Submitted 2 weeks ago by Beep@lemmus.org to technology@lemmy.world
https://aftermath.site/ubisoft-montreal-fires-suspends-leader/
I have to wonder what the end goal here is for Ubisoft. you got people leaving in droves, people leaving and forming their own studios and producing games that are quite literally games of the year, and they’re axing people left right and center.
And lets not kid ourselves this company is essentially the cockroach of gaming, how it’s still alive in 2026 is in it’s own right quite the achievement. I can’t even recall the last good Ubisoft game I played.
Management have over inflated egos. They think, oh, fuck John, John’s division only did $25m. They only see bottom lines. But they fail to realize they killed off John’s ideas that would have brought in $500m. So John leaves, gets to develop his own ideas, then shocked peakachu face.
The goal of companies mandating RTO is attrition. They want people to quit without firing or laying them off.
Their goal is to hire younger, hungrier (both literally and figuratively) coders who are cheaper and less experienced and will use “AI” to clean up their code.
And as the market moves the jobs away from the sort of low paying work those hungry coders end up flipping burgers or driving uber instead. The wages and expectations at the places like ubisoft make for only the very worst/desperate of devs apply. Its happening all over the tech industry, you make more doing almost anything else.
I believe they want to divert all their resources into one huge Fortnite like success story. Something that can bring them a reliable recurring revenue stream.
All they have to do is make the best game of the year. Yet they have a severe case of skill issue
The strategy is to milk the zombie brand until there’s not a drop left.
Last Ubisoft game I purchased was Rainbow Six Vegas. Great game, but nothing else after that has interested me.
bad-companies.adoc
Ubisoft
2026::
full-in on gen-AI after shares plummeting
fires team lead after return-to-office critique
closes Halifax studio 1 month after Union formed
2025::
EULA demands deleting delisted games
NOYB sues because of covert user tracking
Ubisoft wants to monitor your RAM (🏴☠️)
2024::
adds Denuvo after reviews were made
deletes inactive customer accounts with purchased games
“Gamers need to get comfortable not owning games”
2023::
ads in games
To be fair, they also want to be bought up (rebranding), after multiple buy-outs and lay-offs.
For things before 2023, there was sexual harassment (multiple) bullying and hostile workplace and their excitement over NFT. They had a boys club and made it a really toxic atmosphere, where the CCO literally said “Women don’t sell”.
I feel like this file would be valuable for every company we might purchase from, and also nearly impossible to maintain.
The website that pulls this off would get the $2.75 I keep not giving Wikipedia.
If only instead of each one micromanaging our purchases there could be a system set up to thwart the bad corporate behavior in a broad and systemic way, with the dedicated pros doing oversight professionally.
I am so thankful that the executives took a productivity and happiness survey when we went full time remote.
Any time a new manager brings up maybe we should return to the office, our offcial remote manual begins with data: we are far more productive remote working. There is the data, the proof.
The second part about being overall happier reminds us that we didn’t really like being in the office either.
We also have two more metrics: amount of time saved by a company in commute reduction, and the increase in safety.
But the first two are the most important.
Okay. I’m keeping my commitment, but I’m going to need help.
Everytime Ubisoft makes the news for being idiots, I buy another Indie game.
I’m going to need your recommendations for great indie games.
Because Ubisoft has recently gotten me through my wishlist.
Cassette Beasts Pseudoregalia Return of the Obra Dinn Chants of Sennar Gloomwood
I think the formatting is a markdown thing… try using double line breaks if you edit or just next time
+1 to Cassette Beasts
Psuedoregalia I think has some of the best movement in any game. I was sad for it to be over, I needed more. I love games that leave room for “breaking” the intended path if you can find the right places to push the movement tech to its limits. Not many games do it.
Gloomwood is great. It feels a lot like classic Thief in the best of ways.
Thank you!
Pulled from my Top Playtime on Steam (so you know you’ll get your money’s worth if you like them!)
I’d like to add Satisfactory to this list.
Lets be real here… Factorio probably has more time played than all the others combined right? lol
The Riftbreaker is fun and graphcally nice to look at. For city builders, I’d also like to suggest:
Amazing. Thank you!
STALKER 2 is generally fine today, I’m having a blast with it. Of course there are things that need fixing (e.g. telekinetic enemy throwing objects at you through walls seems to be the most egregious), but nothing game breaking afaik.
Monster Train 2 if you like card games. It’s got a load of content and replay and they recently released a patch today to add more!
Oh, good call. I loved the first Monster Train. Thank you for the recommendation!
The Last Caretaker and StarRupture are pretty fun if you like the factory survival type game. TLC is something really special IMO. The boat aspect is just so much fun.
Thank you!
TLC is so good
Sayonara Wild Hearts
Thanks!
Awesome game
Here are my recommendations then:
CrossCode is a personal favorite of mine. An action RPG heavily inspired by retro games.
Library of Ruina is a great non-roguelike deckbuilder. Technically it’s a sequel, but it’s not necessary to know anything about Lobotomy Corporation to get the full enjoyment of its story. At most you can just look up LC’s true ending if you aren’t interested in brutally hard management sims.
Tactical Breach Wizards is a really intertesting mix between a turn-based tactical game and a puzzle game.
Thanks!
Little Rocket Lab is like Stardew + Factorio. It’s chill and fun.
signalis if you haven’t got it
Thanks!
