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[IbizaPocholo]

Ubisoft Paris Employees To Strike Following CEO Comments

Ubisoft employees announce a strike in response to comments made by CEO Yves Guillemot.

www.dualshockers.com

Employees of Ubisoft's Paris division are set to strike on January 27. This comes as a response to statements made by Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot on his plan to combat the company's poor financial performance in 2022.

As reported by Kotaku, Guillemot intends to cut company expenses by $215 million. In an email to employees, he called for unity and dedication, writing "I am also asking that each of you be especially careful and strategic with your spending and initiatives, to ensure we’re being as efficient and lean as possible."

In response, the Ubisoft-Paris chapter of the trade union Solidaires Informatique announced its intention to strike. Union members say Guillemot's language is a dog whistle signaling the deterioration of working conditions at the company, and in response, the union members have released a set of demands.

The union accuses Guillemot of passing corporate failures onto the workforce and warns that his request for employees to "give their all" could increase developer burnout and harsher crunch cycles. Employees claim there is plenty of money to go around without resorting to Guillemot's austerity measures. It cites millions made in stock sold to the company's largest shareholder, Chinese tech giant Tencent, which accounts for 11% of the company's stock.

 

[geary]

I'm gonna go on strike because you ask me to work more efficiently. Seems legit.

 

[Nautilus]

Oh yeah. Go strike for the poor performance of the company, making it perform even poorer.

Great plan.

 

[Kerotan]

French and strikes. Bear's and shitting in woods. We shouldn't be surprised.

 

[winjer]

What an amazing leader.

 

[TVexperto]

I believe Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, should step down for several reasons. Firstly, the company has faced numerous accusations of toxic and discriminatory workplace culture, with multiple high-profile employees being accused of misconduct. This clearly indicates a failure in leadership and a lack of proper oversight from the top.

Secondly, the company has also faced criticism for its handling of several recent game releases, with issues ranging from bugs and technical problems to narrative and design issues. This suggests a lack of proper project management and quality control within the company.
Lastly, the company's financial performance has been underwhelming in recent years, with stock prices and profits declining. This could be due to a combination of the above issues, as well as a lack of innovative and successful new game releases.

Overall, I believe that new leadership is needed to address these issues and steer Ubisoft in a better direction. The company has too much potential to be held back by these problems, and it's time for a change at the top.

 

[FUBARx89]

I get them being pissed off with him basically passing the buck saying it's up to them, not management to sort it out.

But it's hardly what they're striking for looking at the demands

 

[Bragr]

Absolute fucking pussies, no wonder Yves wants them gone.

"The union accuses Guillemot of passing corporate failures onto the workforce and warns that his request for employees to "give their all" could increase developer burnout and harsher crunch cycles."

They are angry he told them to give it their all. Jesus what a world we live in.

 

[winjer]

Absolute fucking pussies, no wonder Yves wants them gone.

"The union accuses Guillemot of passing corporate failures onto the workforce and warns that his request for employees to "give their all" could increase developer burnout and harsher crunch cycles."

They are angry he told them to give it their all. Jesus what a world we live in.

What are you on about? If there is someone that screwed up the company many times over, was the CEO.
It was Yves Guillemot that put the company in the precarious situation it is today. And now he is throwing the workers under the bus.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Absolute fucking pussies, no wonder Yves wants them gone.

"The union accuses Guillemot of passing corporate failures onto the workforce and warns that his request for employees to "give their all" could increase developer burnout and harsher crunch cycles."

They are angry he told them to give it their all. Jesus what a world we live in.

I'm gonna go on strike because you ask me to work more efficiently. Seems legit.

Found the corporate slaves.

 

[geary]

Found the corporate slaves.

See you near the feminists.

 

[Rentahamster]

Executives need to take more responsibility for their poor leadership and shitty state of modern AAA gaming. The buck stops here. It's not the lower level developers' fault that management tells them to implement badly monetized game design in the name of profits.

 

[The Cockatrice]

See you near the feminists.

I'd rather suck a womans ass than a french dudes ass.

 

[MMaRsu]

I'm gonna go on strike because you ask me to work more efficiently. Seems legit.

Uhm Yves is driving the company into the ground with his horrible decisions.

Him blaming developers would make me strike as well, matter of fact I would probably just quit.

Fuck Yves and his cronies, and fuck all yall putting the blame on the devs here, or calling 'pink haired wokeness' the blame here.

 

[DeepEnigma]

I'd rather suck a womans ass than a french dudes ass.

IDK, current year feminism might just be the latter.

