Rockstar Games fires over 30 employees, all were part of pro-union Discord group, "one of the most blatant and ruthless acts of union busting in the history of the games industry"
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I’m sure the department of labor will get right on this case…
I know you're being sarcastic, but if does point out the fact that capitalism is only held in check by government. RockStar obviously waited until they knew they could get away with it given the current attitudes in all branches of the US government.
"The Grand Theft Auto maker terminated between 30 and 40 staffers across multiple offices in the UK and Canada"
Did the USA invade the UK last night and I didn't notice?
Now, to be fair I got an early night, it was Halloween and the nutters were out in force so I popped the ol' sleeping plugs in and nodded off, but I think I'd notice when I got up for brekkie and the yanks were marching down the road xD
GTA6 will still sell millions of copies, many to people in threads just like this one that are appalled at RS's action.
I made essentially the same comment on another thread yesterday, but I think it might have gone over most people's heads. That or they didn't want to admit it.
I think it's a bit self-indulgent to consider that this is big-brained or world-shattering to people. You're just repeating the dominant explanation for why these companies can make profit despite their immorality, it isn't challenging or new.
It's important to make a distinction between liberals who strive for moral purity through performativity, and people who value human life by recognizing the inequalities in labour and material security under capitalism. Narratives that reproduce the idea that people are just fundamentally impure and can't stick to their values only strengthens liberalism's claim to morality.
Most people buying it will not know about this
Many would not care
A lot think that it is not their job punishing companies over how they treat their employees
I think it is the government’s job to make laws that empower people taking jobs over people giving jobs, but as well, in my opinion, each and everyone has the responsibility to watch over government that they do the job right
There's no such thing as ethical consumption.
Your point?
E: just want to make clear, the attribution of apathy or nihilism to the general pubic isn't genuine or useful.
Companies can do whatever they want and it literally doesn't matter because they will keep making money
The point is people are impressively stupid and impulsive
Ethics are in shambles.
This is the most disheartening reply, but also the most telling.
His point is simple enough that you should understand. Use your brain.
This is a good question to ask. This person is not very critical of what they've said and is clearly satisfied with liberal (as in liberalism) explanations for people's behaviour.
Their point is that people are just fundamentally bad and that is why these companies make profit despite an apparently universal condemnation of their actions. It's shallow, inaccurate, and is only useful to feel morally superior to some imagined decadent group that they believe is the source of this problem.
"Gross misconduct, and no other reason"... from 30 people at once? And they're not going to elaborate on what the "misconduct" was?
Maybe we're supposed to believe the fact they were all part of the same discussion to unionize was a coincidence, too?
My best bet is the Discord server had internal Rockstar files, and their angle is these files should have never been put on external servers, and that other Discord members should have reported it
Pfft...Like y'all don't know what to do with GTA VI.
Rockstar have been pieces of shit for decades. Didn't change anything then, and unfortunately, it probably won't now.
Don’t play it?
Like y’all don’t know what to do with GTA VI.
Wait 2 goddamn extra years or however long until they release it for PC.
The good news is by then I can easily justify upgrading my PC too. Right now it's hard to justify upgrading from my RTX 3060 Ti, but by 2027 or 2028 when the PC version comes out, I'm sure that there's something enticing available from all 3 GPU manufacturers (yay, we almost have competition now) and I can get the hell off Nvidia again finally.
Roll it up with gunpowder, stick it in my ears, and light it on fire?
Pirate it? Yeah, I'll probably do that.
What a joke. Fuck rockstar.
Everyone should already be boycotting this company
That's against the law, but don't count on this DoJ to enforce it.
wrong country 😅
Is that allowed in the UK and Canada? As an American, I'm not familiar with the law there.
What GTA-like games do you enjoy by indie devs?
The closest I can provide is Wobbly Life which is unironically an awesome physics heavy GTA-like themed around being a destructive kid.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1211020/Wobbly_Life/
For driving jobs, hanging out in a living multiplayer city and driving feel that hits just right check out the rabidly loved Motor Town: Behind The Wheel.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1369670/Motor_Town_Behind_The_Wheel/
Contractville looks interesting but I haven't tried it.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2698780/ContractVille/
Schedule 1 seems popular
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3164500/Schedule_I/
Inzoi seems like it is similar in the open world roleplaying sense
I can vouch for Motortown, even if it’s not a ton like GTA. There’s a surprising amount of gameplay detail considering the assets look low-detail. Great roleplay experience.
Motor Town is a behemoth, I have driven so many urgent taxi jobs I put myself on the taxi leaderboard for a hot minute without intending too... with pretty much all the driving manual not autopilot which I am not sure many of the other drivers higher taxi level than me do... lol
Yeah, Motor Town is GOOD.
If you like the old-school top-down GTA feel, American Fugitive is super cheap now and is a good-ish game. Same dev has The Precinct, which is top-down GTA but you're playing a cop.
