GoKawiilis a senior reporter covering technology, gaming, and more. He joined The Verge in 2019 after nearly two years at Techmeme.
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Workers at Grand Theft Auto VI developer Rockstar Games have submitted a request for their union, the IWGB Game Workers Union, to be voluntarily recognized, according to a press release. The request follows Rockstar firing more than 30 staffers last year in a move accused of being “union busting.”
According to the release, IWGB members have been “actively” organizing since 2019 and “claim they now represent a significant proportion of the workforce across each of the studio’s sites in Edinburgh, Dundee, Lincoln, Leeds and London.” As the union has grown, “Rockstar has already made improvements to workers’ conditions including unprecedented average pay rises and financial incentives for crunch for the first time ever.” The union wants to improve pay transparency, strengthen “flexible working arrangements,” and address crunch, which is something Rockstar has come under scrutiny for in the past.
Rockstar owner Take-Two didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment. A final hearing in an employment tribunal over last year’s firings is scheduled to start in September — shortly before the planned launch of Grand Theft Auto VI on November 19th. Rockstar announced a $79.99 starting price for the game and opened preorders last week.
The push from Rockstar workers is part of a bigger movement by game developers to unionize. Double Fine staffers filed a petition to unionize in May, and workers at the Activision studio Raven Software secured their first union contract last year.