Rockstar’s battle with the The Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain went to court last week, in an effort to determine whether more than 30 employees accused of “gross misconduct” were in fact unfairly dismissed. While Rockstar accused the fired developers of sharing important confidential information, it seems that at least some of that information has now been made public via the court case–including some very early details on what may be GTA 6 Online.
People Make Games has been reporting on the faceoff between Rockstar Games and the IWGB since the start, and recently released a video covering the court proceedings so far. As part of the preliminary hearing, Rockstar’s legal representative mentioned a “top-secret element of GTA 6,” which he said was so confidential he didn’t feel confident speaking about it out loud, instead asking the judge to read it in private.
Despite the supposedly top secret nature of this evidence, People Make Games was able to make an appointment to view the documents, as Rockstar had not applied for reporting restrictions to be placed upon the evidence. He has now reproduced those messages in full, showing an apparent conversation by a fired employee who was frustrated at not being able to book time off after Rockstar started cracking down on the number of employees being granted leave at one time.
“They mentioned the large session we did today ‘being difficult to do,’ but that was 32 players, not sure how that was difficult,” the former employee wrote in the Discord, after mentioning they worked in a team of 56 people. “Sounds like ‘you have multiple studios of QA testers, surely someone can manage to organize a 32-player session and let people have their time off’ …” added another employee who was also fired in the wake of the messages.
Rockstar’s argument refers to these messages as “highly confidential and commercially sensitive information relating to the content and features of an unannounced online service,” saying that the information constitutes a leak because it “discussed the specific number of online players planned for this new service.”
Presuming the 32-player number is the planned cap for GTA 6’s online play, the revelation isn’t exactly a bombshell, as the current iteration of GTA Online already allows 32 players to a server. The new information seems to contradict rumors that circulated last year, suggesting that an upgraded edition of GTA Online would allow 64 players at a time, with the intention of eventually supporting 96-player servers.
Some of the other messages that were submitted by Rockstar as grounds for the firing are also interesting, not because they contain important information on GTA 6, but for what the studio is classifying as “gross misconduct.” In some cases, it’s employees discussing crunch, concerns about generative AI, or changes to certain perks provided by Rockstar.
In one case highlighted by People Make Games, it’s a single, 15-word message: “Nothing that I’ve heard in North QA! Will keep you updated if that changes ofc.” Rockstar’s grounds for dismissing this employee was that he “included information about working patterns in his team,” which could be used by those familiar with the industry to guess what stage of development GTA 6 was at.
The preliminary hearing was only the first stage in the court battle between Rockstar and the union, with the judge asked to rule on whether Rockstar should be made to provide “interim relief” for the fired employees while they await the results of the full trial. The request for interim relief was rejected by the Glasgow Employment Tribunal, but the full trial is still to come.