Former GTA 5 Developer Says He Received No Share of the Game’s Profits Despite Working 80-Hour Weeks

Former Rockstar Games employee Rob Carr, who worked at the studio from 2007 to 2016 and contributed to GTA 5 and Red Dead Redemption, has criticized the way the modern gaming industry operates. According to Carr, the developers behind some of the industry’s biggest hits often receive no share of the profits, even after spending years working under intense crunch conditions.

Carr said that during the development of GTA 5, he regularly worked around 80 hours a week for three to four years. Despite the game going on to become one of the most profitable releases in the history of the industry, he received no share of its earnings.

“If I got just 0.01% of the profits of GTA 5, I would be a millionaire. Or 0.001% of the profits, and I would be a millionaire. I’m not a millionaire. I didn’t get any profits at all for that despite the fact that I was averaging 80 hours a week for three or four years on it,” Carr said in an interview with Parimatch.

Carr believes the lack of a proper profit-sharing system is one of the main causes of the crisis currently facing the gaming industry. In his view, the employees who actually create games should receive a percentage of a project’s commercial success.

He noted that similar practices have existed in the music industry for decades and argued that introducing them to game development could significantly improve working conditions. Carr believes profit-sharing would encourage studios to produce better games while also helping them retain experienced developers.

The former Rockstar employee also commented on the mass layoffs that have swept through the industry in recent years. In his opinion, most of these cuts are not being caused by the rise of artificial intelligence, but by executives and investors seeking to improve companies’ financial performance.

Carr also does not believe AI is currently replacing game developers. According to him, publishers are not prepared to entrust entire projects to algorithms, since it is much easier to blame a studio’s employees for a commercial failure than it is to hold an AI system responsible.

Carr himself is currently without a permanent job. After Activision Blizzard ended its partnership with Redhill Games in 2025, he has spent around a year and a half looking for a new position despite his experience working on major AAA titles. He is now developing his own project, Folklore Legends, which is inspired by Finnish folklore.

Meanwhile, GTA 6 developers are demanding that Rockstar put an end to crunch and pay employees for overtime.

Do you think developers should receive a percentage of the profits from successful games like GTA 5 instead of relying solely on a fixed salary?