They were just talking in a Discord, and that shouldn’t be a crime, in their minds.
Legal issues aren’t typically something you hear about in the gaming space outside of the issue of pirating. Oh, there’s also patent law, which is what Nintendo is doing with a certain developer, but that’s another thing entirely. The point is, you don’t usually hear about “internal legal battles” unless something REALLY BAD has happened, like what occurred with Activision Blizzard a few years back, or with what’s happening with Rockstar Games right now. They recently fired over 30 people across two of their branches under the claim of “gross misconduct,” stating that they were leaking information in a “public forum,” and that led to their termination.
However, as the people from People Make Games noted on their YouTube channel, the head of the union group that these people were in had something very different to say.
Specifically, Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain President Alex Marshall noted to the channel that the group in question wasn’t talking in a “public forum,” but in a Discord group. Specifically, one that was for union members:
“This was on a finite union Discord in which people were discussing their material conditions at the company, and they should be legally protected to do that.”
As for what the group wants with the protests they’re enacting outside of Rockstar Games right now, they desire “clear accountability for the way these dismissals have been handled – these very clear unfair dismissals without procedure, without evidence. Clear accountability from the company and a commitment to following employment law in the UK in the future.”
Also, they want all the people who have been fired to be brought back into their jobs and given the pay that they would’ve been given had they not been wrongfully terminated.
This is a very serious situation, and if Rockstar did indeed pull the trigger on their firings due to what was going on in a private Discord server, that would be enough, more than likely, to highlight their wrongdoing. Obviously, things are still up in the air, but you do get the feeling that many people are on the workers’ side and not the developers.
After all, the idea that 30+ people were leaking information about an upcoming title? That seems way too much, and doesn’t even feel feasible in the context of the gaming industry. The protests are still going on, and various requests have been made to Rockstar. We’ll let you know how things go as they progress.
