isn't "a bit much", it's a basic necessity to proper organization.
And yet - if the people organizing are completely anonymous and you can't even know for sure they're your coworkers, would you trust them?
If you're allowing anonymous people into your private server you have failed in your OpSec.
The solution to this is to not allow anonymous people into a private server used for organizing. You vet them first before giving access. Basic OpSec 101.
It works for the CIA. And they even wrote a declassified on exactly what we are talking about.
Like saying how is a fire extinguisher going to help a house fire.
Point is, good opsec prevents it from becoming a house fire.
Study OPSEC. It has an entire segment on dealing with spies (rats), internally, and outside.
SimpleX makes you anonymous and messages can't be attributed to you. HR would probably believe screenshots still. If people identify themselves on the chat, and they don't have to.
I don't see how it's some advanced technical process. It all comes down to the quandary of who to trust. If you don't trust enough people, you don't grow the movement. In this case, all it took was one figure to whom they overextended how much trust he was worth.
Seeing more governments salivating over chat control and banning VPNs, some even actively implementing these, I really dont't think we're seeing OPSEC being taught in schools or colleges.
They used to tell us to be careful around the Internet, don't use real names or give addresses or phone numbers or share any of our personal information online, to be cautios, to beware... now it's all about "You dont't have to worry if you don't have anything to hide" and giving away all of your data voluntarily or being denied service until you do (or at least getting worse or more expensive service) and age verification.
I was taught in Elementary/Kindergarten.
I had the privilege of being taught information security, programming, and OPSEC in a private school that no longer exists.
See you at school board meetings.
Yea I mean, a Discord like that, assume it is compromised. It sucks. It really sucks. But yeah.
This is not a Discord issue specifically, a mole could also have infiltrated a chat on other platforms as well.
This is a human issue first, a tech issue second
I’ll wait 100 years till it comes out on gamepass. People who don’t play games keep talking to me about GTA6 and I don’t know what to say because I don’t care. Rockstar can forever eat my asd for not making red dead 2 zombies or multiplayer cool.
Why repost this? It was posted so many times when it was news about two weeks ago and the whole week after.
Who was the mole?
His/her name should be well known in the industry so that no workers would ever trust that person in their friend group.
Rockstar claiming that the (vetted for employment) Discord could be infiltrated and become a source of leaks, and stating their own mole is evidence it could happen, would be hilarious if it wasn't so disgustingly disingenuous.
Rockstar were "largely in the dark" about events on the server, save for "occasional glimpses" care of their primary "whistleblower".
Rockstar fired a group of 34, mostly UK-based employees on a charge of "gross misconduct", alleging that they had risked the leaking of confidential information
…
If courts were fair&just, Rockstar just lost their counter case. Too bad UK courts still work under bribery.
Chris Kerr is the source of the report.
Am I supposed to feel bad for the mole? GTA 6 releases in a few months.
Who wants to bet that Rockstar will wait until the work is done, and then have a round of layoffs?
Mole knows he works there for a time. That time will end, and then Rockstar will tell him to fuck off.
So why not fuck over Rockstar?
Try figuring out what the topic at hand is before rambling off a pointless comment.
Aw cmon, that means I actually have to read the article, not cool man
The story is some guy working at trying to unionize. Then his coworker sold him out to management. Now management is screwed because their devs won't get a union.
How is management screwed because of that?
They didn't fuck over Rockstar, they fucked over the devs.
The devs.....of rockstar
The devs are workers. Rockstar Management was spying on workers that were trying to unionize. A worker betrayed their fellow workers to be a stooge for management.
Like I said when this was posted a day or two ago, if Rockstar is going to treat its workers like shit and bust unions, they don't deserve $100 for GTA VI.
Now let's see if people stand with the workers or the union busting company treating workers like shit. At least then we'll have our answer as to why companies do what they do. But maybe people will surprise me this time.
I deserve proper pay for my work.
If people learn I am not being treated well and decide to stop purchasing things from my employer, I would prefer they follow their conscience and not get stuff rather than being happy they're using something I made.
It'll be more likely to force change long term if the employer sees a hit to their bottom line while the people tell them it's because of their poor treatment of employees.
I'd rather see everyone get fair treatment long term than see my own pockets filled with a pittance (to be paid out in 10 increments) right now
Did you enjoy Vice City or San Andreas back in the day? Because R* even fucked over Ray Liotta and Samuel L Jackson for those, probably even more so the devs. All entertainment has some degree of exploitation, a lot in hollywood movies over the decades, so we should hate every artwork which contains exploitation, which is all art.... Right?
People will buy GTA VI even if they discovered that Epstein himself developed the game.
I will not buy it though.
What's this? A large company treating its workers like crap, busting up unionization attempts? Say it isn't so. I was already lukewarm on anything GTA or from Rockstar but now I want nothing to do with them anymore.
Me boycotting Rockstar and GTA VI because they’re yet another fucking monstrous sociopath corporation

My god, one's blood boils to think of the bootlicker that gave away the plot to HR. What class solidarity.
all 8 comments