A Ubisoft developer I spoke with in 2022 was feeling pretty jealous. Ancient Ring had just come out and was blowing people away. Despite FromSoftware’s reputation for challenging gameplay and esoteric design, the open-world RPG has been break into the mainstream. It was a hardcore game, but it wasn’t just enjoyed by hardcore gamers. Ubisoft had thousands of people working on open-world RPGs for years. Why couldn’t he make one that was just as bold, dynamic and creatively powerful?
A version of this question has haunted the French publisher since Ghost Recon Breakpoint bombed in 2019. It wasn’t a terrible game, just a bland and boring game. He became the poster child for Ubisoft’s bloated blockbuster that seemed designed by committee for no one in particular. Co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot promised radical reforms to get to the bottom of what went wrong in the publisher’s production processes. Five years and several organizational “resets” later, it’s unclear whether the company has gotten any closer to an answer.
The untenable situation exploded again this week with Ubisoft’s announcement significant delays, cancellations, cost reductions and restructuring this will lead to significant operating losses in the short term and more uncertainty in the long term. Ubisoft market capitalization Before Breakpoint was close to 10 billion euros. Since then, it has fallen 95 percent at only 500 million euros. The news was shocking, especially for the more than 15,000 employees across the company’s global network of studios who found out the news alongside everyone else in an end-of-day message from the CEO.
“A raging boss” “The strategic and organizational changes that we will make in the weeks and months to come will propel Ubisoft into its future. They will allow us to reconnect with our DNA – that of one of the largest and most historic video game companies in the world – and to regain our creative leadership as well as our competitiveness,” we can read in part. He then explains a new, less bureaucratic structure for decision-making and organizing franchises like The division And Beyond good and evil while also noting that there would be more pain to come as management continues to “make difficult decisions, including halting certain projects” and “potentially closing certain studios.”
Between the big vision and the subtle threats came the reversal of a hybrid work-from-home policy that would directly impact everyone who works at Ubisoft. Staff would be back in the office five days a week, but with the promise of a generous number of work-from-home days. “The intention is not to question individual performance, but to regenerate our collective performance, which is one of the key elements to create the best games with the required speed,” writes Guillemot.
There was immediate confusion and frustration. A French union representing Ubisoft’s Paris developers has called a half-day strike. “There is no question of letting a boss go wild and destroy our working conditions”, Solidaires Informatique wrote in a press release. “Maybe we need to remind him that it’s his employees who make the games.” Even more colorful quotes were given to French news channel BFM TV. “[Guillemot] “He’s senile like Donald Trump,” an anonymous employee told the station. “He is losing his mind, we need to get him out of the management of the company. [board]. He’s ruining everything and screwing up the company.
Return to the office, talent drain Employees also spoke out directly on Ubisoft’s internal messaging forum, based on screenshots shared with me. “A full return to the office will only result in the departure of a significant number of critical talent from the company, and nothing is being done to prevent this,” one developer wrote. “Why doesn’t senior management take responsibility for the many mistakes and errors of the past? Instead, only workers bear the consequences.” Another wrote: “Since joining Ubisoft, I have seen more changes in RTO policy than improvement and success of the company. » A third did not mince his words. “This is probably the most embarrassing moment I have felt while working anywhere,” they wrote.
What’s particularly galling about the new return-to-office policy for some Parisian employees is that they had only just finished negotiations to guarantee two days of working from home per week. “It’s only been six months since the situation more or less ‘returned to normal’ and now it’s turned upside down by Yves’ single decision with zero justification, zero documents, zero internal studies proving that RTO increases productivity or morale, nothing,” one developer told me.
Specific details of the return to office policy rollout have not yet been communicated to everyone, could vary from team to team, and may not go into effect until well into the year. What is clear is that Ubisoft is beginning to consolidate its Parisian activities under one roof: the Floresco headquarters, completed in 2021. “In the coming years, Ubisoft plans to gradually bring together our teams based in the Paris region in the same building in Saint Mandé. This initiative aims to optimize our workspace, encourage greater collaboration between teams and make better use of existing facilities, while being implemented gradually and in close dialogue with our collaborators,” a Ubisoft spokesperson confirmed in an email.
Definition of madness There are concerns that these changes could make it harder for Ubisoft to recruit the talent it needs to improve, or worse yet, actively drive more existing veterans away from the company. But some employees also shared a broader disappointment with Ubisoft’s recent creative drift. “We need to stop following trends, trying to navigate saturated markets, cleaning up our projects and, most importantly, deciding which games will be made behind closed doors,” one employee wrote this week on the company’s internal forum. They pointed to the launch of financial sinkholes like Skull and bones and Ubisoft’s many failed attempts at battle royales and live-shooting.
In many ways, this week felt like a repeat of two years ago. The company I had just canceled several matches and delayed a bunch of others. He promised organizational changes and a strengthening of the company’s largest franchises. The stakes were just as high and the solutions far from clear. “The ball is in your court”, Guillemot wrote to employees at the time. The developers were also furious. The CEO later apologized for the way the remark was phrased, but two years later, some people at Ubisoft feel like nothing has changed.
A current employee posted the following comment internally this week. “To quote one of the greatest video game villains: ‘Have I ever told you what the definition of insanity is? Insanity is doing the exact same thing over and over again, expecting shit to change. It’s crazy.’ – Vaas Montenegro.
