Take-Two's Zelnick is "not in the least" worried the Rockstar union row will hurt GTA 6

Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick said on August 7, 2026 that he was "not in the least" concerned that the row over dismissed Rockstar staff would affect the launch of GTA 6. He made the comment in an interview with The Game Business after Take-Two published its first-quarter results, and Eurogamer reported it later the same day.

The background, as Eurogamer told it, was the firing of 31 people at Rockstar North in Edinburgh for "gross misconduct", all of them members of the IWGB Game Workers Union. The Game Business put the number at more than 30. The union accused Rockstar of discriminating against staff who wanted to join a union, and the case was headed to an employment tribunal in the UK. Eurogamer said the trial was set to begin on September 10.

Zelnick kept the two subjects apart. "How you develop the game is different from the nature of your labour relations," he told The Game Business. "We are very proud of our labour relations." He also said Take-Two was proud of how its people are treated and paid.

He backed that with staffing claims. He said Take-Two has 13,000 colleagues worldwide and "the lowest attrition rate in the business by half", and that Rockstar's rate is half of Take-Two's. Neither outlet published data to support those figures, so they stand as Zelnick's own claims.

This was a statement of the company's position, not a ruling. It said nothing about how the tribunal would decide, and neither report carried a response from the IWGB. Whether the dismissals were justified was left for the tribunal to settle.

Rockstar's UK staff were later scheduled to vote on union recognition from November 12 to 26, across the GTA 6 launch; this site's separate story covers that vote.