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Businesses Entertainment Games

EA's Open Letter to Ubisoft 104

Posted by Zonk from the pot-i'd-like-you-to-meet-kettle dept.
Alex Petraglia writes "I'd actually laugh at this if I didn't find it so disturbing. An open letter sent from Alain Tascan, General Manager of EA Montreal, to Joel Tremblay, Ubisoft Montreal, begins as such: 'On behalf of all game makers in Quebec, I urge Ubisoft to stop the illegitimate practice of forcing talented people to sign employment contracts that restrict their creative and economic freedom.' EA came under great scrutiny last year with claims of stifling employee creativity, refusing to pay for overtime, and generally engaging in less-than-savory practices. Additionally, it's widely known that EA currently seeks to gain greater control over Ubi through a hostile takeover."
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EA's Open Letter to Ubisoft More

EA's Open Letter to Ubisoft

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  • In other news... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Hitto ( 913085 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @10:59AM (#14616133)
    The pot told the Kettle : "You're black".

  • Translation: (Score:5, Funny)

    by daranz ( 914716 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:01AM (#14616150)
    "Quit making decent games. You make us look bad."

  • translation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Tebriel ( 192168 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:04AM (#14616196)
    "Since your people are contracted, we can't steal them away to burn them out and abuse them like rented mules. No fair!"
    • Did you say that about Google's hiring of Kai-Fu Lee? If not, then you're being hypocritical.
      • The difference is Google employees seem to like working there, EA however has a known track record of insane contracts and forced overtime.
    • You obviously haven't heard of the ubisoft burn out stories... Keep in mind, the #1 player in any field is always the one under the spotlight. A lot of game companies can do a lot of awful stuff, but only EA is under the spotlight. Likewise, a lot of mainstream software companies can do a lot of awful stuff, but only microsoft is under the spotlight.

      The long hours is an industry wide issue. And it is actually much worse at small independant studios that get paid per milestone. There's just no UbiSpouse or T
      • The derserve the spot light after all they were the most practitioned users of what are some of the most disgusting tatics. As far as I have seen when ever any company does something that is moral or legally questionable, they have been tackled on slahsdot about it. Microsoft gets it a lot on slahsdot because they just don't stop, it is one greedy stupid thing after another (often the same behaviour repeated over and over again).

        I am looking forward to those new annoyance laws, as microsoft continually pa

  • Screw EA (Score:3, Insightful)

    by MarkPNeyer ( 729607 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:04AM (#14616198)
    Non-Compete clauses are typical in plenty of industries. This is just a bunch of posturing by those jackasses over at EA. Screw them.
    • Non-competive clauses are useless. Remember, you can't legally sign away any of your basic freedoms in a contract -- that's why assisted suicide, indentured servitude are illegal.

      So, all the employer can threaten you with for breaking the clause is a firing. But you've already left the company if you're signing with a competitor. So what's the issue.
      • Uh... no.

        Non-competes are not useless, and have been upheld in courts. But their scope and duration has to be well defined and not something the court views as "overreaching," or it is likely to be voided.

        Translation: you can't have a noncompete that says, "never work for any of my competitors, their subsidiaries, or an organization that provides services to them, ever again." However, lots of places have non-competes that say, "You're not going to work for my competitors in X industry for a period of one

        • Re:Screw EA (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Guspaz ( 556486 )
          That's the thing, though. Labour law is a provincial affair, and Quebec labour law is quite different from the rest of Canada or the US. It is entirely within the realm of possibility that Ubisoft's non-compete agreements will be ruled invalid.

          The important thing to keep in mind is that the Quebec government subsidizes Ubisoft. As the article mentions, 50% of Ubisoft employee salaries are paid by the government. Does Ubisoft really have any right to a non-compete clause when the government is paying half th
          • Yeah - I'm not sure how I could possibly have missed the fact that we're talking about Canada (while I go willy nilly citing SCTOUS decisions), but somehow I did. Well said.
      • Does "You can't legally sign away any of your basic freedoms in a contract" hold true in Canada as well? Remember, the story isn't about something going on in the U.S.

        • Does "You can't legally sign away any of your basic freedoms in a contract" hold true in Canada as well?

          I don't know much about the law of Québec or Louisiana specifically, but the laws of Australia, Canada, and the United States are ultimately based on British law in effect prior to the respective countries' independence. It's as if they share a common law [wikipedia.org]. In some areas of the common law, foreign court decisions are persuasive even if not binding.

      • There are usually carrots in such contracts. For example, bonuses paid out as options which vest over time usually have non-compete clauses attached such that if you work for a competitor, you lose your options. Be a good boy and don't work for the competition, you get to keep your bonus after you leave the company.
        • Now, that makes sense, since the entire contract won't be completely nullified until long after your employment is complete. But you'd still be able to quit at any point and say "screw the bonus, I want to work on GTA4."

