The toxic culture at Ubisoft has been in the news a lot in recent years and almost nothing seems to have changed according to new information shared by Insider Gaming as well as a former developer who decided to speak out.
Bad atmosphere on the development of XDefiant, nothing has changed?
We could imagine that things would have improved at Ubisoft since the numerous accusations of harassment within the company in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023. But new information shared by InsiderGaming and new testimony seem to show that there is still much work to be done.
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Insider Gaming, which says it has several sources close to the development of
The outlet indicates that XDefiant's shortcomings are due to several executives and directors of the project, which the vast majority of the team internally calls “The Boys Club”.
At first, “The Boys Club” was the name given to a few select individuals who caused constant problems in the game's development, and the term was collectively accepted by some team members to feel a sense of camaraderie. But a few years later, that group expanded to a dozen individuals, both men and women, and the term morphed into something much more bitter within the studio. The group was the cause of missed deadlines, a toxic work environment and the departure of several people from the project, sources said.
Sources speak of a toxic work culture at XDefiant as well as crunch, so much so that the name “Boys Club” would have spread to other Ubisoft studios. In addition to the lack of work ethics and the unpleasant behavior and ego of these individuals who “created a truly unhealthy workplace”, it is mentioned that “one of the members has no design or people experience and was given managerial powers due to personal friendships”according to one of the sources. “One of the members has a history of treating people very poorly and has been the subject of more HR reports than I have ever seen”said another.
A former developer testifies
Following the article, Lisette Title-Montgomery decided to speak. She worked at Ubisoft from 2015 to 2017 before arriving at Double Fine Productions and then co-founding her studio, Cornerstone Interactive Studios. She explains that what is said in the article is precisely why she left Ubisoft.
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This is why I left Ubisoft SF during SPTFB.
The “Boys Club” are notorious abusers. Including domestic violence. I was constantly verbally abused. I was called a “stupid bitch” in front of my team.
At a meeting I attended, “N**er” (Hard ER) was written on a whiteboard. Bullying was commonplace, as were low blows. I was regularly and deliberately excluded from management meetings and decisions that affected my team and processes.
This type of behavior was so prevalent that several other team members suffered mental breakdowns during their tenure. Even if I wanted to complain to HR, I couldn't do it. My boss was sleeping with the woman who ran human resources at the studio.
I have friends who have experienced the same culture in other Ubi studios around the world, starting with the editorial committee in Paris whose abuses are also well documented… same stories in Montreal and in the studios Filipinos.
The shit keeps rolling down the slopes. Without any responsibility.
A little further on, Lisette Title-Montgomery says she would write a book “one day” about this industry, “because that’s not even a tenth of the bullshit I’ve been put through. » She concludes with “This industry is a shit show that no one wants to watch. »
Ubisoft's toxic atmosphere documented since 2020
We have extensively covered harassment cases at Ubisoft in recent years. We can say that everything started to come out in the press during 2020, during which several employees testified to a very toxic culture within Ubisoft. The same year, we learned that Tommy François had been fired and that Maxime Beland had resigned, two names which often came up in discussions which reported a certain impunity in the upper echelons of society.
Sexual and gender-based violence, harassment and public humiliation were detailed by several employees, but despite a public desire to fight against these actions, the employee group called “A Better Ubisoft” still denounced a year later indifference from management in the face of to harassment. The group demanded, among other things, to stop promoting and moving known offenders from one studio to another, from one team to another, without any repercussions. “This cycle must end” he wrote in November 2021 before reminding in February 2022 that management was not doing enough and that there was still a long way to go.
“We recognize that the company has made some improvements, and we are pleased to hear that Yves and the management team agree that it is not enough. However, Ubisoft continues to protect and promote known offenders and their allies. We see management continuing to avoid this issue. It should also be clarified that an invitation to personally reach out to company management is not the same as having a collective seat at the table. »
Last January, we learned that Serge Hascoët and Tommy François would be judged following the opening of legal proceedings after an article in Libération on working conditions within Ubisoft in 2020. It was on February 6 that three former Ubisoft executives were summoned to the Bobigny court. The newspaper The world was able to consult the investigation report and reported a file of more than 1000 pages containing the testimonies of around sixty people. The Human Resources department is also accused of being deaf or tempering the seriousness of cases of harassment or aggression.
The testimonies collected at that time revealed, for example, an episode during which Tommy François allegedly asked one of his colleagues to stand in a handstand in the open space while the latter was dressed in a skirt. Other testimonies allege that the man also had the annoying tendency to launch pornographic films on the team computers.
Serge Hascoët is also accused of having protected Tommy François with Ubisoft human resources when he used his position within the company to humiliate employees he then had under his direction. .