Rockstar has attempted to reinvent itself as a more progressive and compassionate workplace. But can it still produce the chart-topping games?
summer of 2020, after a police officer killed George Floyd, Rockstar Games quietly shelved a mode of play it had planned to release for its Grand Theft Auto Online game.
Grand Theft Auto V, which came out in 2013, is the most profitable entertainment property of all time Can a kinder, gentler Rockstar still produce the chart-topping calibre of game the studio has become known for? Some employees aren’t sure. Morale across the company is higher than it’s ever been, according to many staffers. But the development of Grand Theft Auto VI has been slower than impatient fans and even longtime employees have expected.
Rockstar Games was founded in 1998 by a handful of British game makers as a subsidiary of Take-Two. With 2001’s Grand Theft Auto III and its sequels, the company revolutionised open-world video games and grew to employ thousands of people, with offices in California, New York, across the UK and beyond. Grand Theft Auto products accounted for 31% of Take-Two’s $3.5-billion in total revenue in fiscal 2022, according to company filings.
Similar complaints have rippled through the industry in recent years. Game developers working at Activision Blizzard, Riot Games and Ubisoft Entertainment have all criticised their employers for issues ranging from sexual discrimination to overwork. Activision Blizzard is being sued by the state of California over allegations of sexual harassment and discrimination.
Sticking to that pledge has already prompted changes to the game. Original plans for the title, which is code-named Project Americas, were for it to be more vast than any Grand Theft Auto game to date. Early designs called for the inclusion of territories modelled after large swaths of North and South America, according to people familiar with the plans. But the company reeled in those ambitions and cut the main map down to a fictional version of Miami and its surrounding areas.
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