      • Re:Screw EA (Score:4, Interesting)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:47AM (#14616732) Homepage Journal
        If you're in California, you're right. We don't uphold non-compete clauses here, so I'm not shy about signing 'em. In lots of other states, though, they DO hold up. It's your job to be aware of which is which in your vicinity...
        • It seems to me that companies should be opening offices in California. Hire whoever you want into that office and bye-bye non-compete clause.

      • Re:Screw EA (Score:3, Informative)

        by WhiteWolf666 ( 145211 )
        Actually, they can threaten you with damages and an injunction.

        Incidentally, if you read the article, this is exactly what happened with the last 4 employees that EA poached from Ubisoft. Ubisoft sued, the court agreed, and issued an injuction against those employees working for EA.
    • But the games industry isn't one of them. From the article, "Ubi Soft is one of the few companies in the Quebec game industry that forces its employees to sign non-compete clauses".

      There's simply no need for it. The game design and all code produced is already copyright of the employers. There's remarkably little in the way of trade secrets. This is just a ploy by Ubisoft to reduce the employability of their developers by other developers.
    • Non-Compete clauses are typical in plenty of industries. This is just a bunch of posturing by those jackasses over at EA. Screw them.

      The author is choosing a self-serving position. Hardly surprizing.

      Nonetheless I find it disturbing that you dislike EA to the point of accepting non-competes. You should learn to ignore the messenger when the message itself is a good one.

      Non-competes are, generally, a means of circumventing normal market forces (e.g. if someone has some critical skills that you don't want your
  • Did this letter get intercepted from the Bizzaro Universe?

    I'm a consultant. I work with a group of consultants. They would promote themselves Klingon-style if it meant becoming an employee, with benefits and (relative) job security. What kind of crack is EA smoking?

    • In the game industry? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by mestreBimba ( 449437 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:32AM (#14616539) Homepage
      you would rather be a consultant. At least then you are paid by the hour. 80 hour weeks for 6 months at a time while death marching to an unrealistic gold date is no fun. When I was putting in 100+ hour weeks at a now defunct game company I calculated I could make more money on a per hour basis by being a manager trainee at McDonalds.

      Yes, the benefits were good.......... but nowhere near the compensation for the long hours.

      • Oops... I forgot to add (Score:5, Informative)

        by mestreBimba ( 449437 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:37AM (#14616609) Homepage
        there is no job security in the game indistry. Period. Top talent is laid of with impunity at the end of development cycles. I worked under a really great lead programmer who has an incredible work ethic, is very talented, and who would work 100+ hours every week to make sure we didn't slip our milestones. He has numerous credits on top titles. Last I heard he was laid off by Lucas Arts (him and the majority of the project's team) after putting in blood sweat and tears to see the project to completion.

        You are disposable in the games industry. there is no job security.

  • Huh? (Score:2)

    by Otter ( 3800 )
    EA criticizes Ubisoft over their non-competes, when 1) EA has been criticized for something completely different and 2) EA is rumored to be planning a takeover of them. I'm missing where the "I'd actually laugh at this if I didn't find it so disturbing." comes in...

    • Re:Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sefert ( 723060 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:23AM (#14616450)
      It's a small industry. Monopolies are created when you effectively have control of the market. (Not when you have 100% control, as most people think). As such, if EA, with their very deep pockets, can cripple the competition just by hiring away a few key individuals, they're exercising monopoly powers rather than just engaging in fair competition.

      Ubisoft on the other hand, as a defence, is trying to strongarm their employees to do what they want. Though, as another posted mentioned, it's common practice to sign non-competition agreements, this is not the same thing - let's face it, if you're a game developer in Montreal, and you don't want to work for Ubisoft any more, where are you going to go? Courts will generally not uphold an agreement that forces someone to be left unemployed (and effectively unemployable if they're wanting to use their skill set).

      Once again though - EA is using their lawyers to defend the poaching of employees, under the guise of looking out for the employees interests. Somehow, based on their history, I think we can be pretty sure that EA isn't looking for their employees' best interests....

    • Re:Huh? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by mad.frog ( 525085 )
      It's disturbing because EA has been (and continues to be) the target of class-action lawsuits over non-payment of overtime pay... not to mention the target of much online scorn over their working conditions. (Google for "ea_spouse" if you somehow weren't paying attention the past two years.)

      Granted, it's not exactly the same issue as Ubisoft, but EA is in no position to be criticizing *anyone* over its employment policies.
  • Ubisoft should reply telling EA to stop running talented people into the ground and putting them off working in the industry
    • YES! Mod parent up!

      EA should be the LAST company in the industry to criticize other game publishing/developing companies. They have zero credibility in this area with anyone who has been paying attention in the last year (all of whom, I would hope, are joining me in laughing EA out of the building).

      Others have mentioned EA wanting to acquire Ubisoft. I can definitely see Ubisoft as an attractive prospect for EA, as Ubi publishes the same types of games (with less emphasis on run-of-the-mill sports titles of
  • I don't see a copy of the letter, ala Smoking Gun.

