UK Government Workers Got Paid To Play GTA Online With Strangers

Getting paid to play video games sounds like a dream job, but the way it actually happened in the UK is raising some serious eyebrows. Civil servants working under the Department for Education were reportedly paid, using taxpayer money, to log into GTA Online and hang out with random strangers as part of a government research project. And now that the story’s out, plenty of officials are not happy about it.

• An “experimental policymaking team” called Policy Lab used GTA Online to study how people behave and connect online.
• Civil servants joined random players, took part in missions like jewelry store heists and assassination jobs, and chatted with people they met.
• The project ran back in late 2024 and was aimed at understanding people’s “lived experience” for future policymaking.
• Policy Lab is a roughly 30-person unit, originally set up under the last Conservative government, with funding continuing under Labour.
• Shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood called the project an “absurd waste of resources.”
• GTA Online is still one of the most profitable games around, reportedly pulling in close to a million dollars a day.

The UK Government Quietly Sent Staff Into GTA Online

According to a report from The Telegraph, a unit inside the UK’s Department for Education known as Policy Lab spent time playing GTA Online as an actual work assignment. This wasn’t some rogue employee gaming on the clock either — it was an organized research project, with staff logging into Rockstar’s open-world crime game and playing alongside total strangers on the internet.

The whole thing ran back in late 2024 and has reportedly wrapped up since, but details only really came to light recently once The Telegraph got hold of internal documentation. And given that GTA is an 18-rated game built around organized crime, heists, and chaos, it’s not exactly the first title that comes to mind when you think “government research tool.”

gta online crew

What Policy Lab Actually Did In-Game

The idea behind the project was to see whether video games could work as what researchers called an “emotionally safe space,” somewhere people might open up more naturally than in a formal interview setting. So instead of surveys or focus groups, Policy Lab staff jumped into GTA Online sessions, played through missions with strangers, and tried to get a feel for how people interact and unwind in these spaces.

The Missions They Took Part In

Civil servants reportedly joined in on some pretty standard GTA Online activities, including robbing a jewelry store and carrying out an assassination-style job against a company executive. Basically, they were doing what any regular player does on a Tuesday night session, just with a notepad mentality running in the background.

What The Research Actually Found

So what did the government actually learn from all this? A few things, apparently. Researchers noted that GTA Online made it easy for people in different locations to meet up and hang out together despite physical distance, something that’s basically the entire appeal of online multiplayer games in general. They also found that conversations tended to flow more naturally during in-game activities like driving, with players opening up more easily while focused on something else rather than sitting face-to-face.

One civil servant reportedly said the experience helped broaden their perspective on social policy, though specifics on exactly how that translated into anything actionable haven’t really been shared. For a project funded with public money, the takeaways so far sound pretty thin.

Why This Is Blowing Up Right Now

Once The Telegraph’s report went public, it didn’t take long for backlash to build. One government source bluntly called the whole project nonsense, arguing that ministers don’t want to see public funds going toward video games. It’s the kind of headline that writes itself: government employees getting paid to play a game known for car chases, shootouts, and chaos, all in the name of research.

Mike Wood And Other Officials Are Not Happy

Shadow Cabinet Office minister Mike Wood didn’t hold back either, calling the project an “absurd waste of resources” and arguing that civil servants need real, applicable skills, with gaming sessions in GTA Online not exactly fitting that bill. He’s pushed for the program to be shut down immediately, framing it as a clear example of taxpayer money not being spent wisely.

What makes this even messier politically is that Policy Lab was originally created under the previous Conservative government, yet funding for this specific project reportedly continued once Labour took over. So depending on who you ask, this is either a leftover initiative nobody bothered to cancel, or an active choice being made right now.

This Isn’t Even Policy Lab’s Weirdest Project

Here’s the part that might surprise you: the GTA Online experiment wasn’t a one-off oddity for this team. Policy Lab has reportedly run other unconventional sessions in the past, including workshops centered around clay modeling and knot tying, plus a project where an artist was hired to paint portraits of welfare recipients as a way to highlight shared humanity. So in the context of everything else this unit has tried, sending staff into GTA Online almost feels like business as usual for them.

Should Tax Money Be Funding This?

It’s easy to see both sides here. On paper, understanding how people actually behave and connect in online spaces isn’t a bad goal for policymakers to have, especially with so much of daily life happening through screens now. But choosing GTA Online specifically, a game built around crime, violence, and plenty of mature content, makes the whole thing an easy target, regardless of how the research was actually conducted.

Given the level of scrutiny this has already attracted, it seems unlikely the UK government will be funding any more “play GTA Online for research” projects anytime soon. Whether that’s the right call or an overreaction probably depends on how much you trust government-run research experiments to begin with.

For more gaming news worth catching up on, check out our coverage of GTA 6’s pre-order date and the car company pausing operations for launch day, the latest on Borderlands 4’s Bounty Pack 3 and Hadron Abyss raid, the Persona 6 Australia rating and release window, and the Minecraft Chaos Cubed update with its new Sulfur Caves mob.