A A new pandemic threatens planet Earth. It is scheduled to arrive on November 19. Entire offices and construction sites will be emptied; employees struck by a mysterious illness. But don’t panic: it’s not fatal. This should pass in a few days.
Anticipation for Grand Theft Auto VI, the franchise’s first new game in 13 years, is so great that a steady stream of news reports suggests it portends an economic catastrophe due to workers taking time off to play the game. The term “GTA flu” was coined to refer to the collection of illnesses that reportedly occurred during the release of GTA V in 2013 and which – supposedly – are expected to recur when GTA VI releases this week.
GTA VI is perhaps the most anticipated game in history. Some forecasts put total sales at 40 million copies in the first three months, which would generate $3 billion in revenue. GTA V created a precedent: it was the best-selling game of the last decade in the United States and reached $1 billion in sales faster than any entertainment product in history. GTA VI should easily beat this latest record.
But will so many people take time off work so that – as various viral headlines have claimed – gambling causes a billion-dollar dent in the US economy? In April, Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two Interactive, publisher of GTA VI, joked: “A lot of people will call in sick on November 19th.” It made headlines – and many agreed.
“A game could reduce Australia’s productivity by A$70 million,” howled Australian newspaper Nine News, quoting a “PR expert.” “Australian workplaces are bracing for a surge in sick numbers,” proclaimed 7 News a day later. News.com.au predicted November 19 would be “the biggest sick day in history”. The UK’s Daily Star cited a human resources company which claimed that 1.2 million British workers would take annual leave to play GTA VI, while a broadband comparison service said the number was actually as high as 2.5 million, including 900,000 Britons pretending to be ill (based on a survey of 1,000 people). A “global AI jobs platform” claimed annual leave requests for November 19 were up 29% worldwide compared to last year – a claim based solely on its own users and repeated by the media – while a German gaming publication predicted GTA VI would “paralyze the world of work”.
Even Australia’s Fair Work Ombudsman has weighed in, explaining on Instagram when it’s OK to take unpaid leave (note: never for a video game) and reminding workers that employers can ask for proof if you’re sick, even for just one day.
So, is a GTA flu outbreak really likely? It’s not uncommon for people to take time out for a cultural moment of this magnitude. While it may be more common for people to take a single trip to see a highly anticipated movie, a game the size of GTA VI requires a lot of time; On Reddit and Instagram, stories abound of people booking weeks off.
“The data suggests there will be an increase in absenteeism,” says Jacqueline Burgess, a business and gaming studies researcher at the University of the Sunshine Coast, citing claims from a human resources company that about one in five US workers are considering taking time off.
“People will stop working for this, but it’s not unique to this game,” says Daniel Joseph, a digital sociologist at the University of Manchester. Other games, like Call of Duty, also keep people away from their desks. In Japan in the 1990s, the Dragon Quest series moved its release date from midweek to Saturday because kids were missing school and employees were calling in sick just to play.
Will Thursday’s alleged absenteeism translate into an impact on productivity? This is harder to discern, but seems unlikely.
The prediction of a billion-dollar hit to American productivity has been repeated ad nauseam by news outlets, content creators and Instagram pages. This figure comes from an article published by a Spanish television channel in July 2025, which cites José García-Montalvo, professor of economics at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona. But the figures seem to correspond to improvised calculations, rather than any analysis of concrete data; Montalvo did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
The estimates cited by 7News were based on shift work data in a workforce management platform. This company claimed to review releases of flagship video games, such as Baldur’s Gate 3, to see if absenteeism increased around their launch. Data suggests this is the case, with the platform predicting “very likely carnage” for Australian workplaces, due to the midweek release of GTA VI.
While the cultural cachet and impact of GTA is immense—it’s one of the few titles to be fully embraced by mainstream media coverage, whether for its impressive reach, sales, or controversy—beneath the surface, GTA Flu appears to be just another wheel in the marketing machine, a headline-grabbing phenomenon driven by media companies striving to cover an industry they largely ignore.
However, there is a real job story involving GTA VI that was left behind. In October, Rockstar Games fired 34 employees in the UK and Canada, in a move described by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB) as a “blatant and callous anti-union act”; all British employees were unionized. Rockstar Games alleged that employees leaked confidential information. PJ Sim, Rockstar’s director of communications in ANZ, declined to comment for this story.
Will Mesilane, an Australian developer who worked on GTA VI for two years, was one of the affected employees at Rockstar’s Edinburgh office. He’s having a lot of complex feelings as GTA VI launch approaches and isn’t sure whether or not he’ll play the finished game. His dismissal, which he considers illegal, has had dramatic repercussions on his life. He was on a UK skilled worker visa; When he was made redundant, his partner was forced to quit her job so the couple could move to Australia.
“A two-minute phone call wreaked havoc on our lives that continues more than a year later,” he says.
The Rockstar employees’ case is before the Glasgow Employment Tribunal, with final submissions due on November 17 and 18. The timing is particularly relevant: it falls the day before the release of the biggest video game in the world. While millions of people await the release of GTA VI, Mesilane and his colleagues will be “waiting with bated breath” for the decision.
“From day one, I always thought the layoffs were due to our involvement in the IWGB,” he says. “I remain hopeful that once all is said and done, we will receive the justice we believe we truly deserve.”
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