 

[MMaRsu]

Oh yeah. Go strike for the poor performance of the company, making it perform even poorer.

Great plan.

literally brainless

 

[crackajack]

Was Jade Raymond maybe very important for management there? Seems like she was there exactly when a bunch of, though not all very successful but generally considered good titles came out, while now ubi seems to live of that exact past era and kind of not really steering anywhere.

 

[Fuz]

As reported by Kotaku, Guillemot intends to cut company expenses by $215 million. In an email to employees, he called for unity and dedication, writing "I am also asking that each of you be especially careful and strategic with your spending and initiatives, to ensure we’re being as efficient and lean as possible."

How much Guillemot earns, exactly?

 

[The Cockatrice]

IDK, current year feminism might just be the latter.

 

[MMaRsu]

Was Jade Raymond maybe very important for management there? Seems like she was there exactly when a bunch of, though not all very successful but generally considered good titles came out, while now ubi seems to live of that exact past era and kind of not really steering anywhere.

Nope

Yves shit on Michael Ancel, Jade Raymond, Patrice Desilets.

 

[MMaRsu]

How much Guillemot earns, exactly?

According to Google:

Yves Guillemot, CEO Ubisoft $925,314 (total compensation) $642 (hourly average)

 

[amigastar]

What an amazing leader.

Now thats an awesome special effect

 

[Rentahamster]

With that salary, maybe Yves is the one who should work harder lol.

 

[winjer]

Now thats an awesome special effect

Don't tell me you have never seen Hot Shots.

 

[Sybrix]

Ubisoft is way too big for a gaming company.

It's the reason why Ubisoft games for the last 5 years have been complete shit.

Assassins Creed
Ghost Recon
Rainbow 6
Far Cry
Watch Dogs
The Division

and many more smaller games.

Many of the games have new iterations so soon after the previous game, AC being the biggest culprit of this and the games suck.

The same old Ubi formula that is so predictable and bland.

No wonder Ubisoft is losing so much money.

They need to trim the fat, get rid of the crap and focus on making good games with few studios.

 

[amigastar]

Don't tell me you have never seen Hot Shots.

Seen it and loving it
btw thats the father of Jeff Bridges.

 

[Bragr]

What are you on about? If there is someone that screwed up the company many times over, was the CEO.
It was Yves Guillemot that put the company in the precarious situation it is today. And now he is throwing the workers under the bus.

He also made it.

And he's not throwing anyone under any bus. He's been mild and tactful about a serious situation.

You are buying into a false narrative, this is drip-feed nonsense.

Yves let people know that the company is in a hard spot and that unless the output increases, the company will downsize. A lot of companies do that, he has the guts to let them know upfront.

 

[winjer]

Seen it and loving it
btw thats the father of Jeff Bridges.

 

[OmegaSupreme]

With that salary, maybe Yves is the one who should work harder lol.

Management has the burden of responsibility. He should make more than the rest.

 

[Ronin_7]

Ubisoft is fucked.

 

[Killer8]

Ubisoft have a talent problem, so good luck with that, Yves. They've been making rubbish games for a long time, and no amount of doubling down on worker hours is going to correct that.

Think smarter, not harder.

 

[Rentahamster]

Management has the burden of responsibility. He should make more than the rest.

Doesn't seem like much of a burden if he doesn't actually take responsibility himself.

 

[Pantz]

They're not going to have a job to strike pretty soon

 

[[Sigma]]

Management keep greenlighting bullshit. Monotonous games with no inspiration other than to drain many hours out of the player's life and extract more money. Also seem to be more concerned with harassing workers and didn't really address it. That falls on him. This dude has the nerve to come back on his workers. Fuck him.

 

[MMaRsu]

He also made it.

And he's not throwing anyone under any bus. He's been mild and tactful about a serious situation.

You are buying into a false narrative, this is drip-feed nonsense.

Yves let people know that the company is in a hard spot and that unless the output increases, the company will downsize. A lot of companies do that, he has the guts to let them know upfront.

Yeah thats the developers fault or responsibility?

Fucking L O L bud

 

[winjer]

He also made it.

And he's not throwing anyone under any bus. He's been mild and tactful about a serious situation.

You are buying into a false narrative, this is drip-feed nonsense.

Yves let people know that the company is in a hard spot and that unless the output increases, the company will downsize. A lot of companies do that, he has the guts to let them know upfront.

Of course he threw the workers under the bus. It's very plain in his message.
Everyone understood that, including the workers.
If you weren't so busy kissing some corporate ass, you would understand something as straightforward as this.

 

[The Cockatrice]

Management has the burden of responsibility.

