-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
1,200 Ubisoft workers strike in response to recent restructuring
Roman Empire
Member
Ubisoft won't ever become better with the Guillemot in power. They'll never let go of that bone.
These people probably already know they are being laid off anyway. There is no simple solution for Ubisoft other than going under and the Guillemot go make ruckus on some other venture. These people are like parasites.
These people probably already know they are being laid off anyway. There is no simple solution for Ubisoft other than going under and the Guillemot go make ruckus on some other venture. These people are like parasites.
neo raider
Member
Nah I like the z flip more
bighugeguns
Gold Member
Who knows, dude, game dev is so locked up in NDAs and hush culture that we're always left speculating.
This seems like a standard labour dispute action, but the question is, what lead to this?
Last edited:
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
When you let the wolves into the henhouse...
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Ubisoft still has over 15k employees.
Seems like a mix of management going back on agreed upon RTO/Remote Work mandates and Ubisoft being in the process of stepping on the fingers of people they threw overboard while their shiny new
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Typically, managers have a pain in the ass time picking and choosing who to fire when directed. What happens is if there's an exec decision, the CEO often doesnt even care that much where it comes from since he's not super close to all the department functions and what everyone does. Although maybe in gaming the Guillemot fam is super close with every person and what each studio does making it easier to pick and choose who goes first.
But if it's a holistic kind of restructure, what happens is the execs look at the size of each department and literally just tells each director to chop let's say 10% of people. He will pick some managers reporting to him to go (if any) and the managers who report to him pick people.
Then the teams and HR go through a round of looking at who to cut and each director will fight to keep their team, while others fight to keep their team etc... It's one big calibration meeting similar to who gets promoted and best perf evaluations. But in this case it's the reverse with who to fire.
But all this striking and protesting just made life easy who to fire! LOL. I'm sure all the bosses and HR have big smiles on their face who to gas first.
But if it's a holistic kind of restructure, what happens is the execs look at the size of each department and literally just tells each director to chop let's say 10% of people. He will pick some managers reporting to him to go (if any) and the managers who report to him pick people.
Then the teams and HR go through a round of looking at who to cut and each director will fight to keep their team, while others fight to keep their team etc... It's one big calibration meeting similar to who gets promoted and best perf evaluations. But in this case it's the reverse with who to fire.
But all this striking and protesting just made life easy who to fire! LOL. I'm sure all the bosses and HR have big smiles on their face who to gas first.
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
This isn't the US. Both France and Italy have constitutional protections for employees engaging in lawful strikes.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Yup. Seems accurate. Google check (assuming it's close enough) had UBI at 17-19k people in 2025. But recent 3k layoffs = about 15k left.
The only gaming company with potentially more is MS due to acquiring Activision whose a ton of people alone (over 10,000 alone). Google check say 20,000 total employees in 2024, but with layoffs lately must be less by now.
Regardless, UBI is a trainwreck, sales arent even great at about $2B US or so and somehow they got 15k employees. EA has a similar amount at 15k, but big difference is they got over triple the sales and make over $1B/yr profit.
Last edited:
Bernardougf
Gold Member
Nothing wrong with that if it's included in the right way.
Team Skoda
Member
Ubisoft shareholders VS employees...
Not_A-Cop_Maybe
Member
how will the execs make their millions?
How will the nepo baby of the previous CEO cash his paycheck after his daddy got him the management job he has no skill doing?
I know gaf is pretty center to right leaning, but if 1200 employees are saying they are run by assholes, maybe- just maybe its not the employees with the pink and blue hair and the "DEI" hires that are the problem. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Last edited:
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
That's the usual union strategy (whether the workers striking are unionized or not).
They are betting that striking when the company is hurting the most will get execs bending the most to get product made and sales back on track.
We'll see.
good luck with that
A three-day international strike is underway at Ubisoft in response to its recent restructuring, with at least 1,200 employees taking part yesterday.
Marc Rutschlé, Solidaires Informatique union representative at Ubisoft Paris, confirmed the participation numbers to GamesIndustry.biz. He noted that the strike mostly took place in France, with additional activity at Ubisoft Milan.
The strike is running from February 10 to February 12, 2026.
Source
iHaunter
Member
So funny seeing people support millionaires rather than people. CEO is an absolute dipshit.
IFireflyl
Gold Member
Where did I "support millionaires rather than people"? Since when did it become evil for a company to require people to work onsite? Working from home only kicked off in 2020 due to a global pandemic. Before that nobody batted an eye at companies requiring people to work onsite. How is it wrong for companies to now mandate being onsite, but for countless centuries prior to 2020 this was just fine? Why are people throwing tantrums over this instead of applying for other jobs that will allow them to work remote? These workers aren't victims; no crime has been committed and no harm has been done.
Just so you know, I've been fully remote (working from home) since June of 2019, prior to the pandemic work-from-home shift. If my job ever mandates that I go back into the office, I will have to decide if I'm okay with that or if I want to apply elsewhere to keep the ability to work from home. What I'm not going to do is act like the company has mistreated me, nor will I go on strike. That's stupid.
