Ubisoft’s employees ask for help; the leadership does nothing. The French publisher’s workers expressed their solidarity with Activision Blizzard as well.

 

They issued an open letter that we will quote: “To the workers of Activision Blizzard: we hear you and want to declare our solidarity with you loudly. Over the past week, the games industry has again been rocked by revelations that have long been known by too many of us. Revelations that a year ago, many were hearing about Ubisoft. From the frequency of these reports, it is clear that there is a widespread and deeply ingrained culture of abusive behaviour within the industry. It should no longer be a surprise to anyone: employees, executives, journalists, or fans that these heinous acts are going on. It is time to stop being shocked. We must demand actual steps be taken to prevent them. Those responsible must be held accountable for their actions. We believe you; we stand with you and support you.

To the management of Ubisoft: we, the undersigned, have had enough. It has been over a year since the first revelations of systemic discrimination, harassment and bullying within Ubisoft came out. At the time, you acted surprised to hear of these acts going on within your own company, and we gave you the benefit of the doubt. However, we have seen nothing more than a year of kind words, empty promises, and an inability or unwillingness to remove known offenders. We no longer trust your commitment to addressing these issues at their core. It would help if you did more.

That does not mean more training sessions are ignored by the people who need them most, and that does not imply more re-assurances and kind words. It means real, impactful action. The only way to remove something so ingrained is to remove the complicit pillars by actively taking part or supporting it. This is not only a matter of process, focus groups, PR management or education. This is a matter of people’s lives, their mental and physical health. By choosing profit over our security, you are toying with our lives. We should not have to choose between work and our safety.

We have stood by and watched as you fired only the most public offenders. You let the rest either resign or worse, promoted them, moved them from studio to studio, team to team, giving them a second chance after second chance with no repercussions. This cycle needs to stop. We, the collective employees of Ubisoft, demand a seat at the table when it comes to deciding how to move forward from here. The offenders need to be removed from the company, along with those who were complicit in or willfully ignorant of the actions of others. As the management, it is your role to see these acts going on and take action. Ignorance is not an excuse, not in law and certainly not in the eyes of your employees.

We need real, fundamental changes, within Ubisoft, within Activision Blizzard, and across the industry. To this end, we propose that Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft and other industry-leading publishers and developers collaborate and agree to a set of rules and processes for handling reports of these offences. This collaboration must heavily involve employees in non-management positions and union representatives. This is essential to ensure that those directly affected by these behaviours lead the change—signed by the current and former Ubisoft employees. The employees wrote that many of them have left due to the conditions faced and the lack of action being taken,” the employees wrote.

Since then, a hundred days have passed. What changed within Ubisoft? Let’s put it bluntly: NOTHING. Thus, ABetterUbisoft, effectively the workers’ union that strives for change (we previously wrote about their four demands, including not giving promotions to those who committed the crimes and having a chance of their word altering the company’s future), published a tweet in which they ask for our help, recommending to sign this form.

By the way, the joke of the tweet is that Ubisoft employees wrote the exact same text (addressed only to Guillemot, the company’s CEO) that was sent out to gamers who abandoned Far Cry 6.

100 days ago we signed our open letter and set out our four key demands. None of our demands have been met. So today we’re launching a new petition, open for ALL our supporters to signhttps://t.co/dqmQV96FOm
Please sign and share!#ABetterUbisoft #EndAbuseInGaming pic.twitter.com/tpTU3mfeaz

— ABetterUbisoft (@ABetterUbisoft) November 5, 2021

And since the developers feel far more open and down-to-earth than Yves Guillemot and the board of directors, we don’t expect them to distort the number of signatures. If they have a high number, they will have Ubisoft’s leadership cornered to rethink everything.

Source: WCCFTech