Rockstar Games maintained an informant inside a private Discord server used by unionising workers for more than two and a half years, according to opening submissions filed in an employment tribunal in Glasgow. The disclosure emerged as the Grand Theft Auto developer and the workers it dismissed presented their cases over the sacking of 34 employees, most of them based in the United Kingdom.
The workers were dismissed in October 2025 on a charge of gross misconduct. Rockstar alleged that their activity on the Discord server, which had been set up by union organisers, risked the leaking of confidential information. The ousted employees and their representatives have since taken the company to court, arguing that the real motive was to prevent their union from gaining enough members to win official recognition under UK law.
This week both parties filed opening submissions at the tribunal, with Rockstar parent company Take-Two Interactive distributing the documents to media outlets. Together the filings amount to more than 100 pages of claims and counterclaims, supported by thousands of pages of evidence that will be examined in the coming weeks. Among the material is the revelation that Rockstar had a mole or «whistleblower» passing information about the people using the Discord server.
The case sits at the intersection of labour organising and the technology industry, where remote collaboration tools and private messaging platforms have become central to how workers coordinate. The tribunal will consider whether the company's stated concern about confidential information was genuine or a pretext for disrupting union activity. Under UK law, unions must reach a threshold of membership support before they can seek statutory recognition from an employer, making the size and cohesion of a bargaining unit a critical factor in any organising drive.
The scale of the evidence suggests the dispute will not be resolved quickly. The filings set out competing narratives about what was discussed on the server, who had access to it, and what risk, if any, the conversations posed to Rockstar's commercial secrets. The company's decision to place an informant inside the server for an extended period is likely to be a focus of questioning, as it goes to the heart of whether the dismissals were a proportionate response to a genuine security concern or an attempt to undermine the union.
The dismissed workers are mostly UK-based, and their case has drawn attention from labour advocates and parts of the games industry, where working conditions and unionisation have become increasingly prominent issues. Rockstar, the studio behind one of the most commercially successful entertainment franchises in the world, has not commented publicly beyond the tribunal filings. The employment tribunal in Glasgow will hear evidence over the coming weeks before reaching a judgment on whether the dismissals were lawful.