Rockstar Games and the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain (IWGB) have traded blows in fiery opening statements during the final employment tribunal hearing, relating to the sudden firing of 31 Rockstar North employees nearly a year ago.
In their opening statements – made as the hearing got underway in Glasgow, Scotland, yesterday, and shared in full with Eurogamer – the opposing organisations outlined a case hinging on a private IWGB Discord server and what was and wasn’t talked about there. It’s on this Discord server that hundreds of Rockstar employees hoped to organise and create a legally recognised Rockstar union, but it’s also here that Rockstar alleged confidential information was disclosed.
The 31 fired Rockstar North employees, represented by the IWGB, claimed Rockstar was “clandestinely monitoring” this Discord server through a “mole” since “at least” February 2024, but that Rockstar only took punitive action days after membership numbers reached the pivotal 10 percent figure (of a larger workforce) needed for unions to be recognised by UK law.
In the IWGB’s opening statement, it said: “[Rockstar] asks the Tribunal to accept that, after monitoring the Server for almost two years without taking any disciplinary action, it happened to discover misconduct requiring the [former employees’] immediate dismissal fortuitously at exactly the moment when the union had acquired the capacity to seek recognition. The [former employees] say that the contemporaneous evidence points to a much simpler, realistic and credible explanation: [Rockstar] struck at the union because it had become capable of exercising collective power.”
“[Rockstar] struck at the union because it had become capable of exercising collective power” -IWGB on behalf of the fired employees
The IWGB statement documented dozens of alleged meetings between Rockstar’s cyber security person and the “mole” over 21 months, with a drastic uptick in activity around October 2025, as the 10 percent threshold was reached. It claimed that “much of the union’s organising cadre” was targeted by Rockstar in the resulting “decimation”, and that those employees – which were invited to brief “catch-up meetings” by Rockstar – were handed pre-prepared dismissal letters and escorted from their workplace with no discussion or opportunity to defend themselves.
Rockstar, naturally, disagreed. Much of its case seemed to rest on having the tribunal understand what it called the “embedded culture of confidentiality” it operates with, as well as the “exceptional value and prestige” of Grand Theft Auto 6. Rockstar said it adopts “the security posture of a Wall Street Bank” to guard its secrets in the way Coca-Cola would its secret “formula” or Apple would its technology.
Accordingly, Rockstar said any visitors to its offices “must” sign NDAs and that any contractors on site are escorted by security. Remote working is “severely restricted”, external storage devices are “banned”, photography is “strictly forbidden”, and personal phones, tablets, and laptops are “blocked” from connecting to Rockstar systems.
Rockstar claimed it sustains “regular assaults on its security and systems” and that “it has had to put privacy films on its building after drones were used to try and photograph through office windows”. It also cited an alleged phishing attack that supposedly resulted in “dozens of videos of unfinished development footage of GTA 6” leaking onto Slack in 2022. As a result, the company said it employs a full-time team of five investigators and a director “to monitor for and investigate potential data leaks”.
Rockstar mentioned the recent Cyberleek GTA 6 video leaks, too: “Most recently, in the last few weeks, a hacking group attempted to blackmail [Rockstar]. If any more proof was needed that [Rockstar’s] sensitivity to security and confidentiality is justified, it is the wiping of $2bn from the [Rockstar’s] parent company’s share value within a few days as that recent hack became public.”
Hunger for information on GTA 6 is so great, Rockstar claimed, it faces “levels of scrutiny that are hard to conceive”. It alleged to have had “the frequency of coffee shop trips by employees and pizza deliveries to the Rockstar offices” monitored by outside parties, presumably in the hope of their gleaning any information about what was going on inside. In 2023, a “return to office” plan leaked and apparently “generated global coverage and spin-off theories about what this might mean for the release date of GTA 6”.
With this in mind, Rockstar said it was moved to take action when “whistleblowers” within the IWGB Discord – who it claimed had sent only “snippets” of information since 2023 – became “so alarmed” with what they saw they contacted the company. Rockstar then apparently gained access to the Discord and when it saw what was going on, took action. This is its account of the sudden urgency scrutinised by the IWGB.
Rockstar claimed that upon accessing the Discord server, it discovered a journalist there, as well as former employees which it said “left in poor standing with the business and were therefore motivated to cause harm to it”. However, the IWGB maintained that the Discord servers were invite-only, access-restricted and “subject to verification through Rockstar’s own internal Slack platform”, and only used to discuss union-related issues like meetings, training, surveys, petitions, collective responses, advice, and representation. The biggest Discord room apparently had nearly 350 people in it – both parties agree on this.
Rockstar also alleged it found “vituperatively disparaging” remarks about the company on Discord server, in phrases such as “cowardly corporate fucks”, and words like “arseholes”, “narcissistic”, “abusive”, and “bastards”. More importantly, it allegedly found references to game features there – “one of the most closely guarded secrets of the company”. “Two discussed an online 32 player format which was highly confidential at that time,” Rockstar said, and people were allegedly spotted speculating about a release delay to Autumn 2026 long before that was officially announced.
“[Rockstar] says, very simply, the reason for the dismissals was the misconduct which it uncovered on the Discord” – Rockstar Games
Rockstar concluded: “There can only be one sole or principal reason for dismissal. [Rockstar] says, very simply, the reason for the dismissals was the misconduct which it uncovered on the Discord which led to an irretrievable breakdown in trust and confidence.
“If, as the [former employees] claim, [Rockstar] was hostile towards the IWGB and had been since 2023, and was fearful of it achieving the 10 percent recognition threshold, it would have been insanity itself for the Respondent to take no action until the IWGB had already reached that threshold, and then in a 48 hour period simultaneously sack 31 union members. Their case is – literally – incredible.”
Yesterday’s employment tribunal hearing was accompanied by rallies and placards as some of the people fired by Rockstar gathered outside. In an impassioned speech, one former worker characterised the battle against Rockstar as being a battle against a fear itself. “Fear wants to rule us,” they said. “It closes our minds, our hearts, and our horizons. It makes us small, sad and hopeless. But today, we are fighting fear. This long-awaited hearing is an opportunity to put fear in its place below us.”
The tribunal hearing is expected to last five weeks as the submitted evidence is discussed and cross-examined. It is a landmark case for video game union representation whatever the outcome – not least for reaching as far as UK Parliament – but should the tribunal rule in favour of the fired employees, it will be an historic victory. We’ll keep you posted on the ins and outs of the hearing over the coming weeks.
