You’ve probably seen the articles by now.
“Union Workers at IWGB Union tell players NOT to boycott GTA VI, but buy a t-shirt instead.”
If you haven’t, welcome to the article! This is much more of an opinion piece than simply a news piece telling you about the union, their efforts, the backstory of Rockstar/Take-Two union busting many employees, and then the union’s historic legal case against the aforementioned company for the aforementioned actions. However, I will catch you up if you’re unaware with a very quick too long; didn't read.
Long story extremely short the IWGB (Independent Workers of Great Britain) Union was building a case to bring to Rockstar/Take-Two for years, planning to give workers a better voice in the industry. As they were just about to bring up their case Rockstar/Take-Two upper management called in 34 employees involved in union organizing and fired them, citing supposed leaking of confidential company information to non-employees. From there protests erupted, current Rockstar employees called for their fired co-workers to be reinstated, and the IWGB Union initiated a lawsuit against Rockstar/Take-Two.
At this point, you’re basically caught up. There’s obviously more nitty gritty there than I can cover, as well as legal updates that will inevitably impact the case at large, but you get the gist.
Fast forward to August 18th, 2026. The IWBG Union’s YouTube channel posts this video: Don’t Boycott GTA VI. Fight for justice for the people who made it.
In the video they tell viewers NOT to boycott Rockstar/Take-Two’s next business venture, the hotly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6. They tell us to, instead, help them “win justice for the people who helped make it.” ‘How?’ you ask. Well, by buying an “ethically-made t-shirt”, proceeds of which go straight to the union’s efforts to sue Rockstar/Take-Two. You know, the company they’re asking you not to boycott.
‘But why?’ you ask another question, clearly confused. I am too, don’t worry.
Supposedly the reason you should still buy GTA VI, effectively helping Rockstar/Take-Two fight back against the IWGB Union in court, is because ex-employees “spent years pouring [their] hard work, skill, and creativity into making GTA and [they] want people to experience the universe that [they] helped build”. To be fair, they do say this “doesn’t mean [they] want [us] to let Rockstar off the hook”, even though it kind of seems that way.
"Should you boycott GTA VI? Ever since Rockstar was accused of union busting for firing me and over 30 of my colleagues, all of us members of the union, players have been asking themselves and us this question. We're going to make it easy for you. Don't boycott GTA VI. Win justice for the people who helped make it. We spent years pouring our hard work, skill, and creativity into making GTA and we want people to experience the universe that we helped build. But that doesn't mean we want you to let Rockstar off the hook."
I’m going to be getting into the opinion part of this piece, so if you’re easily disturbed by Hater Energy you may want to find the nearest ‘Exit’.
I’ll be completely frank with you, Reader, I don’t understand this. Not only do I not understand this, I am actively pissed off by it. Supposedly the IWGB Union has been working on a case for unionization since 2019; that’s seven years of effort, six years if you’re counting the moment Rockstar started union busting and creating this whole kerfuffle. Six years of hard work, effort, and time compiling a case to simply get employees treated better. Because at the end of the day that’s really what the union and the employees of these publishers want, to be treated just a little bit better while doing their job. And Rockstar fired them for it. Years of work to not only make Rockstar millions (perhaps billions) of dollars on a new game, money the employee will never see by the way, but also years of work just to be treated better while making the company all that money in the first place. Disgusting. Despicable. Honestly, the game should be boycotted for crunch alone, as far as I’m concerned. But Rockstar had to take it a step further and fire employees trying to unionize. Such an egregious act that the IWGB Union is now suing them for it. Yet, for some reason, these actions don’t constitute the need for a boycott, from the mouth of the fired employees themselves.
In what world? Are we really so inundated with toxic positivity that we can’t come to terms with the fact that maybe this is a game we, ethically, should not be consuming? Why is it that a game with AI is bad because it takes a job away from someone but this situation isn’t? These people lost their jobs. Some employees even had to leave the country due to a lapse in their work visa, stated even by the union themselves in the previously linked video. “Some [terminated employees] were forced to even leave the country, saying ‘goodbye’ to their homes, their friends, and even their pets.”
