Rockstar Games has clearly undergone a significant transformation over the past few years to move away from its history of crisis, staff burnout, and insensitive content.
Bloomberg spoke with 20 current or recently departed employees, all on condition of anonymity, who said the company has new structures specifically to avoid overtime and has even scaled back the scope of the highly anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6.
In fact, managers have been promising for four years that excessive overtime would not be necessary to complete the game.
A spokesperson for Rockstar declined to comment.
According to the report, Rockstar has:
- Completely restructured its design department
- Changed the way schedules are handled
- They turn temporary contractors into full-time employees
- Introduced a new “flexible hours” policy that allows employees to take time off for every extra hour they work
- Added more manufacturers to keep track of schedules. This was generally received positively, but caused some difficulties in terms of work lines.
The company also fired multiple managers who employees reported were abusive or difficult to work with as part of an effort to make Rockstar a more progressive and compassionate workplace, with one employee claiming the studio is now ” a boys’ club transformed into a real company’. ”
The changes, combined with the impact of the pandemic and the transition caused by the departure of co-founder Dan Houser in 2019, is why Grand Theft Auto 6 has been in the works for so long, with development beginning sometime in 2014.
GTA 6 was originally supposed to be set in vast areas of both North and South America, according to Bloomberg’s sources, in an effort to make it the biggest entry in the series yet.
To reduce overtime, the game has now been scaled back to a fictionalized version of Miami – most likely the fan-favorite setting of Vice City – and the surrounding areas, with plans to expand the game over time.
In addition to more missions and activities, Rockstar will reportedly be adding entire cities regularly in an effort to avoid a crash in recent months. The sources are unclear when Rockstar plans to release the game.
Although the series is known for its “no-holds-barred” satirical humor, the developers report that the studio is now careful not to “kill” with jokes aimed at marginalized groups in light of the changing political and social climate since 2013.
The team was unsure how Grand Theft Auto’s humor could be adapted to today’s world, with some pointing out that while the series had already satirized America, the nation was increasingly becoming a satire of itself.
Rockstar will also reportedly introduce a female protagonist for the first time, with Grand Theft Auto 6 putting players in control of a Latin American woman as one of two leads in a story inspired by the famous gangster Bonnie and Clyde.
Sources say there are two crucial factors that have inspired these changes.
The first is the backlash against Rockstar Games following reports of a major crash for Red Dead Redemption 2 in 2018. Dan Hauser said in an interview at the time that the team had been “working 100-hour weeks” – and the crash’s impact on Rockstar was explored in an extensive report on GamesIndustry.biz.
The other was the 2020 killing of George Floyd by a police officer, which according to Bloomberg’s sources led the developer to decide to cancel the planned Cops ‘n’ Crooks mode for Grand Theft Auto Online, with no current plans to bring it back.
The studio also demonstrated changes by removing transphobic jokes from Grand Theft Auto 5 for its release on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Earlier this year we reported that the company had even narrowed the gender pay gap – in 2018 it had the largest average pay gap in the business at 34.4%, down to 13.8% in 2021.
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