Several games’ development at the Ubisoft publisher has reportedly been halted, as several members of its Canadian studios have left…
Ubisoft’s PR trash fire continues as workplace discrimination, and harassment have not been enough, and the reception of Ubisoft Quantum NFT has been poor. And there’s more to come: the publisher, headed by Yves Guillemot, recently announced a pay rise at its Canadian studios. But that doesn’t seem to have helped matters: Axios has reported that there’s a significant departure from Ubisoft’s North American studios.
Together, Ubisoft Montreal (Rainbow Six Siege, Assassin’s Creed) and Ubisoft Toronto (Far Cry 6 most recently) have seen at least 120 (!) employees walk out their doors in the last six months. That’s a considerable number, and it could be much more extensive, as Axios calculated this number using only data tracked on LinkedIn! Five out of the twenty-five leading developers of Far Cry 6 have already left, and the figure is no better for Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla (twelve out of fifty).
Several sources say that the following games have either slowed down or stopped due to a staff shortage. The reasoning behind the exits? The inappropriate treatment of people who cause a toxic work culture, Ubisoft’s creative mismanagement, low pay… and you can add to that the fact that many companies have recently opened a studio in Montreal, and the “newbies” are getting paid to join the competition! And the developers who are leaving are having an impact on development.
According to Ubisoft, the pay increase has resulted in 50% higher retention, and they’ve hired 2600 new employees since April, with only 12% leaving. Of course, this number is for the whole publisher (50 studios with more than 20,000 employees), but 12% is still significantly higher than its rivals (9% for Electronic Arts, 7% for Epic Games). However, Activision Blizzard has a more dismal figure (16%).
And with both the Assassin’s Creed and Far Cry franchises reportedly moving to a live service model, the workload behind them will not be as intense. Still, it is questionable how Ubisoft can prevent running out of people in Canada…
Source: WCCFTech
