The video game industry is an incredibly tough place to work, as we have found out over the years with allegations surfacing of employees at various companies getting mistreated by higher-ups in a variety of ways. Unfortunately, we are continuing to see such behavior being displayed as Ubisoft Paris employees are being called to strike after recent behavior from the company’s CEO Yves Guillemot.
Ubisoft has taken a massive hit financially with games like Mario + Rabbids: Spark of Hope and Just Dance 2023 not performing to their expectations. As a result, the company canceled three unannounced projects. Where Guillemot comes into play in all of this is with an internal email with company employees. In the email that was seen by Kotaku, Guillemot said such remarks as “give it your all”, to be as “efficient and lean as possible”, and that the “ball is in your court”, telling employees to make sure projects are not only done on time but also completed with the proposed budget. Disguised as “encouraging”, the statements from Guillemot come off as disparaging and make it seem as though the employees didn’t work hard by saying “give it your all,” as if they weren’t already doing that from the start.
Following this, a French workers union known as Solidaires Informatique called for Ubisoft Paris employees to do a half-day strike on January 27 from 2 PM to 6 PM. The union demands that: there is an immediate 10% increase in all employee salaries, implementation of a four-day work week, more transparency, and commitment against disguised dismissals and condemnation against abusive managerial policies that would cause workers to quit. Given how abuse of power plagues the video game industry and how much crunch is normalized, their demands are fair. Ubisoft and Guillemot have yet to comment about the situation, but we should hear a statement sooner or later especially as the days tick down to the day of the strike.
