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IGN: Ubisoft Montreal is currently in Turmoil

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Draugoth

Gold Member
Logo_Ubisoft_Montreal.png

On September 11, most of the over 4,000 employees at Ubisoft Montreal returned to office in Montreal’s Mile End for the first time in three years. But hardly anyone seems happy about it, and many are furious at what they’re calling broken promises from Ubisoft leadership.

Since Ubisoft Montreal announced that employees would be returning to the office beginning September 11, the studio’s intranet has been lighting up with posts ranging from mild concern to outright anger. IGN has viewed a number of comments on the situation across multiple Ubisoft internal postings, including over 270 comments on the announcement post alone - almost all of which were negative.

Many of the comments list numerous issues employees have historically had working from the office before as reasons not to return: noisy calls in an open office, increased expenses, and a lack of sufficient equipment or accommodations. But the anger also runs deeper than the inherent problems with returning to the office. Amid a wider company culture of layoffs, game cancellations, and abuse allegations, this mandated office return seems to be the final straw for a number of employees who feel that Ubisoft management’s indifference to its workers has gone on long enough.

Broken Promises​

Ubisoft’s overarching return to office plan across all its studios was first kicked off in the summer of 2021, roughly coinciding with widespread availability of the first vaccines against the COVID-19 pandemic. But in Montreal, where Far Cry 6, Roller Champions, For Honor, and multiple Assassin’s Creed games were made, employees tell IGN that the company’s publicly touted plan simply…never happened.

Instead, they say they were reassured repeatedly over two years that they could remain 100% remote long-term, with many employees making major life decisions or even accepting job offers assuming they could work from home for the foreseeable future. IGN has viewed a number of documents circulated on the company intranet over the last few years that seem to back up this belief. In one example, Ubisoft promises a “hybrid, flexible working environment” where “100% remote work will be possible depending on various criteria, such as productivity and impact on the team, as well as the nature of the work being done.”

But now that’s changing. Beginning September 11, 2023, Montreal employees are expected to work a minimum of two days a week out of the office. The requirement is mandatory for all employees, with exemptions only made for employees with explicit needs “once all other solutions have been explored.”

The announcement immediately sparked anger within the studio, with posts on the company’s intranet listing numerous issues employees have historically had working from the office before as reasons not to return: noisy calls in an open office, transit costs, and a lack of sufficient equipment or accommodations for specific accessibility needs and working styles. A handful of employees brought up the quality of the Montreal office specifically, mentioning past issues such as leaks, rats, bugs, and dearth of typical office perks such as free coffee. Several raised health concerns, citing ongoing fears about the spread of COVID-19. And many developers accused Ubisoft of breaking its promises around 100% work-from-home, with multiple employees saying they had either accepted a job at Ubisoft or made a major life change (such as buying a house outside of Montreal) believing it was a permanent policy.

One key theme in many comments is a broader lack of trust in the company to provide good working conditions and keep its promises over time. It’s been three years since the company was rocked with allegations of a toxic work environment, but some employees have publicly claimed these allegations have yet to be sufficiently addressed. On top of that, the company has now done multiple rounds of layoffs just this year amid much wider financial cuts, cancelled a number of both announced and unannounced games, and seen multiple others release and underperform. With that much chaos so readily apparent externally, it’s unsurprising that a Montreal return-to-office renege is serving as the final straw for many.

Several employees have gone as far as to speculate that the change was effectively a soft layoff on the part of Ubisoft in an effort to assuage said recent financial woes. By introducing an unpopular policy, they suggested, Ubisoft could push employees to quit and reduce headcount without having to pay severance or deal with other potential financial drawbacks of a mass layoff.

Multiple commenters pointed out that Ubisoft Montreal has long had agreements with the Quebec and Montreal governments to bring jobs and foot traffic to Montreal, in return for significant tax credits that have driven wider industry growth in the province. But the program has historically been a controversial one, and its merits may well be under scrutiny again amid Montreal’s wider struggles to rejuvenate its downtown post-pandemic and a broader trend in worker disinterest in return to office.

“The blog post cited things like ‘Ubisoft culture’ and ‘collaboration’ as the reasons we needed to return to the office, but never once explained what problems a lack of these things had caused, or what steps had been taken to alleviate them before turning to RTO as the solution, or what kind of changes management expects to see as a result of RTO and how we are to measure the success of this plan,” one employee told IGN. “The lack of substance about why we are doing this and how can we know if it's working has led a lot of people to believe the reasons we are being given are lies and the management are afraid to say the real reasons out loud.”’

An Imminent Exodus?​

While employees are being encouraged to speak with individual managers for accommodations, Ubisoft’s internal documentation has implied that exemptions “will only be considered once all other solutions have been explored.” Meanwhile, multiple employees IGN spoke to have attested that Ubisoft’s system for finding these solutions isn’t working well thus far. One said that employees who have been using standing desks or other specific equipment from home are unable to get what they need in-office without “a fight and 20 doctor’s notes”.