To make matters worse, in the UK a work visa’s permission usually leaves a fired employee with 60 days to figure out future arrangements; be that moving, finding a new job, or applying for another visa. That is, unless, an employer has fired an employee due to “gross misconduct”, which then allows the visa to be cancelled immediately rather than in 60 days. “Gross misconduct” is precisely what Rockstar/Take-Two claimed when firing employees, making their dismissal much worse and making living arrangements for visa employees much more precarious. (Note: This doesn't mean that employees with work visas were given no time to find other arrangements, but it does allow the Home Office to terminate a visa immediately and this is something Rockstar understands as a company operating in the UK.)
So, putting a gun to their heads, Rockstar fired 34 employees. Rockstar took away their work, their career, their ability to keep food in their fridge and a roof over their heads, and even sent some people back to a country they no longer called “home”; and for some reason that is not enough to call for a boycott. Instead I am expected to buy both a t-shirt to support the IWGB Union’s legal fees and GTA VI to support Rockstar/Take-Two’s legal fees. All because the fired employees want me to “experience the universe” they built. At what point do we draw the line in the sand? At what point is calling for me to support the company you’re suing crossing the picket? At what point can we all finally admit that this isn’t sustainable?
But they want to win and get their jobs back. Of course they do. So of course they don’t want the company to go under. We all just want to keep fighting this battle forever. Get hired by a company, be treated like dogshit on the bottom of a CEO's shoe, take years of abuse, be poor anyway, get fired anyway, do it all over again instead of finally actually changing something anything in this fucked up world we live in. Spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal battles to ensure we’re treated like people rather than taking all of this crowd-funded money and using it to create a studio worth working at. We all act like we hate big money and big business while simultaneously shackling ourselves to it willingly and I’m so sick of it.
Pictured above: consumers shoveling their money into the flaming AAA machine
Is it really that idealistic to think we could all go indie? Is it truly so naïve to think that we, the billions of people, could easily support one another if we just stopped shoveling our money as fast as we humanely could into the top five Abuse Machines (ie. Take-Two, Microsoft, PlayStation, EA, Tencent)? I don’t think so, and neither should you. Everyone loves the famous Gandhi quote “Be the change you want to see in the world” but no one ever actually wants to be that change and I’m really tired of sitting by quietly while it all happens.
I don’t work in the industry. Never have, never will. I don’t know exactly what a former Rockstar employee has been though. However, as someone that is truly passionate about this industry and as someone that knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that voting with your wallet and your voice is not only important but will work, I am telling you this:
Boycott GTA VI.
Use your money where it matters, not where it’s the most convenient.
Change is going to be hard, I don’t know what else to say. We all post every day on social media about how fed up we are with the current system, the current industry, the current this & that yet we wake up and insert ourselves into the same shitty situations day-in and day-out. We are indeed victims of this system, but if we continue to uplift said system, both with our voices and with our money, then we are allowing ourselves to continue as victims.
If you’d like to support the IWGB Union’s efforts to sue Rockstar/Take-Two for firing them unjustly, pick up one of their t-shirts, or other merchandise on their website. This piece isn’t a dig at the IWGB Union, more a tipping point of my ire toward this type of toxically positive behavior, which I think is more often than not keeping us from doing our most progressive work.
I want IWGB Union to win their case. I want every fired employee to get their back pay and have their records wiped clean of "gross misconduct". However, what I don’t want to happen is for Rockstar to make even more money than ever and continue enacting this abuse on even more employees on their next massive game. The union may, at some point down the line, finally secure some better working conditions for employees, but why even work there to begin with? Wouldn’t it be better to create a new company with a work environment that doesn’t create crunch so excessive it’s been on the news since 2010, instigating multiple lawsuits, open letters from employees, desperate calls for action, and more? Wouldn’t it be better to create a company willing to protect employees from the get go, rather than allowing “frat house” management to take over and perpetuate sexual abuse and harassment, including company trips to strip clubs?
I don’t know. Obviously I’m not describing an idealistic world - I know it’s hard (and expensive) to start a company, pay salaries, and so on. I’m not trying to describe an “easy” path, I’m trying to describe a better one than we’re on. I don’t see the sense in using money to fight demons in court so we can ask them to be less demonic, I simply want to take my money elsewhere.
Rockstar doesn’t make the industry happen, the developers do.
Rockstar doesn’t monetarily support the industry, the gamers do.
Stop allowing the same five companies to take advantage of our work, our time, our lives, and our industry. Use your money meaningfully. Work for a better tomorrow.
Thank you for reading.