I'm just going to copy what I wrote for the game's page:

" In January of 2010, a blog post published on Gamasutra written by the "Rockstar Spouse" pointed out the unethical practices used at Rockstar San Diego during this game's development, including 12 hour days and 6 day weeks, with lower-than-the-industry-average salary increase.  
A few commentors on the blog who claimed to have worked at Rockstar San Diego at some point mentioned that the project is "an organic disaster of the most epic proportions ", that the game has been in development for more than 4 years, and that game developers from Rockstar Toronto, Rockstar Vancouver, Rockstar Leeds, Rockstar New England, and even the Midnight Club team at San Diego had to be transferred over to work on the game to finish it. 
This controversy evoked similar emotions in media to the "EA Spouse" scandal, but it only seems as if the working conditions at Rockstar San Diego are considerably worse. " 

Gamasutra is a legit industry publication and commentors who work or used to work at Rockstar San Diego and some sources for Kotaku have confirmed such practices.  
One of the commentors said that 15-16 hour days were becoming a norm. This is unethical. The employees should just have a massive walkout. 
 
And us, the consumers should show that we don't want people to be depressed or have "suicidal tendencies" because of making a fucking video game.

No?

I wasn't planning on buying this game anyway - sorry to the poeple who apparently literally  slaved away at it, but it seems plain bad - but now I'll try to go the extra mile to inform people of such horrible treatment of employees.

im not going to boycott it because i want to play it but they should knock this shit out

That sucks, but i'm not boycotting this game.

Nope I will be getting it.  If you want to boycott something boycott anything made in China and half the world.  They make them work long hours for wages that barely put food on the table, then pollute the environment, use unsafe materials and more.  The company is in America as the letter says if they don't improve then they will probably sue and that will go a lot farther than a few hundred gamers boycotting a new IP which would probably be blamed on something else anyways.

I agree that that's wrong but I'm still gonna buy the game because it looks awesome.

um no?

Not buying the game, so I am not interested in joining/setting up a boycott that will fail.

Boycotts are largely ineffectual. The people who should be pushing for change are the developers themselves who should be pushing for guild or union status that would give them a better work day. A boycott on a large scale would actually likely backfire since if it catches on and is reported on it would bring more attention to the game.  if you are truly opposed to this then boycott, but it will do nothing constructive. Instead, become involved with the developer community and become and advocate for them, drafting union documents and leading worker walkouts.  This is the NON lazy way to be involved.
 
Oh, and when game prices raise or a large portion of the workforce from the developer is laid off due to raising costs, do not complain, because these are the prices one pays for a better work environment.

Yay video game boycotts....

But if I boycott it all their hard work will be in vein.

How about you boycott all the other products you probably buy that have an extremely shady backstory to them?  I assure you, there are tons.  And this is not unheard of, especially in the video game industry and especially during Crunch Time.

No problem. I wasn't going to buy it anyways.

" Nope I will be getting it.  If you want to boycott something boycott anything made in China and half the world.  They make them work long hours for wages that barely put food on the table, then pollute the environment, use unsafe materials and more.  The company is in America as the letter says if they don't improve then they will probably sue and that will go a lot farther than a few hundred gamers boycotting a new IP which would probably be blamed on something else anyways. "

What a great idea. Not only will these Rockstar employees suffer at the hands of their superiors... they will also suffer at the hands of the consumers.
 
Let's get everybody fired! YAY!

" @ADTR_ZERO: So you're happy people being forced to work 16 hours a day and 6 days a week with no extra pay to make a damned game? "

No vacation over Christmas, over 14-16h a day and 6 days a week, unpaid overtime and studio managers that refuse to look the workers in the face. Doesn't sound like the studio i would want to work for and not the studio I would feel good buying games from.

Plenty of game developers have to kick all-nighters and stuff to meet deadlines, I don't think that this is much more extreme than that. But, if the developers are unhappy, then the game will suffer anyways, so the game will pretty much boycott itself. 