What’s more, the accommodations system seems to be bottlenecking quickly due to a flood of requests, and not enough people to fulfill them. Another person noted that Ubisoft leaders appear to be delegating responsibility managing employee frustration to middle managers, who seem largely powerless to address the anger.

IGN reached out to Ubisoft for comment on this story, and received the following statement in response:

Like many companies in entertainment and tech, we are asking our colleagues to come back to the office for key moments identified by each team. We are convinced that the synergy, in-person discussions, rapid iterations, and a sense of belonging that happens more in person will help us be more effective and agile together, and achieve our business goals.
First announced early in June, the hybrid mode goes into place on Monday, September 11, and we are accompanying our colleagues through these changes, giving them additional flexibility over the next eight weeks or more to adapt. Open and ongoing conversations in addition to extensive individual accommodation and arrangements are currently underway to ease this transition and the impact on everyone's well-being, which remains our priority to continue to deliver great games.
While it remains to be seen how the unpopular return to Ubisoft Montreal’s office will impact the studio long-term, one possible model can be found over at Blizzard. Like Ubisoft, Blizzard has similarly been embroiled in a series of very public upheavals over its work culture, seen a wave of employee collective action, and laid off hundreds over the last few years. And then, like Ubisoft, Blizzard instituted its own similarly unpopular forced return-to-office earlier this year. So what happened to Blizzard? Well, according to Blizzard developers on social media, the RTO policy resulted in a mass exodus of talent so impactful that at one point that the company was creating “crisis maps” of what it could and could not ship with the people it had left.

Whether or not Ubisoft will follow suit remains to be seen, though a number of employee comments implied or even outright stated that the policy change had sparked them to look for work elsewhere. Recent history, too, indicates that employees are fed up to the point of departure. [Update: Ubisoft reached out post-publication to note that Ubisoft rehired 600 former employees in fiscal 2021-22.] With Ubisoft as a company grasping for a return to form after multiple sales disappointments, delays, and cancellations, one wonders how much longer it can afford to enrage and upset its largest and most prolific development studio.
 

StereoVsn

Member
Ubisoft has a lot of issues with leadership and many problems with broken promises.

However, this blow up is over the following:

"Montreal employees are expected to work a minimum of two days a week out of the office. "

Yes, it's only 2 days in the office, not the full week. I find a firestorm over 2 days in the office ridiculous.

Yes there will be exception where some folks may have moved based on Ubi assurances and those employees should be accommodated. The rest, 2 days is a pretty light hybrid work schedule.

zjMFj6f.gif
 

StereoVsn

Member
Ubisoft is a fucking awful company, run by fucking awful people… but ‘employees mad because they have to come into the office’ is the lamest shit I’ve seen in a long time.
And it's not the full week in the office, which admittedly would be pretty and and unnecessary as I disbelieve that particular necessity.

It's 2 days which is super reasonable and I think helps a lot with team cohesion.
 
Instead, they say they were reassured repeatedly over two years that they could remain 100% remote long-term, with many employees making major life decisions or even accepting job offers assuming they could work from home for the foreseeable future. IGN has viewed a number of documents circulated on the company intranet over the last few years that seem to back up this belief. In one example, Ubisoft promises a “hybrid, flexible working environment” where “100% remote work will be possible depending on various criteria, such as productivity and impact on the team, as well as the nature of the work being done.”

Sounds like a legitimate grievance. Why are so many people wanting to just assume remote workers are lazy and whiney? I worked from home during the pandemic. It was still work. Like, a whole lot of work. I had to return pretty early on but my position's effectiveness really suffers remotely. That's not true for every gig, though. At the end of the day, because of technology, a whole lot of jobs can be done from home and that's pretty great. This gut reaction of wanting to see the labor of those who work from home as lesser is strange. It reminds me of my dad telling me about how some of his in-laws would look down on him because, even though he was more successful, the fact that his job didn't require physical labor made it somehow not as valid as the work that they did.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Sure, but it's 2 days Hybrid in the office. I mean, come on, it's not the end of the world and original headline made it seemed this was super crunch time or full on 5 day in the office schedule.
Yeah I agree, I don’t think it should be an issue. But if 100% is what they said to their staff that’s on the employer.

I'm sure they didnt mean 'remote work' for the remainder of history. Even if they didnt mention a timeframe, common sense should come into play.
Really depends on how it’s handled. If you hire people who live far away or your staff starts moving far away because you promised them they’d be able to you shouldn’t expect them to just head on back to the offices when you suddenly feel like they should.
 
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StereoVsn

Member
Yeah I agree, I don’t think it should be an issue. But if 100% is what they said to their staff that’s on the employer.