  • E.A. was considering a hostle takeover of Ubisoft (Score:4, Informative)

    by giblfiz ( 125533 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:15AM (#14616364)
    I remember reading this not all that long ago

    EA has also been moving in on gaming studios, recently buying out Digital Illusions CE (DICE), the makers of the Battlefield series, after a long dispute. More disturbing are its actions towards French developer Ubisoft, maker of the Splinter Cell and Prince of Persia series. In what the Ubisoft CEO said was a "hostile action," EA purchased about 20 percent of the company in shares, according to the online magazine GameSpot. EA declared that this was merely an "investment," and they weren't interested in a hostile takeover. Being a paradigm of corporate consistency, EA said last week that it's considering buying more shares and isn't ruling out a takeover of Ubisoft.


    I pulled the above from this article:
    http://www.nyunews.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2005/02 /02/ARCHIVE72628 [nyunews.com]

    I don't know what sort of evil corprate games they are playing, but knowing E.A. they will probably manage to shaft everyone.

  • shows uncanny insight into human psychology (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:17AM (#14616376)
    If you're going to be dishonest, do it on the big scale. Do you treat your workers like shit? Deny it, if you don't pretend like it doesn't exist in the first place, but turn around and claim the high road and accuse your competitors of doing it. People are more dazzled by audacity than they are turned off by dishonesty, and so long as the "cha-chings" outnumber the "tisk-tisks", you're golden.

    Works elsewhere, as you can imagine. Take that hateful son of a bitch Bill O'Reilly on Fox. The man dumps contempt on absolutely everybody he can, and when it's revisited to him, he pretends to take the high road and chastise those who point out what he does, including a recent stab at NBC. The hypocrisy is so blatant it's blinding, and yet so long as there are a bunch of yokels stupid enough to keep tuning in to Fox to watch the fireworks, he'll get his paychecks and all the critics will be wasting their breath.

    Even in politics. Look at George W. Bush. The man lied about WMDs in Iraq. There are other lies, the administration bleeds them, but this one serves as an example well enough. The man lied about WMDs in Iraq, and not just a few, but stockpiles and delivery systems and plans to get more. When the UN started sending back reports that the disarming was going steadily, Bush stepped it up and demanded on television that Saddam stopped playing his games, even when all evidence at the time, and all evidence after the fact, pointed to the fact that Saddam was cooperating more than he was hindering. What did Americans do after Bush started that needless war? They re-elected him. IN RECORD NUMBERS.

    It's a question of power. People love people who wield power audaciously. It's why the Napoleans and Alexander the Greats and even the Hitlers get their power and keep it. For all our evolutionary advances, we're still tribal creatures. We love shows of power, because it reminds us that we have it, which is much better than realizing that you don't.

  • Non-compete clauses (Score:2, Insightful)

    by hattig ( 47930 )
    When taken to the extreme they unfairly restrict a person's trade.

    E.g., Computer programmer writing games for Ubisoft, moves to EA. Cannot do so, as 'computer game programming' is competing.

    Clearly if a programmer for an unreleased game in a certain genre with unique features left Ubisoft and joined EA to help write a game in the same genre, it'd be an issue. I don't see how it should stop them joining EA to program something in a different area.

    If you want to retain your employees, then give them an incent

  • Open letter to EA (Score:5, Funny)

    by Spy der Mann ( 805235 ) <spydermann.slash ... com minus distro> on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:23AM (#14616452) Homepage Journal
    Dear EA:

    Screw you!
    With our best wishes,

    Ubisoft.
  • Yeah I hate to agree with EA on anything because I think they are pretty evil. But non compete agreements I hate even more. So for these poor souls that signed this they are supposed to bow out of the games industry for a year if they are unhappy at their current position? Sounds like they would be indentured servants to Ubisoft. So don't sign it you say or go work for someone else right. I agree but that is not so easy a decision when you are a yong person trying to break into the industry. I personally wi
    • Surely depends on where you are in the world.
      Here the law states that if you cannot work within your field due to a non-compete clause the company laying you off has to pay you until it expires or you get another job outside the scope of the clause.

      This has effectively made it so companies thinks twice before asking people to sign these.

      Yeah yeah, I know unions are evil and bureaucratic, but this law is something they got through here......

  • Lets put 2 and 2 together (Score:5, Insightful)

    by bherman ( 531936 ) on Wednesday February 01, 2006 @11:47AM (#14616744) Homepage
    This has nothing to do with EA wanting to steal away talent or Ubi having "unethical" business practices (In EA's opinion). This is about EA trying to make their takeover better for their bottom line. If EA gobbles up Ubi, they have to then deal with the employment contracts. Usually a contract has buyout if the employee is terminated. Well, if EA buys Ubi they are going to probably terminate plenty of employees to cut their costs. They can't do that efficiently if they have to pay X dollars for every employee they terminate. This is just EA trying to improve their bottom line for a takeover plain and simple. But they are doing it under the guise of being a good company.
  • Pot.
    Kettle.
    Douchebag.

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