The studio behind Palworld is offering employees five days of special leave to play a competitor's game, specifically naming it outright. In an official announcement, Pocketpair has granted every employee five days of special leave for the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI. It announced the whole thing as an urgent business trip to the game's fictional setting, Vice City.
The announcement came from Pocketpair's official Palworld accounts on X. "All Pocketpair employees have been granted special leave to attend to an urgent five-day business trip in Vice City when GTA6 launches," the post read, with an attached memo on company letterhead. The Special Company Holiday Announcement is setting the leave from Thursday, November 19 to Monday, November 23, open to any employee who intends to play GTA VI.
Work on Palworld and Craftopia updates carries on as scheduled. Pocketpair is known for this kind of self-aware humor - the post plays the five-day gaming break completely straight, memo and all. For a studio whose own hit sits on Game Pass, giving staff a week to go all-in on a rival's launch is both a flex and a very on-brand piece of marketing.
Pocketpair is not the only company handing out GTA VI time off, but it is explicitly naming GTA VI as the reason. We have argued the smarter move is taking the day after launch, not the day of. We have tracked businesses shutting down for the day, G Fuel cutting its hours and even HR data showing a time-off surge that Grand Theft Auto V never caused. What sets Pocketpair apart is the sheer length. Five consecutive days is more generous than almost any policy we have seen.
Companies giving staff time off around the GTA VI Launch
Company | What they granted | Time off |
|---|---|---|
Pocketpair (Palworld) | Special "business trip to Vice City" leave | 5 days, November 19 to 23 |
US Army 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion | A leave incentive for reenlisting soldiers | 4 days, November 20 to 23 |
Edison Motors | Closed the shop for a long weekend | 2 days, November 19 to 20 |
Logitech | A paid "Logi Game Day" | 1 day, any time in the year |
Burger Motorsports | Closed on launch day | 1 day, November 19 |
Medical Marketing Group | A launch-day off or a substitute day | 1 day, November 19 |
Raptor PR | Extra annual leave and free copies of the game | 1 day |
Pocketpair's five days is the most generous entry we have tracked.
The common thread is that none of these companies are treating GTA VI like an ordinary game. HR firms have started comparing its launch to the Super Bowl, a single day the wider workforce quietly plans around. Even Australia's Fair Work Ombudsman weighed in on sick-leave rules around the launch, which is not something that happens for a normal game release.
A rival studio openly offering its staff five days of special leave to play GTA VI is the kind of endorsement Rockstar Games could never buy even if it had the money to do it. Pocketpair turned a leave announcement into a marketing win. An urgent business trip to Vice City is quite the pitch from the studio behind Palworld.