Last edited:
icecold1983
Member
Are the french the laziest peoples to ever exist?
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
And nobody in the world told employees during covid lock down to move houses being even FARTHER away from the office. But some numbnuts did.
When all of us were back in the office for 1 day/week for one year, it then increased to 2 days/week.
When that new announcement came, all directors called in their team in separate meetings to tell the news. Youd think during covid lockdown, germs and uncertainty about job security would make people put moving houses last on their to do list. Nope. Some people moved. Even just thinking of it logically during that time of vaccines and masks, who would want to even go through the hassle moving into someone else's germ infested home?
So when the director told us 2 days/week and asked for any questions, one person told the director her fam moved and now her commute will be about double going from 45 min to 1.5 hours. And she doesnt want to take toll highway 407 to reduce time because it costs money. Commuting twice a week is basically a slog.
The rest of us are silent staring at her and what the boss what say. All he did was brush it off saying let's discuss between them.
So she moves, nobody told her or anyone during covid to go nuts moving houses, and somehow it's the company and boss' fault she cant handle commuting twice now. lol
Last edited:
Bernardougf
Gold Member
Without millionaires and ceos this people dont get a job ...they are not slaves, its a job provided by the millionaires you hate, take it or leave it .... this ant rich socialist crap is braindead at best and absolutely retarded at worst.
KanKamAndNob
Member
Fr. Everyone in this situation is a villain imo. It's like if Johan Liebert and Light Yagami were trying to kill each other:
iHaunter
Member
Most CEOs didn't create the companies they work in and have been proven to be more useless than AI.
In France it's next to impossible to fire ppl on permanent contract. Let alone doing it on short notice and in response to something that isn't borderline illegal conduct.
Andrew Evenstar
Member
massive layoffs incoming !!!!!!! 
peish
Member
That will create entitled workforce and things wont get done. I think the italian rave party just crossed the line from entitlement to entitled as fuck. If im the boss around, I want nothing to do with them. You are fired! You you and you! Spare me the drama whores!
semiconscious
Member
strike or rave? strike or rave? being a dissatisfied employee at ubisoft has become just so goddamn complicated...
We have over 4 decades of evidence that productivity of "at will" employed studios in US is not any better (the opposite if anything) than the "entitled" counterparts everywhere else in the world.
The only reason this is a discussion at all is ppl who 'want' to be the person screaming "you're fired" at others. Not for any pragmatic reason or benefit but purely the power fantasy enactment of it.
peish
Member
That's the thing, this ubisoft RTO/WFH drama exposes why the productivity is poor for the operating costs of some western studios
Too many entitled who are not as talented as to what they are bargaining for
At least the asian development gets the shjt done even if some practice 996
Last edited:
After seeing how pop remake was handled I am 100 percent of board with the new direction of ubisoft and bringing back developers back to the office amd canceling many games tht are wasteful resources. Developers are directors mishandled games fir a decade at ubisoft .they want to keep the slop going i hope new uhisoft wins
If they put this much collective effort into making games not a strike we'd get pop remake by now
Its almost like they dont want the quality of the games to improve....maybe its what I always suspected tht most employees and directors at ubisoft at just trying to drag on developemnt and projects etc for money from ubsioft. The longer the project longer the money they make
Last edited:
Its both. Both are ruining ubisoft but we already know management will never truly get replaced or fired as they are in charge... only tencant purchase lit a fire up their ass in some of them are finaly being checked for their awful job at managing game development but overall management wil stay the same unless tencant gets more involved.
Astral_lion02
Neo Member
Fired peoples will struggle to find a new job in the game industry.More layoffs tomorrow
The state of the industry in France is awful.
I think Ubisoft fall will have a big impact in the futur of the game industry here.
Job offerts in the games industry by year by region:
Source: afjv (Île de France = near Paris)
But at least Clair Obscur is doing well lol.
blastprocessor
The Amiga Brotherhood
Bought some shares as a punt.
Now fire them and replace them with generative AI
Now fire them and replace them with generative AI
That may or may not be the case - but none of the RTO mandates do a single thing to improve situation with said talent (or lack of thereof).
Corporate at scale has been spinning hot air on this for several years with zero benefits to productivity either.
I mean - the core of what made game studios at large (in any region) 'productive' has always been passion for the craft, everything else is just noise.
It is true that as industry grew - it also attracted a lot more talent that is treating it as 'just a job' which inevitably changed that dynamic. But the fault of that is less with individuals and mostly with incompetence of leadership to continue attracting (and more importantly - nurturing and retaining, instead of wasting) the talent that 'is' passionate about the industry.
Ubisoft (alongside everyone else) spend decades burning through people instead of trying to grow them, that bill was always going to come due at some point or another - especially when every other industry pays rates dramatically higher than they do, with less stress and frequently better working conditions.
Last edited:
xrnzaaas
Member
Ubisoft can still decide to shut down entire studios, maybe not in France since it's their home turf, but other countries don't get that extra protection. The reasoning that the studio was marked to be closed anyway and the attempts to unionize have nothing to do with it was already tested by other big publishers.