Who has two thumbs and doesn't care OR want to buy the game in the first place?!
 
Fuck your boycotts. Don't CALL for one, inform people and then let them base their own decision.

What is the use of boycotting their game that they have been working so hard on only to make it sell worse and make them look worse.

I work 12-14 hour days, 5 days a week, doing actual work, as in physical labour. They're sitting at computers for 12 hours a day. Don't act like what they're doing is insanely out of the norm when it comes to work hours. 
 
The whole unpaid overtime, no vacation shit is totally unforgivable, though. That's the kind of thing that should be brought up. 

Agreed, quite unethical, but I won't be purchasing that game anyway.
As mentioned above, this is all about spreading the news.

How would boycotting help? We'll just be cutting their profits so they'd be paid less for their hard work that they've done. The only thing that would help in this case would be to file a lawsuit against them which I assume they will be doing if this story is true.

Uhmmm, nope. I work 12 hours, in fact, many people work for 12 hours, specially on deadlines. 
There is always a choice, they decided to stay, THEY were given a contract which they FIRST accepted. 
 
He who tells beforehand does not betray after. 
 
In fact, just look at the "Making of" videos of many recent games, most studios have this practices. Even the teams of Naughty dog. 
 
Quality games are not created by magical trees. Which is why the best you can do is buy it, not pirate it.

Heck no, man. This is my most anticipated game of 2010 right now. It's kind of sad, but I really doubt this is the only game in production where this is happening. This is an industry built around meeting tough deadlines. Whenever games get near release, I think this is actually a pretty common thing. The real problem here is how impatient most of gamers are. They want everything now, now, now. It puts a lot of stress on game developers and their workers. Look at Resident Evil 4, remember how much people cried over it being delayed and not having a solid release date? For years gamers whined about it. In the end, it sure was worth it, though, right? So yeah, it's not cool for Rockstar to do this, but it's just the unruly audience they have to cater to that makes it this way.

Those are common working hours in Japan. Get over it.

" I work 12-14 hour days, 5 days a week, doing actual work, as in physical labour. They're sitting at computers for 12 hours a day. Don't act like what they're doing is insanely out of the norm when it comes to work hours.  The whole unpaid overtime, no vacation shit is totally unforgivable, though. That's the kind of thing that should be brought up.  "

" Nope I will be getting it.  If you want to boycott something boycott anything made in China and half the world.  They make them work long hours for wages that barely put food on the table, then pollute the environment, use unsafe materials and more.  The company is in America as the letter says if they don't improve then they will probably sue and that will go a lot farther than a few hundred gamers boycotting a new IP which would probably be blamed on something else anyways. "

People have boycotted Disney, Harry Potter, Dan Brown, and countless other things how has that worked out just for those 3 franchises.  The only thing accomplished is the people that participated missed out on some great things.

I'm boycotting this game - but not for the reasons the OP brings up.  I am boycotting it because Red Dead Revolver sucked hard.

But  wouldn't boycotting the game just make all of their hours meaningless and actually make the matte worse for the employees?  Because then they have to work twice as long to make the next game better.  So all those hours put into this game and no one will buy it.  I'm sure you can think of other ways to boycott them, try pitchforks and torches outside their studio, that'll show em'.

I disagree with this sentiment.  If anything, buying the game gives those who slaved over it for so many hours pride knowing that at least people are buying and enjoying the game they worked so hard on.  The Pyramids weren't built so we could turn our backs to them and stare at the ground; you stare at them for the works of art they made and appreciate the hard work that went into building them, regardless of the unethical practices that happened "behind the scenes."

I can't care. I wish I could, but I'm apathetic as shit.

No I will not.

Maybe if people at Rockstar would have put this kind of effort into GTA4 it wouldn't have sucked so hard.

 This is unethical. The employees should just have a massive walkout. 

" What is the use of boycotting their game that they have been working so hard on only to make it sell worse and make them look worse. "

Boycott a game that people worked extremely hard on....
How would that be good?