Ubisoft Faces Staff Exodus; Game Development Slows Down
Ubisoft is facing an exodus of developers. This applies to both high-profile names and lower-level employees.
- Ubisoft faces a significant loss of developers;
- This applies both to key team members and regular employees;
- Problems are expected to affect the pace of work in the company.
Ubisoft has been struggling with internal problems for quite some time, the list including discrimination, poor working conditions, unfair wages, and incomprehensible creative decisions by the company's bosses, which annoy many employees. So it's not surprising that many developers have have protested and signed petitions in order to bring about changes in the organisation.
Unfortunately, the actions of employees did not bring the expected results. Ubisoft decided only to increase the salary for veterans employees. The rest of the demands were completely ignored. For some people, this proved unacceptable. Therefore, the French publisher faced a new challenge - a mass exodus of employees.
As Axios informs, it concerns both famous names and lower-level employees. Among others, 5 people from the group of key developers creating Far Cry 6 left the company (the group consisted of 25 specialists). A similar situation affected the team responsible for Assassin's Creed: Valhalla - 12 of the 50 most important members left. In total, the company's branches in Montreal and Toronto have lost at least 120 employees in the last six months.
The situation is expected to affect the projects developed by Ubisoft. Axios' sources reveal that the work is progressing slower than it should. The company also lacks employees with know-how on some of the systems present in the games of the French publisher. The company is forced to seek advice from developers outside its structures.
Ubisoft's management denies these reports. According to Anika Grant, head of People Operations, the outflow of workers is not a particular problem. According to her, it is supposed to be only slightly higher than usual. It is also allegedly comparable to other companies in the industry. Data collected by Axios, however, shows that this phenomenon is not so visible in giants such as EA, Take-Two and Epic Games.