Really depends on how it’s handled. If you hire people who live far away or your staff starts moving far away because you promised them they’d be able to you shouldn’t expect them to just head on back to the offices when you suddenly feel like they should.
Yeah, this is certainly partially on Ubisoft and employees who changed locations should be accommodated.

However, for everyone else it shouldn't be such a huge deal. Unless Ubi has stupid open office floorplan, then i totally get it.
 

Robb

Gold Member
However, for everyone else it shouldn't be such a huge deal.
Totally. We have this where I work as well, and our company were very clear on being able to work remotely during the pandemic but that the long-term expectation was to go back to the offices again when possible.

And despite that people still complained like crazy when they started “forcing” people back. Very silly.
 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Your employer wants you in the office...shock horror.

Oh no, not the office. Anything but that

Get back to work you lazy greasy cunts. They cant fuck about now, hopefully lots of crunch coming there way.
First couple of posts and none bother even reading the first few sentences?

Instead, they say they were reassured repeatedly over two years that they could remain 100% remote long-term, with many employees making major life decisions or even accepting job offers assuming they could work from home for the foreseeable future. IGN has viewed a number of documents circulated on the company intranet over the last few years that seem to back up this belief. In one example, Ubisoft promises a “hybrid, flexible working environment” where “100% remote work will be possible depending on various criteria, such as productivity and impact on the team, as well as the nature of the work being done.”

Ubisoft lied to their employees. I'm sure you people would be up in arms if they downgraded your games' graphics but lying to employees is just fine and people are whiners.
 

diffusionx

Gold Member
I can’t be the only one who noticed that Ubisoft went from consistently pumping out massive AAA games that were developed by teams across the globe to being totally unable to ship anything on time, and this coincided with a massive purge of senior leadership, the leadership that made the company what it was.

if there is any company that should be mandated RTO it’s Ubi because what they’ve been doing the past few years is not working and the devs seemingly do not care (another piece of evidence: when the CEO said that the success of the company is on everyone in a critical year they whined to the press). this company is totally doomed.
 

Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Looks like they failed to meet the criteria

“The blog post cited things like ‘Ubisoft culture’ and ‘collaboration’ as the reasons we needed to return to the office, but never once explained what problems a lack of these things had caused, or what steps had been taken to alleviate them before turning to RTO as the solution, or what kind of changes management expects to see as a result of RTO and how we are to measure the success of this plan,” one employee told IGN. “The lack of substance about why we are doing this and how can we know if it's working has led a lot of people to believe the reasons we are being given are lies and the management are afraid to say the real reasons out loud.”’
They don't even tell them why it's become mandatory.

And that's the same company that was in hot water for allegedly multiple cases of sexual harassment and employee mistreatment. It was also the same company whose shitstain CEO tried to shift the blame of their failures onto his people as if they were the ones that decided to turn every game into garbage GAAS. Ubisoft gets no benefit of the doubt from me. I know three people who bailed from there just in the past 3 months and they were long time employees and all three couldn't be happier.
 

Skifi28

Member
First couple of posts and none bother even reading the first few sentences?



Ubisoft lied to their employees. I'm sure you people would be up in arms if they downgraded your games' graphics but lying to employees is just fine and people are whiners.
There is no such thing as 100% guarantee in things like this. If you make big life decision based on always working from home then you take a big risk and you should know about it. Just from the quoted parts, it's hard to ignore how many loopholes there are.
 
They don't even tell them why it's become mandatory.

And that's the same company that was in hot water for allegedly multiple cases of sexual harassment and employee mistreatment. It was also the same company whose shitstain CEO tried to shift the blame of their failures onto his people as if they were the ones that decided to turn every game into garbage GAAS. Ubisoft gets no benefit of the doubt from me. I know three people who bailed from there just in the past 3 months and they were long time employees and all three couldn't be happier.

Don't need to say the obvious when it's apparent to everyone else on the outside.

They're doing a shit job remotely. Time to move their asses back in
 

keraj37

Contacted PSN to add his card back to his account
You know, if you work in some "open-office" environment, then I can totally understand why you wouldn't want to return there. Open-offices are the worst fucking shit corporate America has brought upon the world.
Yep, worst working enviro, just unbearable. Last time I worked in open office with 50 people in it, there were few using old noisy keyboard etc, just terrible, never again.
 
Yes Ubisoft told people a few years ago that 100% WFH was possible. The company changed their opinion and now wants people back in the office 2 days a week. That sucks and I really feel bad for these people that made life decisions based on that.

However, that's life. Companies do shit like this all the time. They hire people thinking they're expanding, they fire people a year later when they change their minds.
 
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Braag

Member
Most offices my friends work at wanted employees back in the office as soon as Covid restrictions eased up. For them to have to only now go to office and only 2 days a week sounds chill af.
Our office lets you work max 1-2 days from home a week. And some weeks they want you only there.
 
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