We need to talk about Ubisoft's history of abuse. What they did is NOT okay.

[Zalno]

Here's the article Jason Schreier published yesterday bringing to light even more instances of Ubisoft's abusive culture. Here's a version of that story on another website if you can't read the Bloomberg article. This stuff needs to be discussed more whenever Ubisoft comes up. What they did is EXTREMELY not okay.

 

[zatoseyes]

I shared this yesterday in a Qtoid comment on this subject, but I'll repeat myself here in case it reaches more people. Jim doesn't hold back on Ubisoft ever, but he goes extra hard here and is promising not to let up any time soon. So definitely give this a watch if you have a hard time reading through a whole article on the subject. Ubisoft is an ugly company and the people profiting off of the abuse that it has sheltered should be held accountable for it. I feel awful for the people who have suffered because of the things done by people like Serge Hascoët. His behavior is not only abhorrent, but also perpetuates abuse when others see him get away with it because then they think it's okay. It's not okay to dehumanize people.

And I'll also say again: Fuck Ubisoft.

 

[CIitCommander]

The problem with a lot of these abuses, of differing types, is that a corporation is unstoppable. The corporation I work will never have to answer to anyone because it owns the area and the greater area around where I live. Human Resources is there to keep everything within the company. Also, with no workers rights in many countries, including the USA, means that your voice is small. Local news, social media, etc. help with getting conversations and issues out into the world, but good luck keeping the conversation alive with our short attention spans and lawyers. Money has a lot of sway over what is said and done these days. Ubisoft is a massive company that can afford the millions in compensation it pays out in lawsuits and survives by selling millions. True, there are more fantastic employees at all levels at Ubisoft, I assume, but like many organizations, it only takes one horrible event/abuse sour the name, once out in the open. Sorry for the rambling, but not really.

 

[Tarvu]

Lack of worker rights and protection, yet another reason the US is not part of the developed world!

Jim has been persistent on twitter. He's one of the good ones. He should come write for Destructoid or something.

 

[Panzadolphin56]

I think a lot of what's come out explains the bizarre game design choices they made - like actively avoiding adding female leads to games, or even the choice of female playable characters. I don't know what will fix this, other than a total tear-down and rebuild, these sorts of toxic work cultures don't seem to go away easily.

Are there examples of companies this bad where they've actually turned themselves around and not just gone back to the same culture months later?