The story is not a strong point with either, but if you need that, go to a different genre.
And there is also Rustler, which is ridiculously fun.
I also loved Simpsons Hit and Run, but that's a bit old and IDK how indie was it.
If you like the old-school top-down GTA feel
You also HAVE to check out the quick multiplayer match topdown GTA-like Skillshot City. The gameplay feels super tight.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/308600/Skillshot_City/
Maniac is a singleplayer police escape arcade mayhem game with locked in topdown GTA-like gameplay.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1482380/Maniac/
In a different genre but still worth mentioning for having cool topdown arcade multiplayer & singleplayer combat is Running With Rifles
https://store.steampowered.com/app/270150/RUNNING_WITH_RIFLES
Contractville is janky as hell and not anywhere near the scale of GTA. But it is damn fun.
$49B company, all driven by labor.
Weren't the antagonists of rdr2 the pinkertons?
developers usually know what's up. assassin's creed 4, a pirate game that mimicked the assassin's creed series that ended with ac3, made the templar's modern day front, abstergo, into a ubisoft parody. in that game abstergo literally makes assassin's creed games with ulterior motives. it was almost like the devs were going "man, fuck this dumbass company" and did that as a middle finger to their bosses.
just more evidence that you should only support smaller private companies, not corpos
Never talk about unionizing on company time, on company property, or with someone else that is, and especially with someone unvetted.
Keep it private, keep it quiet.
Previously decided never to buy a Rockstar game again (after an unplayable PC port on GTA 4) this just crystallizes that decision
Boycott all of the billionaire owned mother fuckers. Bleed them out of their bunkers.
We don't respect you anymore though Rockstar.
It was like 5 years ago but I heard a family friend working there was making 27k as a mid level dev.
At a certain point the blame lies with the worker, I am pro union but jesus have some self respect and look for better.
Game dev is predatory because people can and will do it for free. Many "dream jobs" have this issue.
So, next time use Matrix to send messages?
Schreier couldn't be bothered to list what the employees positions were. Gonna take a wild guess they weren't devs. Even better, the union Discord clearly has a leak. Now that's how you protect workers, amiright, unless these employees were dumb enough to spread the word at work
In case anyone thought the "rockstar" being referred to was Joe Strummer, it's actually Gene Simmons.
union organising
\ discord
pass, shit news though, unsurprising
I know Discord has it's flaws, but why would that discredit them from organising a union? Would you referred if they had used Teams or an email chain?
It's interesting how Discord absolutely nukes its own trust by pretending to be more than it is. I loathe discord, to the point I'd use a competitor (not teams) just to evade it. I'm sick of finding a hobby group using it as a Frankenstein forum / chat / info hub when it's only built for chat.
Discord is fine for this use, but I'm getting used to the distrusting it so often that it blends into reasonable use.
Apparently they have a ¹removedSky account, email, and phone line you can reach the unionist at. I am not particularly interested in non-cooperative owned businesses to deal with a self-defeating compromise. (2×🔗)
If they make a threadiverse account, jabber, or other privacy respecting p2p, then maybe I’ll ask them details of their discord leakage.
Well, never giving my money to Rockstar again then :)
I pretty much only buy indie games at this point. Any game made by a company that benefits a stock ticker? You best believe I'm... (checks what comm I'm in) ..Acquiring it. Lol
Funnily enough the one exception to this rule that I probably would have made was BF6 but they forced me to sit this one out by barring Linux users 🤷♂️ So I'm playing Outer Worlds 2 instead rn.
For some good battlefield alternatives that run great on Linux check out ->
Easy Red 2
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1324780/Easy_Red_2/
Operation Harsh Doorstop
https://store.steampowered.com/app/736590/Operation_Harsh_Doorstop/
and Angels Fall First
https://store.steampowered.com/app/367270/Angels_Fall_First/
I tried downloading the BF6 free demo and I had to jump through a bunch of hoops trying to get it to run just to find that because the last time I used my EA account was a decade ago, my Steam account is banned from their servers until I go through customer support to unlock it.
most relatable thing I've heard all day 😂
And that last bit is wild because the one that doesn't require Windows for PC gamers is the one owned by Microsoft.
I'm the same way. I might have got BF6, I played the beta and fell in love cause it felt like BC2 which was my favorite BF game.
Sadly the hoops I had to jump through to even get it to work on a windows system, let alone getting it to work on my Debian system, combined with the price tag was enough to hard push me away from buying it.
It's a shame because the game was stupid levels of fun, and felt organic. They just are out-casting their userbase by their decisions to block Non-Windows systems.
I'm pretty sure Obsidian Entertainment qualifies as AAA.
I think this comment will age like milk once GTA6 has been out on PC for a decade
Wait, why that comment?