Employees at Secret 6 Madrid have accused parent company Testronic of "wildly violating" their labor rights by intentionally sabotaging the outsourcing studio and its workforce to justify an impending studio closure.
Last week, we reported that Secret 6 Madrid is due to be closed on July 31, 2025. The shuttering will purportedly result in 42 employees eventually losing their jobs. The news comes less than three years after Testronic purchased Secret 6, which also has an office in Manila, for an undisclosed fee. To date, Secret 6 has worked on a litany of notable projects including The Last of Us Part II—Remastered, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and Diablo IV.
In the days since we published that report, Secret 6 Madrid employees issued a scathing press release with backing from the Spanish labor union CGT that accuses Testronic of sentencing the Madrid office to a slow death by neglecting to provide any contract work, dismissing their CEO in December 2024 and failing to hire a replacement, and outright ignoring the team's repeated requests for support.
"Testronic acquired Secret 6 at the end of 2022, with the promise of providing the necessary support to help it grow in the outsourcing market," reads the press release. "Two and a half years after the acquisition, the Madrid studio has not received a single contract from Testronic. The employees suspect that the initial intention was to drain the studio of its content and offshore the work. Along with CSVI and CGT union, the workers believe may be no valid reason for the redundancy plan."
Secret 6 Madrid and CGT allege that Testronic wants to shutter the studio so it can focus on Secret 6 Manila, where they claim working conditions are "much more precarious and wages much lower." Those factors, they say, will enable Testronic to commit "more unchecked labor exploitation."
"As soon as the Madrid studio was acquired, the new leadership failed to take on the necessary responsibilities and tasks for client acquisition, a role that had been effectively managed by the previous CEO, who was dismissed after fulfilling his sales contract," continues the release.
"Secret 6 Madrid is dedicated exclusively to art development for video games and lacks a department for actively seeking new clients, as it was assured that this responsibility would fall entirely on Testronic and its sales department. In this way, the Madrid studio was left to survive solely on the contracts it had maintained due to its strong reputation with previous clients.
"Given these circumstances, the managers of the Madrid studio tried to coordinate with Testronic's sales team to develop joint strategies that could bring new contracts to the studio. The proposed meetings never took place, and the email exchanges on this matter led nowhere; on several occasions, there was no response from Testronic."
In the face of those issues, Secret 6 Madrid's management team claims it actively sought to attend industry events and contact studios directly to secure contracts and in turn their future. Testronic allegedly refused those requests and even prohibited Secret 6 from directly contacting potential clients. What's more, the Madrid team alleges that only Secret 6 representatives from Manila were allowed to travel to events, leaving them unable to effectively promote their arm of the business.
According to the press release, Testronic also told the Madrid team to raise their fees to increase profit margins "despite repeated warnings from the Madrid managers that this decision would harm the studio and could lead to the loss of contracts—something that, in fact, occurred with two clients the studio had been collaborating with for several years."
"Testronic's response was that if the clients did not agree to these price hikes, the contracts should be terminated immediately, even if this meant not having other projects for the Madrid studio to work on. These price increases were entirely unrealistic and risky, given the current state of the video game market, which is why workers and unions consider it to have been a 'suicidal decision' in every sense."
Secret 6 Madrid claims it proved to be "financially solvent" in terms of production capacity and earnings despite those challenges, and suggests it has a number of clients who wish to continue providing the studio with work.
"I fight for my team and my studio because I believe that we are worth it"
Four members of the Secret 6 Madrid team, including two studio managers, have now spoken to Game Developer to discuss the impact of their fight against their parent company. All four sources chose to remain anonymous for fear of reprisal, but explain how Testronic effectively abandoned Secret 6 Madrid as soon as it was acquired by the company.
"From day one it was quite clear what sort of intentions they had," said one source. "It's that they wanted [to expand their] presence in the Asian market. [...] That's the reason we were feeling a little bit afraid, because we could see that our offices in Manila were more attractive to them than us—even when the strong arm [of the business] is here in Madrid."