Zero Sievert - single player extraction shooter and you can customize the difficulty with granular controls
Terra Invicta is amazing. It’s as if Paradox made an X-Com grand strategy game. The developers were clearly passionate about their game.
Thanks!
Bloodthief is great, fast paced with an extremely high skill ceiling. Unlockables give you something to strive for and the level based structure makes it easy to quickly pick up and put down. Some other games I see people recommended here that I love are Signalis, Pseudoregalia, and Sayonara Wild Hearts.
Signalis is the best modern take on the old Resident Evil formula I’ve ever played, hands down. Pseudoregalia is a blast to play, the movement and tech in that game are unrivaled. I thought about comparing it to some Mario games, but that wouldn’t do it justice. Sayonara Wild Hearts is short but beautiful, there is nothing out there like it and it probably has some deeper meaning to read into.
Senua’s Sacrifice
Thanks!
Lethal Company is a fantastic game imo.
Thanks!
Monster Train 2
It may not be the best of all time, but I remember Celeste has been a blast to play, and it’s really well polished
Derail Valley Simulator and Vintage Story have gotten me through the last year or so.
Thank you!
I mean, it’s not hard to understand why their stock is down 95% over the last 5 years…
RTOs are most often a “one free layoff"-card that businesses play, so firing someone for criticizing it is very much in line with the underlying intent of the policy.
Is there a company that’s trying to trying to destroy itself as much as Ubisoft? The CEO and board that’s running this company are genuinely some of the dumbest motherfuckers in the world. These idiots are still dedicating significant resources to make NFT games, they’re still trying to insist that microtransactions are fun, they refuse to do anything to make their enjoyable to players, and they’re trying everything in their power to squeeze out their talent. At this point, Ubisoft deserves to collapse.
They released one game last year that I’d expect to make money (Assassin’s Creed 14).
Not sure how they’re actually in business right now. Surely they need more than that to stay afloat. None of their microtransaction games are whale milking machines like EA’s FIFA/Madden or Activision’s COD series.
I’ll kind of miss them when they’re gone. They’ve always been the least evil of the big publishers.
Ubisoft is one of the least evil? I guess to a point, but I’d argue they haven’t made a truly great game in about a decade.
No real loss in my opinion.
Assassin’s Creed 14
What the fuck there’s 14 Assassin’s Creed games? Surely they’re gonna run out of historical periods soon. It’s only a matter of time before the announce Assassin’s Creed: Unga Bunga where you just sneak around the forest as a cave man
I’ve been waiting for Ubisoft’s collapse for years now. Unfortunately, the consumer has proved me wrong time and time again.
And yet there are still a lot of players who buy their games lol.
We need socialism
I stopped buying Unisoft games decades ago. Because they suck. The owners suck. The management sucks. The corporate culture sucks. I feel bad for the coders working for them.
Stop. Buying. Ubisoft. Games.
Is this sort of thing not protected by labour laws?
Ubisoft, they are still alive. Wow. Well not much longer we can hope.
I think people at Ubisoft should just quit and start their own competing game studio.
If this type of leading results to profits then almost any does.
He didn’t even insult them, how is this legal?
This is why I’m so happy I’m 3000 miles away from my office. No way I’m getting a call back to office. Never was and never will be.
What a shitty company, glad I've been boycotting the hell out of them!
TIL ubisoft is a french company. didn’t know an european company can be this anti-worker.
If this is NOT another reason to study and read socialist theory, then I DON’T know what is. Seriously! redsails.org
So Ubisoft, that failed hard on their own launcher. Made several mistakes when it comes to the games they’ve released, made the wrong kind of news with “The Crew 2”, cancelled a bunch of games (but don’t worry, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is definitely coming out…), goes and fired a lead designer.
Let me break out my magnifying glass to check on their stocks. Oh, they made a slight “comeback” from earlier this week, they’re up to 92 cents a share.
Mgmt at that place is making bold decisions for a company; when if their stock gains a penny, it’s worth celebrating.
Time to organize
Do what happens if everyone shares the video? Are they gonna just fire everyone? I’m sure that’ll do great for your stock price eh executives?
Definitely not a message being sent to the remaining employees…
shouldve came out with better propaganda than using apple tv+ show to make your company look good(mythic quest)
Merde alors.
I’ve been waiting since 2013 for a new Splinter Cell, but I won’t be willing to boot Windows to or run anything with malware (a.k.a., DRM, spyware, kernel root kits), so I suppose it’s probably a lost cause altogether.
I wonder who will get the Tom Clancy name?
In most companies, your contract forbids you from talking about your employer on social platforms or in the media if it’s going to affect the company’s reputation.
Sharing feedback or opinions respectfully does not lead to a dismissal. We have a clear Code of Conduct that outlines our shared expectations for working together safely and respectfully, which employees review and sign each year.
It’s shaming them publicly that did it.
Publish the code of conduct Ubisoft! Meh it not, dying company anyway.
whyNotSquirrel@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
yeah, that’ll make him show up to the office!
WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It’s big brain moves like this that’ll surely return the like … 20x? … value they’ve lost over the last few years.
Kalothar@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
I’m sure the publicity of it I’ll land this guy a higher paying job anyways
CosmoNova@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
I get the impression Ubisoft wants to lay off as many people as possible anyway. They don‘t care who so as long as they can meet some quota. I’m guessing they‘re trying to push operating costs down while they‘re looking for buyers of their IPs.
Strider@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The bearings will continue until morale improves!