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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.