Clearly in this case he is not, and wants the burden to fall on the workers, which is why they are striking in the first place.

 

[Fuz]

According to Google:

Yves Guillemot, CEO Ubisoft $925,314 (total compensation) $642 (hourly average)

Much lower than I thought. But that wasn't really the point.

 

[winjer]

Let us all remember when Nintendo was in a tough position, and it's leaders took a pay cut and full responsibility.
Now compare to what Yves Guillemot is doing.
This is the difference between a good leader and a parasite.

Nintendo boss Iwata halves pay, Miyamoto's wage cut too

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has announced he will take a 50 per cent pay cut in response to the company's continued…

www.eurogamer.net

 

[mckmas8808]

I'm gonna go on strike because you ask me to work more efficiently. Seems legit.

You guys clearly are so pro-big business that it's sickening. Who preformed poorly exactly and why are the questions that people should be asking. How'd they get to this point in the first place?

 

[ÆMNE22A!C]

Who would've thought.

 

[hinch7]

Striking when a company is already in a downturn isn't a great idea really.. especially when you get a message from the CEO looking to streamline the business lol.

 

[cireza]

CEO : Our company is encountering financial difficulties.

Employees : Everybody ! Stop working !

Geniuses.

 

[MMaRsu]

CEO : Our company is encountering financial difficulties.

Employees : Everybody ! Stop working !

Geniuses.

Lmao the amount of corporate dickriders here is insane

 

[jakinov]

Where do people get the idea that Ubisoft is failing?

I don’t know if people have noticed but this isn’t good economic times right now. Almost every company is laying people off and many are cutting back on costs. People are purportedly spending less on leisure things because food is much more expensive. There’s inflation all over even for the business side meaning you paying more for things than ever before. Debt has become very expensive in the last year and the stock market overall is down a shit ton.

Asking your employees to be careful with spending during bad economic times is pretty reasonable. I can understand getting mad if you see him throwing exec parties, sprucing up his office or taking extra paid time off for vacationing after saying that but no they just mad he said that.

The problem isn’t people are sick of assassins creed as it wouldn’t be their highest grossing AC game. It’s not because they keep removing games off Steam. It’s not because they won’t make new instalments of splinter cell which has traditionally had mediocre sales. People need to realize their personal gripes don’t scale to being major issues for the company.

 

[gow3isben]

Get back to work entitled pricks

He is right. You guys make shit games now where before you were visionaries.

 

[RespawnX]

The Ubisoft CEO has obviously not yet understood that the efficiency he demands is responsible for a good part of the misery. The games are all created using the same formula to a good extent because it is efficient. It's not bad formula, that's also shown by how many other studios have already copied and adapted it. But at some point, players get tired of the same gameplay patterns over and over again. The frequency of game sequels then does the rest.

Ubisoft has failed to explore talents and new game concepts with small projects. EA is a plague in itself, but they realized years ago that it is important to encourage indie projects and side projects. Microsoft does a similar thing indirectly with "Game Pass fillers". ActiBlizz is in the same predicament as Ubisoft, and both are juggernauts that live on a few brands and frequent sequels. A very narrow board for a permanent business model.

The Ubisoft formula had an expiration date and they failed to explore alternatives. Management is primarily responsible for this; it is right that employees refuse to accept this restrictions. Designers and developers and co. are only as creative and productive as the management framework allows. These are hard times, which makes the repositioning of the company more difficult but there was really more than enough time for it before!

 

[AJUMP23]

This is the difference between a good leader and a parasite.

Nintendo boss Iwata halves pay, Miyamoto's wage cut too

Nintendo president Satoru Iwata has announced he will take a 50 per cent pay cut in response to the company's continued…

www.eurogamer.net

Didn’t Yves start Ubisoft. It is their family company. I wouldn’t say he is a parasite for his own company. I think he could have chosen a better way to say tough times are ahead but let’s not be unreasonable.

 

[cireza]

Lmao the amount of corporate dickriders here is insane

How about living in France, having kids, using gas for your car and needing public transport ?

You can't get a single month of rest, there is always some hypocrites who are going to use whatever power they have to paralyze people in their daily work, pretending they are unsatisfied to gain something. Not a single one of them would change job though, because they love their job of course.

Personally, if I was so unsatisfied with my job to strike several times a year, I would change and do something else. But this requires an effort.

This on top of having at least 5 weeks of vacation, of course.

 

[AJUMP23]

I wonder if they strike with French bread, butter, snails, and just amazing food in the strike tent. Here is a casolue while you wave your sign.