Ubisoft staff say company “continues to protect and promote known offenders and their allies” • Eurogamer.net

“It is exhausting, irritating and it is counter to the messaging they offer us.” That was the response of 1 Ubisoft developer to CEO Yves Guillemot’s e-mail to employees final night time.

On Wednesday, practically 500 present and former Ubisoft workers (we perceive this determine is now over 1000) throughout 32 studios, signed an open letter in solidarity with Activision Blizzard employees following a recent lawsuit that known as the World of Warcraft and Overwatch studio “a breeding floor for harassment and discrimination in opposition to girls”.

The letter slammed Ubisoft management’s “empty guarantees” in response to allegations of “systemic discrimination, harassment and bullying” throughout the firm, and proposed an {industry} huge collaboration to agree a set of “guidelines and processes for dealing with reviews of those offences”.

Because the letter famous, Ubisoft turned embroiled in its personal disturbing reckoning final summer time when workers started calling out poisonous work circumstances throughout the firm, together with allegations of significant sexual misconduct aimed toward members of senior administration.

But regardless of Guillemot’s assurances he would “do all the things in [his] energy to make sure that everybody… feels welcomed, revered, and protected”, the open letter mentioned little had modified.

Final night time, as tweeted by Axios Gaming’s Stephen Totilo, Guillemot emailed all Ubisoft workers concerning the open letter, saying: “We now have heard clearly from this letter that not everyone seems to be assured within the processes which were put in place to handle misconduct reviews.”

“We now have made necessary progress over the previous 12 months,” Guillemot continues within the e-mail, earlier than highlighting listening classes, a company-wide survey and a world audit, amongst different initiatives.

Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot emailed all workers at present about yesterday’s open letter:

“We now have heard clearly from this letter that not everyone seems to be assured within the processes which were put in place to handle misconduct reviews” pic.twitter.com/P6T22vS5cL

— Stephen Totilo (@stephentotilo) July 29, 2021

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Talking to Eurogamer this morning, a present Ubisoft developer issued a “remaining response” to Guillemot’s e-mail, saying “the vast majority of our calls for have been sidelined and few of our factors have been addressed”.

“Ubisoft continues to guard and promote recognized offenders and their allies. We see administration persevering with to keep away from this subject,” the response reads.

Workers have issued three key calls for:

“Cease selling, and shifting recognized offenders from studio to studio, crew to crew with no repercussions. This cycle must cease.”

“We would like a collective seat on the desk, to have a significant say in how Ubisoft as an organization strikes ahead from right here.”

“Cross-industry collaboration, to conform to a set of floor guidelines and processes that every one studios ought to can use to deal with these offences sooner or later – this collaboration should closely contain workers in non-management positions and union representatives by being the primary to start out this collaboration Ubisoft has the chance to be on the forefront of making a greater future for the video games {industry}. We demand that this work be finished in collaboration with workers in any respect ranges.”

The response ends by calling for “actual, elementary change inside Ubisoft and throughout the {industry}, for the sake of our members”.

“Once more, we look ahead to a response that addresses all the problems raised and correctly acknowledges our calls for.”

Eurogamer has contacted Ubisoft for remark.

In Might, Guillemot released a lengthy statement meant to put out the progress he mentioned Ubisoft had made since final summer time’s devastating reviews of sexual harassment and poisonous working environments inside varied groups throughout the enterprise.

The publish, printed to Ubisoft’s blog, got here within the wake of a French report in Le Télégramme that claimed the corporate had made solely minimal adjustments.

Final summer time, a cascade of reviews detailing sexual assault and harassment was made by quite a few workers throughout the enterprise, with shocking allegations made, together with of several senior employees. A wave of resignations and firings adopted – some public, others not.

After weeks of devastating headlines, Guillemot himself got here beneath fireplace, with questions asked about exactly how much he had known. In a rare Q&A with buyers, Guillemot responded by saying that “sure people betrayed the belief I positioned in them” however that he himself had “by no means compromised on my core values and ethics and by no means will”.

Talking to Eurogamer, one of many organisers of the Ubisoft open letter mentioned that whereas main restructuring has gone on internally, “it is hypocritical of administration to say that they are engaged on it whereas nonetheless harboring, defending, allowing, and shuffling round recognized poisonous and abusive folks to different positions of energy.”

“Morale and belief is low,” they mentioned.

One other former Ubisoft developer took to social media to say Guillemot’s response “boils my f***ing blood”. “All Ubisoft managed to do final 12 months was make performative adjustments and continually threaten to push us again into the workplace on the peak of the pandemic,” they mentioned. “Yves, fireplace the abusers, facilitate unionisation and as soon as all of that’s finished, resign.”