Tuesday, 06 July 2021 12:56

Ubisoft Employees Reportedly Unhappy With Company's Handling of Misconduct Allegations

Written by Joshua Duckworth
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According to a recent report, several Ubisoft employees have expressed dissatisfaction with the company's handling of misconduct allegations.

Today, a new report has revealed Ubisoft's next big Assassin's Creed project: an evolving world with multiple settings under the name Assassin's Creed Infinity. More importantly, however, this report also gave new updates regarding the sexual misconduct allegations lobbied against Ubisoft last summer.

For those unfamiliar, several allegations were brought up against Ubisoft throughout summer 2020, resulting in the departure of several higher-ups like former CCO, Serge Hascoet. This and updates on it since led to the Assassin's Creed Sisterhood movement, as well as several calls for Ubisoft to hold itself accountable. By this recent Bloomberg report, that has seemingly not happened.

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Bloomberg reveals that the teams involved with the aforementioned Assassin's Creed Infinity project have been impacted by the accusations, with a Ubisoft spokeswoman stating that the company investigated every sexual misconduct claim and took the appropriate action. But any and all forms of reorganization to addresses these issues don't seem to be making Ubisoft employees happy. According to Bloomberg sources, who reviewed English translations of the matter, the internal Ubisoft message board has fresh new complaints about the allegations.

Reportedly, some managers who were accused of abusive behavior remain in senior positions after the reorganization, prompting the above calls for a better response. This is compounded by the fact that, last month, French union Soldaires Informatique reported at least three Ubisoft Montreal managers had been accused of "harassment" or "toxic behavior," with reports of racism and sexism going to HR "without anything being done." It's also worth mentioning that, as Montreal and Quebec collaborate on Assassin's Creed Infinity, Ubisoft Montreal has been losing employees. The sexual misconduct scandal, the resulting reorganization, new competition in Montreal, and massive productions have led to this attrition.

A Ubisoft spokeswoman wouldn't discuss individual cases with Bloomberg, but did issue a statement on the matter: “Any employee that had allegations and remain at Ubisoft has had their case rigorously reviewed by a third party and were either exonerated or underwent appropriate disciplinary actions. Employees who have been under investigation would not remain at Ubisoft if results of investigations warranted termination.”

At the recent Ubisoft Forward, many members of the Assassin's Creed community chose to boycott the show. Many that did watch had hoped that President Yves Guillemot would address what Ubisoft is doing next with its misconduct allegations, but report after report so far indicates that real change is not taking place, upsetting many fans within the AC community but also the Ubisoft fandom at large.

Assassin's Creed Infinity is in development for unspecified platforms.

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Source: Bloomberg

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