The company behind Grand Theft Auto has fired dozens of staff for leaking company secrets just days before the GTA 6 delay was announced.
Rockstar Games confirmed it has let a number of people go for sharing company information on a forum which included member of the public.
It had previously been reported that the employees had been fired for attempting to unionise; however, the developer has insisted this was not the case.
"Last week, we took action against a small number of individuals who were found to be distributing and discussing confidential information in a public forum, a violation of our company policies," a spokesperson for Rockstar said.
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"This was in no way related to people's right to join a union or engage in union activities."
They went on to confirm that between 30 and 40 people had been let go across the UK and Canada offices for their actions, which amounted to 'gross misconduct'.
However, the Independent Workers' Union of Great Britain, which was the first union to organise people working in the gaming industry, has claimed that all the people who lost their jobs were involved in trying to unionise Rockstar workers.
In a statement provided to Bloomberg, they said it was 'one of the most blatant and ruthless acts of union busting in the history of the games industry'.
News of the firings came just days before Rockstar announced that GTA 6 was being delayed a further six months until November 2026, prompting some fans to theorise that the two incidents were related.
According to Reece Reilly, a YouTuber who goes by the name Kiwi Talkz and regularly interviews game developers on his channel, the recent lay-offs are not related to the most recent delay.
"The union layoffs in the UK and the delay are not related," he wrote on X.
"There are 6000+ employees working at Rockstar, you aren't delaying a game over 35 people getting laid off, that's not how these things work, not to mention Rockstar devs were telling me about a delay well before the union layoffs."
Reilly went on to say that the majority of staff working at Rockstar don't actually know much about the overall game because of the compartmentalisation of how it all works.
"Rockstar is extremely compartmentalised, a huge number of staff don't even know what's in a lot of the game because they are only exposed to the specific chunk of work that they are assigned," he wrote.
"This is done because the game is so large in scope and also for security reasons."
Emma Rosemurgey