Court filings related to the legal dispute between Grand Theft Auto VI developer Rockstar Games and 34 employees dismissed in October 2025 have unveiled that the company maintained an informant within a union organizers' Discord server for over two and a half years. The employees, primarily based in the UK, were terminated for "gross misconduct," with Rockstar alleging they risked leaking confidential information. The dismissed workers and their representatives are suing Rockstar, claiming the firings were an effort to prevent the union from achieving official recognition under UK law.
Both parties have submitted opening statements to an employment tribunal in Glasgow. These filings, numbering over 100 pages collectively, detail claims and counterclaims supported by thousands of pages of evidence. The documents shed light on the events leading up to the dismissals, including the revelation of a "whistleblower" providing Rockstar with information about the Discord server's users.
The Rockstar Game Workers Union Discord Server was reportedly established in 2022 by employees affiliated with the IWGB union as a platform for discussing workplace concerns independently of management. By October 2025, the server had approximately 340 members.
According to the former workers' legal team, Rockstar HR director Charlie Kinloch allegedly received information from a junior employee on trade union activities within the server from at least February 2024. The filings state that over 21 months, Kinloch engaged in at least 26 meetings or communications with this junior employee regarding the server, with Kinloch initiating roughly half of these interactions. The informant is accused of supplying screenshots, recordings, details of union meetings and training sessions, membership numbers, and identifying union activists.
Rockstar's own court submissions corroborate some of these claims, mentioning three "whistleblowers" who reported security concerns. One of these individuals reportedly supplied information to management for over two and a half years. Rockstar's legal team asserts that between October 13th and 16th, 2025, a server member provided login details, and prior to this, the company was largely unaware of the server's activities, aside from "occasional glimpses" from the primary informant.
The filings present sharply contrasting views on the security of the union Discord server. The unionised workers argue that the server was invite-only, access-restricted, and verified through Rockstar's internal Slack platform, with new members requiring moderator approval. They assert that no confidential information is known to have leaked into the public domain from the server.
Conversely, Rockstar's lawyers contend that the Discord server's information was vulnerable to various threats, including deliberate leaks, device loss or theft, phishing, social engineering, or hacking. They highlight that the informant was actively leaking information with the knowledge of the claimants.
Rockstar's filing describes the server's structure as comprising three sections: one exclusively for IWGB committee members or specific working groups, inaccessible to Rockstar before a court order on August 3rd; a general section for IWGB members, also initially inaccessible; and a larger section with nearly 350 individuals, some anonymous, others identifying as Rockstar employees. Rockstar claims an initial analysis identified 26 individuals in this third section who were not employees, along with 10 former staff members, some of whom had left under adverse circumstances.
The former workers acknowledge the presence of former employees but state they were restricted to specific channels and not privy to the General and Announcements sections. Rockstar also reiterated an earlier accusation that a member of the wider Discord group was a working journalist.
Regarding the content circulated, Rockstar alleges it included discussions on digital and real-world security measures, internal correspondence, "closely guarded secrets" about game projects, and details about GTA 6's development, including discussions of delays, overtime, and crunch. The former workers counter that no posts revealed release dates or similar confidential information, and that the posts primarily concerned workplace policies relevant to trade union organising. They argue that many posts Rockstar deemed "egregious" were trivial for disciplinary purposes but legitimate concerns for a trade union.
Both sides have included accusations regarding the use of language. Rockstar's lawyers accuse union Discord members of "openly and vituperatively disparaging and defaming" management, while the fired workers point to the routine use of profanity by management and staff at Rockstar without disciplinary consequence.
The former workers allege that the dismissals had an "immediate chilling effect" on the Discord server, with membership dropping significantly in the days following the terminations. They broadly claim that Rockstar "identified and removed members and activists of a rapidly growing trade union... for the purpose of disabling the wider organisation and of deterring the remainder," particularly to prevent the union from negotiating terms of employment.
Rockstar's legal team argues that the company did not dismiss all union members, and that three of the dismissed workers were Canadian and outside the scope of UK union law, though the fired workers' lawyers suggest these individuals were interested in unionising their own workplaces. Rockstar also states it has "never sought to prevent a recognition request" and is engaging constructively with the current one, attributing the timing of their actions to only gaining full awareness of the "misconduct that was rife on that platform" upon accessing the server directly.
Conversely, the ousted workers cite alleged formal and verbal warnings from managers about union organisation prior to October 2025, suggesting that union advocacy or Discord membership could negatively impact discussions about flexible working, performance, and promotions. They also point to an instance in February 2023 where Rockstar allegedly refused to engage with union members collectively regarding a petition on return-to-office policies, instead contacting signatories individually.