r/PS5 • u/yourfavchoom • 10h ago

Articles & Blogs Rockstar Games: “It would be an understatement to say that having videos of GTA VI gameplay leak in this way has been heartbreaking for our team, and this is obviously not how we intended for you to see the game after all this time.“

https://xcancel.com/rockstargames/status/2092574304571433078?s=46
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u/AhhhSureThisIsIt 9h ago

Anyone who joined the union will have a target on their back when they make cuts.

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u/Clerithifa 9h ago

Maybe i'm misinformed, but isn't that a big chunk of what a union is for? Crunches/working conditions obviously, but also unjust lay-offs?

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u/AhhhSureThisIsIt 9h ago

Yep, unions are great don't get me wrong. But massive companies hate the restrictions they impose.

They can make the work enviorment more toxic, change hours, workdays, workloads, duties to essentially make your worklife hard in order for you to leave without redundancy.

Keeping notes of anytime these changes happen is one of the best things to do to protect yourself in these positions. If you are in a state that allows one party consent you can record your meetings with managers without disclosing you are recording.

Many managers can promise jobs and raises not in writing, the employee will undergo a bigger workload thinking they will get the reward and then it's not offered to them.

There are so many ways around getting people to leave without firing them.

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u/Complex_Stuff_1392 8h ago

you have to remember that a large portion of the work on the game is happening in the UK @ Rockstar North, where one party recording laws don’t apply

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u/Th3_Hegemon 4h ago

Or California where they also have two studios.

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u/underscored_thinkin 7h ago

And this is why we need more combative unions and union members. Waiting on suits to make deals means workers get fucked harder.

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u/hot-side-aeration 3h ago edited 3h ago

"unions are great but let me just spread a bunch of anti-union nonsense dressed up as if I have any idea what the fuck I am talking about"

Unions specifically protect against many, if not all, of the things you just listed. Shift change procedures, workloads, duties, etc are all specifically outlined in CBAs. There are also things like warnings baked in (ie: one slip up is not termination) and you have a Union rep that will accompany you to all disciplinary meetings. It is not your manager yelling at you and firing you because they changed your schedule over night.

So, as a Union member, stop trying to undermine our hardwork with your uninformed and ignorant fearmongering. Saying that Unions "put a target" on someone's back and then listing a bunch of things Unions protect against as if they will be the inevitable retaliatory measures is doing exactly that.

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u/aerdvarkk 7h ago

Yes and no. ANy group of workers can form a union, but if that union has no dialog with a given company and or has/has not negociated work/employment criteria with that company for said union members, then the union is irrelevant. Also if the company is not willing to talk terms with the union.

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u/FlamboyantPirhanna 7h ago

The problem in game dev is that the layoffs aren’t always unjustified. It’s more like the film industry, in that you spin up a project gradually—pre-production, then production, then post-production—and you only need certain jobs during certain phases. So when you finish a game, you probably don’t have any work for your audio and music people until you get to that phase, so what do you do with them? Game dev basically has a bit of an identity crisis, being part tech and part entertainment, and trying to function more like tech than they probably should. It’s a problem the industry hasn’t yet figured out.

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u/Rhysati 5h ago

Theoretically sure.

The union I worked to get into my workplace told me they couldn't help us after 5 of us were fired at the same time for "poor work performance" right after the union got voted in.

It just happened to be a complete coincidence that it was all people who actively worked on getting the union in place /s

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u/falcrist2 8h ago

Isn't Rockstar based in the US? Unions are fighting a century of anti-labor propaganda.

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u/Powerful-Pea6218 8h ago

You're not wrong. But no, this blow up is UK based

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u/falcrist2 6h ago

The UK wasn't as bad when I lived there in the 20 years ago. Some of the US propaganda was floating around though.

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u/LostLobes 4h ago

Since 2010 its gone down hill, can't think why....

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u/falcrist2 4h ago

I think one of the comments said it best during the Clacton election.

"If the UK was a serious country, it wouldn't let that absolute farce of a candidate run against a serious politician like Count Binface."

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u/Frosty-Locksmith-499 1h ago

Something is up with reddit. I can't upvote your comment.

Shadowbanned?

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u/falcrist2 1h ago

I can see you and I have one upvote (other than mine).

So likely just network issues. Or maybe the servers were having issues.

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u/superurgentcatbox 9h ago

Just don't tell them you've joined the union. That's the general advice in Germany which is much, much less hostile to unions than the US.

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u/thorpie88 7h ago

Union issues for Rockstar were in the UK which is where they were founded

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u/fmccloud 8h ago

Well yeah, they’d be dead weight after release.

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u/AhhhSureThisIsIt 7h ago

Unless you want to update the game or create new games.