Amidst the news of Ashraf Ismail’s firing from Ubisoft, a fresh round of allegations hit the company that names another group of executives involved in serious misconduct, aided and abetted by senior management.
A detailed report published on Gamasutra uncovers harrowing patterns of abuse throughout Ubisoft’s international operations – from Canada to France to Singapore – corroborating previous reports that the company deliberately fostered this culture. A number of developers have told Gamasutra that they fear that Ubisoft’s latest spring cleaning is merely lip service, and it certainly doesn’t help that CEO Yves Guillemot is now accused of shielding abusers.
According to a former senior Ubisoft developer, Guillemot prevented them from firing an abusive member of staff because they were “talented” and brought “more value to the company than causing collateral damage.” When the employee raised concerns about this, they were ignored. At one point, Ubisoft reportedly rewarded an abusive employee with company stock for their performance.
Employees have pointed out what many of us have noted already: those executives dear to Ubisoft’s management have conveniently “resigned” amid investigations, while others have been fired.
In a separate report published by Kotaku, the publication revealed that the most notorious of Ubisoft’s executives – Serge Hascoët – was not investigated for the plethora of allegations levied against him, and when asked why he wasn’t under investigation, the company refused to comment. Despite this, Hascoët’s resignation came as a surprise to many. According to one employee, “We were expecting Yves to cut off his own arm before firing Serge.”
Despite the public scrutiny, Ubisoft continues to make questionable decisions. When Ubisoft Montreal’s Yannis Mallat resigned amid the allegations, he was replaced by none other than Guillemot’s cousin, Christophe Derennes.
“Yves Guillemot can’t pretend to want change, while installing his cousin as CEO in Montreal,” said Ubisoft Quebec’s former director of narrative design, Jill Murray.
It looks like these allegations won’t end here. We’ll continue to update our readers.
