Rockstar had a mole in the union worker discord server
Recorded: Sept. 14, 2026, 2:09 p.m.
| Original | Summarized |
Rockstar had a mole in the union worker Discord server "for over two and a half years", GTA 6 company reveals during legal battle | Rock Paper Shotgun Skip to main content Mortal Shell 2 walkthrough All Elden Ring bosses Best Minecraft seeds 26.1 Hollow Knight Silksong walkthrough Past Wordle answers Mawtin Chuzzlewit Rock Paper Shotgun Latest News Reviews Hardware Features Videos Guides Bestest Bests Free games Discord Deals Podcasts RSS Supporters Go Get our newsletter Support us Sign in / Create account If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. Home News Grand Theft Auto VI Rockstar had a mole in the union worker Discord server "for over two and a half years", GTA 6 company reveals during legal battle Image credit: Take-Two Interactive News Published on Sept. 11, 2026, 3:31 p.m. 41 comments Follow Grand Theft Auto VI Back in October 2025, GTA 6 developers Rockstar fired a group of 34, mostly UK-based employees on a charge of "gross misconduct", alleging that they had risked the leaking of confidential information while posting on a Discord server set up by union organisers. The ousted UK workers and their representatives have since taken Rockstar to court, accusing the company of getting rid of them to stop their union gaining enough members to win official recognition under UK law. This week, both parties filed opening submissions at an employment tribunal in Glasgow, which Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive have emailed to RPS and Game Developer, among others. Taken together, the filings amount to over 100 pages of claims and counterclaims, with thousands of pages of evidence to be discussed in the coming weeks. Amongst other things, the docs give us more sense of events leading up to the dismissals, including the revelation that Rockstar had a mole or "whistleblower" passing them information on the people using the Discord server. According to the court filing from the ousted workers, Rockstar employees affiliated with the IWGB Game Workers union set up what would become known as the Rockstar Game Workers Union Discord Server in 2022. Prior to this, the lawyers claim, there was "no official workplace channel through which concerns could be discussed independently of management." By the time of the October 2025 dismissals, the server had around 340 members. Rockstar management did not have direct access to the server prior to October 2025, but the former workers and their legal team allege that "from at least February 2024, [Rockstar HR director] Charlie Kinloch had been receiving information from a junior employee on trade union activity inside the Server". They claim that "over 21 months, at least 26 meetings or communications took place between Mr Kinloch and [the junior employee] concerning the Server, roughly half of them initiated by Mr Kinloch himself". The "mole" is said to have "supplied screenshots and recordings, reported union meetings, training sessions and union membership numbers, and identified individual union activists". On 7th October 2025, they allegedly informed Kinlock that the union were 12 members away from the statutory threshold for recognition - 10% of the workforce. The union eventually reached this milestone on 18th October, with Kinloch learning of this on 20th October, the fired workers claim. At some point in this period, they go on, Rockstar management got hold of logins for the server, with Rockstar's vice president of information security Abid Ansari eventually signing in to download "the contents of the Announcements and General channels". Rockstar began firing members of the Discord at the end of the month. Rockstar's own court submission chimes with some of this. The company's lawyers mention three "whistleblowers" on the Discord who reported security concerns, including one member who had been leaking info to Rockstar management "for over two and a half years". Rockstar's lawyers say that between 13th and 16th October, a member of the server supplied Rockstar bosses with login details; prior to this, they claim, Rockstar were "largely in the dark" about events on the server, save for "occasional glimpses" care of their primary "whistleblower". The court filings offer wildly contrasting views about the security of the union Discord server itself. The unionised workers argue that the server was "invite-only, access-restricted and subject to verification through Rockstar’s own internal Slack platform", explaining that people with an invite link were placed in a waiting room till they had been approved by mods, who could verify them using Rockstar's own Slack channels before granting "substantive access". They point out that "no confidential information is known to have leaked from the Server into the public domain". Rockstar, however, argue that "there were numerous ways in which the information on the Discord was vulnerable, including by a deliberate leak from a discontented Discord user, by loss or theft of the personal devices of the Discord users, by successful phishing or social engineering of one of the Discord users, or by hacking of Discord itself." Amongst other things, they support this by saying that somebody was, in fact, leaking info from the Discord: the aforesaid "whistleblower". Rockstar offer a layperson breakdown of the Discord server's structure in their filing, portraying it as essentially consisting of three "rooms": one for IWGB union committee members only, or members of specific working groups, which Rockstar couldn't access at all before a court-ordered disclosure on 3rd August; a second for general IWGB members, which Rockstar again couldn't access initially; and a third "room" consisting of almost 350 people, some of whom were anonymous, while others identified themselves as Rockstar employees. Rockstar claim that "26 on an initial analysis" of the people in the third "room" were not actually employees, while 10 others were former staff, including a few who had "left in poor standing with the business and were therefore well motivated to cause harm to it". The ousted workers acknowledge that "former employees" were members of the Discord, but say they were confined to certain channels, and not present in the General and Announcements channels to which Rockstar initially gained direct access. Rockstar also repeat an earlier accusation that one member of the wider Discord group was a working journalist. As for the incriminating info being circulated, Rockstar allege that it ranged from discussion of digital and real-world security measures, through internal correspondence such as HR emails, to "closely guarded secrets" about game projects, including an "online 32 player format" for a "highly confidential" project. They also claim that Discord users shared "many, many pieces of information" regarding GTA 6's development, including discussion of delays, overtime and crunch. The former workers, meanwhile, argue that "no posts were witnessed as disclosing the date on which GTA VI would be released, the date of any trailer, or comparable confidential release information", and that "the posts generally discussed workplace policies which were essential to trade union organising". They comment that many of the posts about office goings-on