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.
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.
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???
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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!!!
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.
