Logitech is handing all 7,000 of its employees worldwide a day off to play video games, under a new program the company is calling Logi Game Day, as the release of Grand Theft Auto VI approaches next week. The Swiss-American peripherals maker, valued at $13 billion, told Fortune that chief executive Hanneke Faber believes the break will make staff more productive, not less.
How Logi Game Day works
The initiative covers everyone from full-time workers to interns, Fortune reported. Each employee can take one day off at any point between now and this time next year to play a game of their choice. Workers who would rather bank the day can push it into 2027.
“It’s time to retire the stereotype that gaming is a waste of time,” Faber said in a statement. “As a company designing products for work and play, we see every day how engagement in one sphere supports performance in the other.”
Faber is playing on launch day
Faber told Fortune she plans to game on Nov. 19 herself, though she will still go into the office, where the company is turning its space into a gaming lounge for a streaming event. That date is not an accident: it is also the launch date for GTA VI, the latest entry in the Rockstar series after a long wait that Narwhal TV has covered in detail here.
“I’m ready for some fun and (friendly) competition,” Faber told Fortune.
A Logitech spokesperson was blunt about where employees are likely to spend the hours. “If employees choose to spend their Gaming Time Off exploring Vice City on launch day, you won’t hear any complaints from us,” the spokesperson told Fortune.
The $1 billion productivity estimate
Fortune reported that one estimate suggested the U.S. economy could lose as much as $1 billion in productivity as 1.5 million workers potentially skip work for the GTA VI release. Victor Matheson, an economist at the College of the Holy Cross who studies sports and major events, was skeptical that the figure should alarm anyone.
“But even if it were true, it’s not necessarily a bad thing if people are happier,” Matheson previously told Fortune. “And it’s pretty tiny in the big picture anyway.”
Logitech’s wager with Logi Game Day runs in the same direction: that giving employees dedicated time to play could actually make them more productive, according to Fortune’s reporting.
What Logitech’s own survey found
The company released a study last month surveying 900 adults and an additional 100 gamers across nine countries. Four in five respondents agreed that gaming makes them more confident handling real-life challenges and helps them stay calm and focused in high-pressure situations.
“Play is not the opposite of work,” Elaine Laird, Logitech’s chief people officer, said in a statement. “When people have dedicated time to log off, decompress and immerse themselves in play, they return with clearer focus, renewed energy and fresh approaches to complex challenges.”
Logitech’s leadership team is taking part. Laird has a friendly competition with coworkers playing the mobile block puzzle game Block Blast, while chief financial officer Matteo Anversa plans to use his game day on Forza with a simulation racing rig, Fortune reported.
Take-Two lifts its outlook
Grand Theft Auto VI is expected to be one of the biggest entertainment releases of the year, with nearly 8 million copies already estimated to have been sold. Publisher Take-Two Interactive raised its fiscal year 2027 outlook to an estimated $8.2 billion in net bookings in its quarterly earnings report released Monday. The company recorded $5.65 billion in net bookings for fiscal year 2025.
An Army reenlistment pass and a spike in PTO requests
Logitech is not the only organization building something around the launch. A U.S. Army unit in Georgia drew attention earlier this year by offering active-duty soldiers a four-day pass to play the game as a reenlistment incentive.
“The idea was to have a unique incentive program that connects to what soldiers are interested in,” Lt. Col. Angel Tomko, spokesperson for the 3rd Infantry Division, said in a statement to Fortune earlier this year. Nearly two dozen soldiers had signed up at the time.
Employers elsewhere are seeing the pressure in their scheduling systems. Data from BambooHR shows PTO requests for the GTA VI release date are nearly 13% higher than on comparable days in previous years, and the company’s own survey found that 18% of salaried workers said they plan to take the day off for the launch.
Not all of them are filing paperwork. Half of gamers who plan to take time off for an upcoming game release said they intend to call in sick rather than schedule PTO in advance, according to the BambooHR survey Fortune cited — a headache for employers hoping to keep teams fully staffed at the end of next week, and the kind of absence Logi Game Day is designed to head off at Logitech.