considered "egregious" by Rockstar were "trivial as matters of discipline but... legitimate as matters of concern to a trade union representing its members". Both docs have a whole section on the other side's use of bad language, with Rockstar's lawyers accusing the union Discord members of "openly and vituperatively disparaging and defaming" company management, while the former workers point out that "profanity was routinely used by management and staff at [Rockstar] without disciplinary consequence". According to the former workers, one employee was told after joining Rockstar "that the use of the word 'cunt' was an 'apparently acceptable use of language in Scotland' and was used by management regularly". The lawyers for the fired workers allege that the abrupt dismissal of 34 staff had "an immediate chilling effect" on the Discord server. Membership apparently fell "from around 390 to 261 within days, with 136 people leaving and only nine new joins", while "11 Rockstar employees cancelled their IWGB memberships in the following week." They broadly claim that Rockstar "identified and removed members and activists of a rapidly growing trade union, including many of those central to its organising structures, for the purpose of disabling the wider organisation and of deterring the remainder, and, in particular, preventing the union obtaining the right to negotiate pay, hours and holidays with [the company]." The warring parties naturally disagree about whether Rockstar are hostile in general towards unions. Rockstar's lawyers point out that Rockstar did not dismiss every last union member on the Discord server in October 2025, and that three of the workers dismissed were not union members (the latter are or were based in Canada and so, outside the scope of any UK union, though the lawyers for the fired workers argue that they "were interested in unionising their own workplace"). The ousted workers, meanwhile, cite several alleged formal and verbal warnings their members had received from managers about soliciting union organisation, prior to the events of October 2025. They suggest that union advocacy or membership of the union Discord server could be a negative factor in discussion of flexible working, performance and promotions. The court proceedings continue. There is a lot more in the full filings, including a lengthy characterisation from Rockstar's lawyers of the company's "embedded culture of confidentiality" and its "reliance on a culture of respect, non-disparagement, trust and confidence". If you'd like to read more, Game Developer news editor Chris Kerr has been posting large chunks from each filing on Bluesky. 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During the legal battle surrounding the development of Grand Theft Auto VI, Rockstar Games revealed during court proceedings that the company had an individual acting as a mole within the union worker Discord server for over two and a half years. This revelation emerged as lawyers for the ousted UK employees and their representatives filed opening submissions at an employment tribunal in Glasgow, accusing Rockstar of dismissing staff to prevent union recognition under UK law. The court filings involved extensive documentation detailing events leading up to the dismissals, including evidence suggesting this internal communication. The former workers alleged that Rockstar employees affiliated with the IWGB Game Workers union established the Discord server in 2022, noting that prior to this, there was no official workplace channel for independent discussion of concerns outside of management. The claimants asserted that from at least February 2024, Rockstar HR director Charlie Kinloch allegedly received information concerning union activity from a junior employee on the server. They claimed that over twenty-one months, at least twenty-six communications concerning the server were exchanged between Kinloch and the junior employee, with Kinloch initiating roughly half of these interactions. This mole was accused of providing screenshots, recordings, reports of union meetings, training sessions, and identification of individual union activists. Crucially, the former workers claimed that on October 7, 2025, the mole informed Kinloch that the union was only twelve members away from reaching the statutory threshold for recognition—ten percent of the workforce—a milestone the union achieved on October 18th. The fired workers alleged that Rockstar management subsequently gained access to the server’s logins, allowing the vice president of information security, Abid Ansari, to download contents from the Announcements and General channels, leading to the termination of members at the end of October. Rockstar's legal submissions offered a contrasting narrative, mentioning three whistleblowers who reported security concerns on the Discord. Their lawyers contended that the information circulated included discussions on security measures, internal human resources correspondence, and confidential game project details, such as an online thirty-two player format for a highly confidential project. Furthermore, Rockstar suggested that the vulnerability arose from multiple vectors, including deliberate leaks, theft of personal devices, social engineering, or hacking of the Discord platform. Rockstar presented a breakdown of the server structure, describing it as containing three distinct areas: one for IWGB union committee members, another for general IWGB members, and a third large room comprising nearly three hundred individuals, some of whom were identified as employees. The parties disagreed fundamentally on the nature of the information shared. The union argued that the server was protected, invite-only, access-restricted, and verified through Rockstar’s internal Slack platform, asserting that no confidential information had publicly leaked. In contrast, Rockstar asserted that the information shared encompassed discussions of workplace policies, including overtime and crunch, and that the union members engaged in disparagement of management. The former workers countered that management and staff routinely used profanity without consequence, citing an instance where an employee was told the use of a specific word was acceptable in Scotland. The dismissal of the thirty-four staff members reportedly created an immediate chilling effect on the server, with membership declining sharply from approximately three hundred ninety to two hundred sixty-one in a matter of days, and several Rockstar employees canceled their IWGB memberships. The former workers alleged that Rockstar actively removed members and activists central to the organizing structures to disable the union and deter further organization, specifically aiming to prevent the union from negotiating pay, hours, and holidays with the company. While Rockstar lawyers maintained that the company has engaged constructively with recognition requests and did not seek to prevent them, the union pointed to prior instances where the company refused collective engagement, such as refusing to engage with the IWGB following a petition regarding return-to-office policies. The ongoing court proceedings feature complex characterizations regarding Rockstar’s internal culture, its reliance on trust, and the scope of confidentiality versus the right to organize. |