They say Testronic's treatment of Secret 6 Madrid is like purchasing a plant and then refusing to water it, and emphasize that the only person at the company who was searching for new contracts under the Testronic banner was their former CEO. We're told how Secret 6 Madrid has received very little support or contact from their parent company, but that their first meeting with a Testronic sales exec made it clear they were "selling smoke" and had no intention of nurturing the Madrid studio.
For instance, multiple sources claim that when Testronic did eventually hire a sales person to assist the studio, they brought in someone who "didn't know the difference between 3D and 2D art." Given Secret 6 Madrid specializes in art outsourcing, it was a confusing decision that left the studio high and dry. "They couldn't sell art, basically." adds another source. "But that's what they told us: 'hey, you've got this person in case you want to use them.' But they didn't do anything."
Another source claims that, the day after Testronic told staff Secret 6 Madrid would be closed, the studio was approached by a client who wanted to sign a contract worth a purported €800,000, but that Testronic remained entirely focused on dismantling the team.
Discussing those aforementioned price hikes, one person says that Testronic didn't advise the Madrid office to raise its prices but rather mandated the move. There was no room for discussion or compromise. "[We were told] 'you are going to raise the rates for every single client by at least 15 percent, and if they say no you are going to stop working for them immediately.' This is not a real strategy."
One source describes that approach was like being forced to play poker without the ability to do anything but go all in on each hand. "It was really, really dangerous for us," they add, noting that relationships with some clients turned sour as a result.
It has culminated in a dire situation that has left Secret 6 Madrid workers fighting for their livelihoods. In an ideal world, the team want to continue developing video games under the Secret 6 banner—but given the precarious situation they have been placed in are also attempting to secure solid severance packages in tandem with CGT. Right now, they haven't ruled out striking if discussions stall.
"The first thing we want is to continue doing our labor. To continue being able to create games, and to continue having this amazing team of people creating games in the future," adds one source. "They don't want to let us continue—and they are saying 'no, we are going to close you down."
Another employee agrees and says Testronic has never made a "serious" proposal that will enable the team to continue working. All four explain that watching Testronic slowly put their studio to the sword over the course of years has massively impacted their wellbeing.
"For me personally it has been awful," says one person. "You could actually see that we were running out of projects for a long time and we couldn't do anything. [...] It has been exhausting, because at some point we realized that we were trying to save something that someone else had decided should be left to die. That was very hard.
"I feel like they took the opportunity for us to be able to keep growing as a team, and that really hurts because there are exceptional people here with a lot of talent and we are very close as a team. I admire every single person here that's in the office and all of our colleagues that are online, and they are great. The humanity that's here is exceptional."
Another source feels Secret 6 Madrid wouldn't be facing closure if Testronic had "wanted to do their job" and claims that lives are being upended because their parent company has abandoned their responsibilities. Such is the feeling of injustice at the decision to shutter Secret 6 Madrid that at least one member of the team has traveled from another region in Spain to Madrid "to fight and sit on the negotiation table."
"I fight for my team and my studio because I believe that we are worth it," they say. That passion is evident no matter who speaks up—although one source explains their frustration has now turned to anger. "They tried to choke us from the start of this whole process—and this is very very frustrating," they add. "[I'm feeling] both stress and fear. A mixture of emotions and feelings, but most of it is rage. We are raging about this whole redundancy process."
The real kicker, according to one person, is that Testronic "will most likely get away with it." As is so often the case when major conglomerates and corporations make sweeping cuts in the name of sustainability, growth, or whatever other buzzword they roll out to appease investors, the executives making those decisions are left unscathed and often escape accountability.
In the case of Testronic, we have reached out multiple times to the company since word of the closure began spreading on social media. So far, we haven't heard back. One source explains they "would love" to hear what the company has to say publicly on the matter—not least because it seems the firm has been decidedly unresponsive when discussing the situation internally. "To be honest, I think they know what they have been doing is wrong," they add. "[But] it's quite clear they don't want to talk."
Game Developer has once again reached out to Testronic for comment.
