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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?
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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.
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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)_/¯
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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.