GTA 6 firings: Rockstar cites 'Wall Street bank' security

Glasgow Employment Tribunal began hearing the case of 34 Rockstar Games staff on September 10, 2026, over dismissals handed down in October 2025: 31 at Rockstar North and 3 at Rockstar Toronto. The hearing is listed until October 16, 2026. In the opening note it filed, obtained by IGN and picked up by GameSpot on September 11, 2026, the studio defends its internal discipline by what that discipline protects: Grand Theft Auto VI.

Rockstar Games claims “the security posture of a Wall Street bank” for itself. The note goes on:

The standards and expectations regarding information security and privacy are exponentially beyond that of most employers.

The note spells out what that means day to day. Every visitor signs a non-disclosure agreement, contractors are escorted around the premises, and personal laptops, tablets and phones are blocked from studio systems. The internal social media guidelines reach as far as a photograph of a workstation: even innocuous pictures of an employee’s desk, the document says, could unacceptably reveal confidential information. The privacy film fitted to office windows after drones flew past them comes from the same text, alongside the five investigators and one director who track leaks full time.

The two sides have given opposing accounts of the dismissals since October 2025. The Independent Workers of Great Britain argues the 34 were targeted for union activity. On October 31, 2025, Take-Two spokesman Alan Lewis answered that they went “for gross misconduct, and no other reason”. At the tribunal, Rockstar Games says the claimants shared confidential GTA 6 information in a Discord channel. Judge Frances Eccles had already turned down the union’s application for interim relief on January 12, 2026, writing that the tribunal could not conclude union membership was the principal reason for the dismissals.

The same document describes a recent episode: a hacking group “attempted to blackmail the Respondent” in the last few weeks, and the note leaves it there. The Glasgow hearing is due to close on October 16, 2026, which leaves 34 days before the November 19, 2026 release.