Rockstar quietly settled class-action lawsuit with 'over 100' ex-Rockstar San Diego employees

Bit suprised at the way Rockstar handled this, been pumping out some of the best games this gen, and yet, this is happening behind closed doors

You'd think that after making so many GTA games that the company would figure out that crime doesn't pay.

When you walked through the door it was clear to me, you're the one we abuse, who we treat like shit, 'cause you're a...ROCKSTAR

I used to consider Rockstar as one of the classy studios...

Rockstar need to get a grip of theirselves :(

It's the smart move. They probably would have lost this case, but even if they had won their court expenses would probably have approached this figure. Done and done - hopefully they learn from it though.

Wow. I would take my settlement and seek employment elsewhere. Maybe not a good idea all things considered ... and staying with Rockstar may be part of the agreement as well.

Just because they settled doesn't mean they were guilty, though over one hundred employees all behind a lawsuit would suggest otherwise.

Will this be the subject of the Law Of The Game post this week?

If the two cents of a Southern California employment lawyer is worth anything (I have worked on a number of similar class actions both in and outside the software industry, for what that's worth), here they are:

I haven't had time to peruse the Complaint in this case, but it was probably a "misclassification" case (the vast majority are). The idea is that employees are classified as salaried, but feel that they should have been hourly (and gotten overtime).

These cases are rarely about "guilt" or "innocence," particularly in California's highly complex and demanding overtime law structure. Usually, the employers and named employees just disagree on the law. (This is a class action so the fact that 100 employees get paid does not mean 100 employees filed a lawsuit. Usually, it would be brought by 1 or 2).

Settlement is not surprising:

1. These cases almost NEVER go to trial. I have never seen one go to trial in several years of practice in the region. It's not worth the money. It's not worth the risk. It just isn't done.

2. The settlement in this case might SOUND high (estimated 27k per employee, but it probably is not. Let's say 100-150 employees, making an average of $77k annually and working (on average) 100 hours of overtime a year. None of that is atypical in the computer industry. The potential exposure if those employees are "misclassified" would be very high. *Much* higher than 3 million. I'm not going to do the calculations, but let's be conservative and guess that the R* could see 8.5M in liability if it lost (not including legal fees, which could exceed 1M). Let's also say that counsel guessed that R* had a 2/3 chance of prevailing at trial (Very reasonable, but not a slam dunk).

A 3.5M settlement is sound business sense for both sides and reveals very little.

Ben,

While I understand what you're saying, I do think you're missing the point that DR is making.

First of all the issue specific to R*SD at least at the time of the original reclass and law suit, was very much about the legal definition of how exempt is defined in California. The main points of legal definition (not real world definiton and not getting into how "the man" is trying to keep the little guy down) for an Artistic or Creative exemption the main 2 criteria include:

1. The position has the employee artistically involved in the work they do. Over simplifying this down to a black and white description, the law is asking is the person a automatron that is basically just doing exactly what they're told to do involving a set of skills but requiring little to no artistic/creative choice. So from a legal point of view the law is saying a non-exempt 'artist' (think about what that word even means) is someone that could be a person plucked off the street and then trained via x amount of instruction to then just churn out 3D objects, textures, and game elements without regard to any inherient artistitc talent.

2. There is also a minimal salary test for this as well, which I think is around $40-45K, which in the case of R*SD is pretty much a non an issue now or back in June of 2006 when the company proactively did it's reclassification (note: well ahead of any legal action). Almost all of the Artists (even the Jr ones) are making at least that as their base, and then there's OT pay on top of that. So was a non-issue then and now.

Keep in mind that at the time of the re-classification all those that were reclassed kept their current exempt salaries in full and then started getting OT on top of that. So for a studio that at the time was averaging 45 hours per week (even factoring in periods of 'crunch') this meant an almost 18% pay increase to the artist (and all the other types of roles in the studio that were also reclassed at that time - ie myself as a programmer). On top of that the management at the time (not sure if they're still there) set everyone up as "Salary non-exempt" which meant everyone got their base salary (their original at least market rate) even if they worked under 40 hours a week, but got OT for any hours over 8 in a day or 40 in a week. Personally I made out really well, since on days when needed to take off early I got paid in full, yet in the same week if I I'd potentially get OT pay while under 40 for the overall week. In my new role is actually kind of sucked to take an effective pay cut since my base rate has been reset to fall in line to market rate with the exepected OT already built in. BTW I left for personal reasons to be closer to family back in the bay area and not because I felt abused by the R*SD management of old.

Anyway, I personally hate seeing all this playing out in the press, when there are success stories for the employees and company to be shared as well. Of course the typical R* response to press stuff is just "talk to the hand", which is a shame. I wish those still there luck with RDR which I WILL buy in support of all those who I know are working very hard and putting themselves into the game. I still miss the feeling of creating something special in the games we made vs just another internal company app.

Scotty,
Thanks for your informative post. Like I said, I hadn''t read the Complaint, so your specifics were useful.

Ben, Thanks for your vigilance as well. I don't pretend to know what is going on at R*, but I just wanted to dispel any mistaken inference by readers that settling a class action (or any case, honestly) is a smoking gun. (FYI, I can't read the entirety of your last comment, Ben. There is a link for "More," but it does not work.