Rockstar staff will vote on a union from Nov. 12 to 26, the two weeks around GTA 6's launch

Rockstar Games employees will vote from Nov. 12 to Nov. 26 on whether the company should formally recognize their union, the IWGB Rockstar Game Workers Union announced on Oct. 27. Voting opens the day GTA 6 pre-load starts and closes a week after the game comes out on Nov. 19.

The ballot is on a recognition deal that, the union says, workers and Rockstar's management agreed after months of talks. If staff approve it, the union says, it will be the biggest recognized union in the UK games industry.

What the vote is about

• Who votes: Rockstar's employees in the UK, according to the union's announcement as Kotaku reported it.
• How: Anonymous votes, cast online.
• What's on the ballot: A recognition deal "agreed upon between management and workers." The union says it would give staff a say over pay and bonuses, overtime, redundancies, flexible working arrangements and generative AI policies.
• How it got here: The union filed for recognition on June 30, asking Rockstar to meet its workers and agree a deal. The two sides have been meeting since July, Kotaku and PC Gamer report.

Recognition would mean Rockstar formally acknowledges the union and negotiates with it on those matters, as Eurogamer puts it. The union already exists, with Rockstar staff as members; the vote decides whether the company formally deals with it.

What each side has said

Shanti Easton-Steel, a member of the union's committee, said in its announcement: "This November, we have the chance to make gaming history not once but twice." For her, she said, the vote is about "ensuring employees at Rockstar get honesty and openness surrounding the decisions that affect them," naming the gender pay gap, overtime pay and job security after the game's release. She is "immensely proud of the games Rockstar gives its fans," she added, and wants to be "equally proud of the voice Rockstar gives its staff."

Alex Marshall, the IWGB's president, said: "For anyone who cares about the games industry or the people who keep it running, this vote is just as historic as the game release," PC Gamer reported.

Rockstar hadn't commented on the vote when PC Gamer reported it on Oct. 27. Earlier this month, Jennifer Kolbe, Rockstar's head of publishing, told Bloomberg Businessweek: "We go where the team goes. So if they want a union, they will have a union."

The tribunal over last year's firings

The vote comes as an employment tribunal over Rockstar's 2025 firings nears its end. In October 2025, Rockstar dismissed 31 staff in the UK, most of them at Rockstar North in Edinburgh, and three in Canada, the BBC reports. Rockstar says it acted after staff discussed confidential information, including specific game features, in a Discord forum that wasn't private. The IWGB called the firings a "ruthless act of union-busting."

Twenty-three of the former staff brought unfair dismissal claims, with the IWGB representing them. The hearing in Glasgow began Sept. 10 and was due to end Oct. 16, but the questioning of witnesses ran long, Eurogamer reported, so closing submissions are now set for Nov. 17 and 18. No date has been given for a ruling.

The BBC reported both sides of the testimony. A dismissed worker, Dayne Oram, told the tribunal that union members had been put on a "watch list," which Rockstar denies. Rob Spampinato, Rockstar's vice president of HR, said staff in the forum had been "commenting on the delay of the game" and the "timings of the game release." Asked whether he had another HR manager "keep tabs" on union membership, he replied: "That's categorically not true."

November at Rockstar

Does it change anything for players?

Nothing in the announcement changes the game's dates. Rockstar says digital pre-orders can pre-load from Nov. 12, and the game unlocks on Nov. 19. Our pre-load guide has the details, GTA 6 release time shows when it unlocks where you live, and the launch calendar has every date in between.

We'll update this story with the result when the union or Rockstar announces it.