Edinburgh MPs Press Rockstar to Cooperate With Investigation Into the GTA 6 Developer Firings

Three Edinburgh MPs have publicly criticised Rockstar for its handling of last October's mass dismissals, accusing the GTA 6 developer of refusing to properly engage with appeal processes and trade unions. The criticism follows an ongoing ministerial investigation into the firings that UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer opened in December, after Tracy Gilbert, Chris Murray, and Dr. Scott Arthur raised the case in Parliament and during meetings with affected constituents in Edinburgh.

Rockstar fired between 30 and 40 employees in late October 2025, with 34 confirmed dismissals across the UK and Canada. Bloomberg first reported the dismissals on October 31, 2025, with the IWGB Game Workers' Union claiming the firings were union-busting carried out against staff in a private Discord channel used to organise. Rockstar publicly stated it dismissed the workers for gross misconduct, alleging they had broken confidentiality rules by sharing private information on the same Discord. Take-Two said the studio terminated a small number of individuals for gross misconduct, and for no other reason.

Tracy Gilbert, MP for Edinburgh North and Leith, was the most direct of the three.

"It is extremely disappointing that Rockstar has refused to properly engage with staff, representatives and trade unions throughout this process. Workers asking for fairness, transparency and respect should not be met with silence and closed doors, especially when livelihoods and workplace rights are at stake."

— Tracy Gilbert

Chris Murray, MP for Edinburgh East and Musselburgh, said his concerns started in his first meeting with affected constituents and led to him raising the issue at Prime Minister's Questions. He cited the case of a constituent forced to leave the country after Rockstar's removal of their visa sponsor, and said the company's explanation for the dismissals had shifted across the process. Dr. Scott Arthur, MP for Edinburgh South West, said he visited Rockstar with fellow MPs late last year and emphasised the studio's responsibility to treat staff openly and fairly, adding that those principles were not being consistently upheld in practice.

The legal track has so far gone Rockstar's way at the interim stage. An employment tribunal in January declined to grant interim relief to the dismissed workers, which would have put them back on Rockstar's payroll and reinstated work visas where needed. Judge Frances Eccles issued the ruling, citing the fact that three of the dismissed workers in Canada were not IWGB members as evidence that union membership could not have been the trigger for their dismissal. A full tribunal hearing will follow at a later date, where both sides will present evidence on the union-busting allegation.

Image credit: IWGB.

I think the visa angle is the part of this case that will end up mattering most, because workplace-rights disputes rarely make national news unless someone is forced out of the country. The Edinburgh constituent Murray cited is the kind of detail that travels.

People Make Games published an investigation that put more detail on the Discord exchanges that triggered the firings. The video showed that the affected staff had discussed an internal Rockstar message about changes to the company's Slack policy, designed to cut down on off-topic conversations. Rockstar has argued that the legal trigger for the dismissals was the sharing of that internal policy outside official channels rather than union activity. Rockstar separately insists the employees leaked features from upcoming and unannounced titles in the Discord, although the company has not detailed which features or which titles.

The wider context is a studio running hot ahead of a release projected to clear $3 billion in its first year. GTA 6 launches in May 2026 after a delay from an earlier window. Take-Two will hold its Q4 and fiscal 2026 financial results call on May 21, and Rockstar is preparing a summer marketing push, including a Production Artist hire in New York and the start of poster and billboard production. The studio asked staff to return to the office five days a week last year, citing productivity and security after the 2022 source-code leak and the day-early release of the first trailer in 2023. IWGB-affiliated workers publicly criticised that decision at the time.

Two pressures on the workforce sit underneath the headline dispute. A Rockstar QA analyst in Bengaluru posted a Glassdoor review describing overtime amid GTA 6's release without pay, hectic schedules, and one colleague working until 3am after a regular morning shift. The same review said the team was being asked to complete tasks in two to three months that normally take five to six. Kiwi Talkz host Reece Reilly confirmed the account but contextualised it against general working conditions in India.

Former Rockstar sound engineer Rob Carr, who worked on Grand Theft Auto IV, L.A. Noire, Red Dead Redemption, and Grand Theft Auto V, told Kiwi Talkz on a separate appearance that current Rockstar staff sign lifetime non-disclosure agreements, which he described as a market outlier. Carr said the NDAs are the reason most former Rockstar developers will not speak publicly about their time at the studio, and that he himself navigates Rockstar interviews carefully to avoid getting anyone into trouble.

I see the NDA structure as the more interesting governance signal in this whole sequence, since a studio that locks former employees into permanent confidentiality is the same studio now arguing in tribunal that a closed Discord channel containing 30-plus active workers crossed a confidentiality line. The two positions describe the same risk tolerance.

The dismissed workers remain off Rockstar's payroll. The full tribunal hearing has not been scheduled publicly. The IWGB has said it will pursue every legal claim available to seek reinstatement, and Edinburgh's three MPs continue to push the Westminster investigation Starmer opened in December.

Read also, Rockstar Games' website database appeared to go down briefly, prompting speculation that the studio was uploading a new GTA 6 trailer, according to user iGrandTheftAuto on X. The same week, alleged leaks from a major UK retailer placed the standard edition of GTA 6 at $70/€70/£70 with pre-orders opening on May 12, and PlayStation began emailing users about upgrading to a newer console for the launch. Take-Two's May 21 earnings call sits at the centre of the speculation.