Fans of Ubisoft games have been hearing about unprofessional behavior within the company for upwards of a year now. Previous workers under the Assassin's Creed publisher, as well as hundreds of current ones, are standing together against the inactivity of higher-up Ubisoft Management.
Currently, these Ubisoft workers have voiced their support for the Activision Blizzard walk-out and have created a letter addressing their most ultimate concerns. The reality of this situation has been steadily building and has reached its cusp after a gender discrimination lawsuit in California against Activision Blizzard.
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The statement released begins with Ubisoft workers addressing both their own company and Activision Blizzard. Similarly to the Activision Blizzard worker response, Ubisoft employees identify the reasons for their initial lack of action regarding their own previous allegations. They then offer a compassionate understanding with those impacted by the similar Activision Blizzard scandal, and move to demand changes to both companies, and the industry as a whole. Most prominently, this letter is signed by several hundred workers, both current and former looking to demand removal from office the participating parties who continue to allow this misconduct in the workplace.
All of this began about a year ago, when many rumors began regarding Ubisoft's management refusing to act concerning sexual misconduct within the workplace, eventually leading to CCO Serge Hascoet's departure. Company employees provided higher-ups some initial leeway and understanding, as the company immediately addressed the situation with discomfort and shock. As former and current workers at Ubisoft have explained, training and prevention courses regarding this form of conduct have been implemented as a requirement; yet appear to be to no avail. Due at the start of July, employees have been pushing back against management's inaction in Ubisoft Montreal, and have now officially created an open letter demanding change.
Despite some higher-level management leaving the company due to more and more misconduct cases coming to light, a far more discomforting situation has arisen in that much of the guilty management retained their positions. Being reported regularly over Twitter, the summer of 2020 had many women speaking out in both English and French against the allegedly horrible work culture throughout many Ubisoft studios. Eventually even the company's head of Global Human Resources Cécile Cornet left Ubisoft amid widespread mistrust in HR.
Ideally, guilty parties will be removed regardless of their contributions to the company. As the employees have continually outlined, Ubisoft has claimed misunderstandings and chosen profits over security for its workers. This behavior toys with individual employee lives, but fortunately, guilty companies are being put under severe pressure to make large scale changes. If the companies simply choose not to, they may see further situations similar California's on their hands.
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