Sacked Grand Theft Auto workers protest as company bosses quizzed at tribunal

A group of workers sacked by gaming giant Rockstar have held a protest outside an employment tribunal as company bosses are quizzed for a second day.

The case centres on the dismissal almost a year ago of 34 workers, most of them based in Edinburgh, who claim they were unfairly sacked for trade union activity.

Rockstar, which is due to launch Grand Theft Auto 6 next month, maintains they were dismissed for "sharing confidential company information" in an insecure private online forum.

Workers outside the tribunal building in Glasgow held signs calling for fired workers to be reinstated.

The claim for unfair dismissal is being brought by 23 former staff, represented by the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain (IWGB).

Most of them were based at the flagship Rockstar North development studio in Edinburgh, described as the "home" of the Grand Theft Auto series.

Rockstar claims workers were fired for posts sent in a private online forum that they considered to be disparaging about the company or to breach confidentiality policies.

During the hearing on Wednesday, Rockstar's vice president of HR, Rob Spampinato, said the employees had been "commenting on the delay of the game" and the "timings of the game release" in the online forum on the website Discord.

The tribunal also discussed posts by former staff that discussed the availability of overtime.

"Working patterns that if got out would've been a significant news story," Spampinato said.

Lawyers speaking on behalf of the claimants are challenging Rockstar over why a number of employees who shared posts with similar contents, but were not active union members, were not dismissed.

Rockstar's head of licensing, Jennifer Kolbe, is expected to be questioned later.

Speaking outside the tribunal, Sarah Blackburn told BBC Scotland News her dismissal was "heart-breaking".

She said: "All I've ever wanted to do was work in games, and I was working with some amazing people at a great company.

"I'd been there for a long time and it felt like just being ripped out and discarded."

She said the reason given for her dismissal was vague and she had been unemployed since.

Her former colleague Jordan Garland, who was a senior production co-ordinator at the company said he "wholeheartedly" believes his dismissal was "a direct result of union activism" and wants to see the company held to account for their actions.

Rockstar's upcoming Grand Theft Auto 6 is expected to break sales records when it is released in November. It was previously delayed twice, in autumn 2025 and May 2026.

The last instalment of the franchise, Grand Theft Auto 5, was released in September 2013 and became one of the best-selling games of all time.

The tribunal will continue into November, but is expected to be finished by the time the game is released.

The tribunal continues before judge Lucy Wiseman.