Report: Rockstar Games Instructed 'Grand Theft Auto VI' Writers "To Be Less Crude Toward Transgender People And Other Minorities"
A new report claims that Rockstar Games instructed its Grand Theft Auto VI writers “to be less crude toward transgender people and other minorities.”
A report from former Kotaku writer Jason Schreier, who now writes at Bloomberg, claims, “Rockstar is asking its writers to be less crude toward transgender people and other minorities, the common targets of throwaway gags in previous versions.”
This report appears to confirm YouTuber Endymion’s rumor that Rockstar has “gone woke.”
READ: Take-Two Already Fears That Grand Theft Auto 6 Will Be A Failure
Endymion with the help of That Park Place’s Francesco Solbak discovered that Rockstar Games was funneling its white employees into a a DEI indoctrination course called Unconscious Bias run by Stacey A. Gordon.
Endymion stated, “The Unconscious Bias thing was a big part of the scoop because whenever people claim that white devs specifically are not being targeted or forced to comply to the beliefs or whims of others, I mean, it’s just simply not true. White developers are absolutely getting strangled by this industry to comply to these insane demands.”
He went on to share, “This unconscious bias, by the way, is not just some random thing, but what Francesco was able to discover was that it was actually a mandatory course that was pushed onto employees of Rockstar. Which ones you may be asking? You can probably guess it, but it was exclusively pretty much only white employees who work at Rockstar right now that were put through this course.”
He explained, “Based on what [Francesco] found of the 60 employees forced to take this Unconscious Bias course in order to gain a certificate around 58 of them were white people. The other two were of these 60 people were of Asian descent.”
Later, he stated, “Right now as it stands Rockstar is completely infected with woke pandering DEI initiatives that have ran through a whole swath of white employees almost exclusively into admitting, submitting, then receiving a certificate to confirm their own unconscious racist bias according to these woke grifters who are infesting Rockstar right now at insane rates.”
As shown in screenshots in the video, the Unconscious Bias is a certification Rockstar employees could obtain by taking a 23-minute DEI indoctrination course run by Gordon and certified by LinkedIn.
The official description for the training states, “We're all biased. Our experiences shape who we are, and our race, ethnicity, gender, height, weight, sexual orientation, place of birth, and other factors impact the lens with which we view the world. In this course, diversity expert Stacey Gordon helps you recognize and acknowledge your own biases so that you can identify them when making decisions, and prevent yourself from making calls based on a biased viewpoint. Stacey explains some of the most common forms that a bias takes: affinity bias, halo bias, perception bias, and confirmation bias. She helps you recognize the negative effects of bias within your organization, as well as the benefits to be realized by uncovering bias in decision-making processes. Finally, she outlines strategies for overcoming personal and organizational bias.”
A preview for the course sees Gordon state, “Unconscious Bias is something that we all need to be aware of because it affects us all. My name is Stacey Gordon. I’m a Human Capital and Diversity Capital with recruiting expertise. I spent years working in Fortune 500 companies and non-profit organization specializing in diversity and inclusion. And today I hope to bring awareness to the topic of unconscious bias and get you think about how it might affect you and how we might be affecting others.”
A graph is then shown claiming, “1% Bias in favor of men applied over 20 years.”
Gordon states, “In this course we’re going to talk about unconscious bias and the impact it has on business. We’ll identify and discuss specific types of bias and begin thinking about them in new turns. And when we’re done we’ll answer the question, what’s next?”
Endymion’s report came in the wake of YouTuber AndyPants sharing his speculation that Rockstar had gone woke as well based on the company’s actions.
He said, “In 2020 after the George Floyd riots and all of the BLM stuff, Rockstar removed the Cops ‘n’ Crooks game mode from GTA Online deeming it was offensive.”
To be clear Cops ‘n’ Crooks was a planned DLC that was supposed to be released in summer 2020, but never was. A report from Schreier back in 2022 claimed the game mode was scrapped due to Floyd’s death and the ensuing outrage. He wrote, “In the 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. Called Cops ‘n’ Crooks, the mode was a twist on the children’s game where players organize into teams of good guys and bad guys, but seemed especially tone-deaf during the global reckoning over police violence.”
The company also shut down their games to “honor the legacy of George Floyd.”
AndyPants continued, “In 2021, Rockstar removed all Rebel flags from the game and replaced them with American flags because uh oh somebody got their feelings hurt.”
“In 2022, Rockstar edited out transphobic content from GTA V,” he said. “Basically there was this club called the Cockatoo Club in GTA V. Whenever you go over there it’s just a bunch of ugly looking dudes dressed up trying to look like women. It’s hilarious. They’re all really ugly and clearly not women. Well, they removed all the drag queens from the game and the club itself because somebody deemed it offensive. But, hey, I thought you guys wanted representation. What’s up. And let’s be honest, they probably did this because players were going over there to [kill] the trans people too much.”
“Another thing removed from GTA Online was this action figure called Captain Space Toy that had interchangeable body parts. Clearly, a funny joke making fun of trans people. They turned it into something else,” he noted.
Next, he pointed to how they radically altered the character of Yusuf Amir, “Yusuf Amir was this Middle Eastern dude, but he would just go around saying the n-word constantly. It’s hilarious because the dude has no idea what it means and so he just keeps saying it. And the joke is how offensive it is. So it’s comedy gold. Well, of course, Yusuf made a return in GTA Online in 2024 and they completely changed his character. Gone was his offensive and problematic past. Yusuf is a sanitized p***y with his balls in a doggy bag just like everybody else who works at Rockstar in 2024.”
What do you make of this new report that Grand Theft Auto VI will be “less crude toward transgender people and other minorities?”