adminRockstar union tribunal evidence discussed at a preliminary UK employment tribunal hearing included Discord messages about staff time off, quality assurance (QA) work and an unannounced online service. The Glasgow Employment Tribunal rejected the dismissed employees’ request for interim relief, but the hearing was not a final decision on whether the dismissals were lawful.
Image credit: Rockstar Games
What the Rockstar union tribunal evidence covered
The case concerns 34 employees dismissed by Rockstar for alleged gross misconduct. At the preliminary hearing, the tribunal considered material Rockstar submitted in support of its position, including messages shared in a Discord server established by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB).
Rockstar’s barrister, Andrew Burns, did not want messages about the confidential information read in court. However, Rockstar had not sought reporting restrictions on the evidence. As a result, arrangements could be made to view the submission at the court.
Practical context: Evidence discussed at a preliminary hearing should not be treated as a final finding. The tribunal’s decision to reject interim relief does not, by itself, resolve the wider employment claims.
Messages about time off and an online session
One conversation described a recently introduced limit under which no more than five employees could take time off at once. A worker also referred to a challenging session involving 32 players and questioned why it had been difficult to run.
Another employee criticised the time-off arrangement, suggesting that QA staff across multiple studios should be able to coordinate a 32-player session while allowing colleagues to take leave.
Rockstar said it was seriously concerned that some claimants had shared confidential, commercially sensitive details about an unannounced live-service project. The company argued that the conversation disclosed the planned number of online players, which it described as a significant feature of a title that had not been announced.
For readers: The messages concerned both workplace arrangements and information Rockstar considered sensitive. The dispute is about how the company classified and acted on those messages.
QA comments and Rockstar’s position
The company also submitted a Discord message in which an employee said they had not heard of crunch in Rockstar North’s QA department and would share an update if that changed. Rockstar relied on the message as evidence in support of its gross-misconduct rationale.
In a witness statement, Rockstar head of publishing Jennifer Kolbe argued that the message revealed information about working patterns within the employee’s team. She said those details could indicate the development stage of Grand Theft Auto 6 and could affect collaboration within the team.
The significance of the message is disputed in the context of the case. A comment about whether crunch had been reported is not, on its own, a tribunal finding about working conditions or the reasonableness of a dismissal.
Why Scott Alsworth was mentioned
The evidence also identified Scott Alsworth, whom Rockstar had described as “lurking” on the union Discord server. Alsworth is a game writer and narrative designer who worked at Bohemia Interactive for more than a decade and founded the co-development studio Cerberus Creative. He was invited to the server as an elected representative of the IWGB’s Game Workers branch.
Rockstar noted that Alsworth wrote six gaming articles for the British newspaper The Morning Star between 2022 and 2025, including an opinion piece about Grand Theft Auto after the delay of GTA 6. The company argued that his reporting made his presence in the union server a legitimate risk.
What happens next in the case
The hearing brought attention to the messages and Rockstar’s explanation for including them in its evidence. It did not establish that the employees committed gross misconduct or determine the full merits of their claims. Those questions depend on the continuing tribunal process and the evidence considered there.
Overall, the Rockstar union tribunal evidence shows how a workplace dispute can involve both employment issues and disagreements over confidentiality. Readers following the case should distinguish the company’s claims from findings formally made by the tribunal.
