Inside Ubisoft's Unprecedented 'Exodus' of Developers (axios.com) 36
Colleagues across Ubisoft have names for the procession of developers who have departed over the past 18 months: "the great exodus" and "the cut artery." Across the company's global network of studios, which at 20,000-plus employees is one of gaming's largest workforces, many developers have decided it's time to quit. And many of their colleagues describe a flow of goodbyes that they've never seen before. Axios reports: Top-name talent is leaving, with at least five of the top 25-credited people from the company's biggest 2021 game, Far Cry 6, already gone. Twelve of the top 50 from last year's biggest Ubisoft release, Assassin's Creed Valhalla, have left too. (A 13th recently returned.) Also out are midlevel and lower-level workers as headcounts drop, particularly in Ubisoft's large and normally growing Canadian studios. LinkedIn shows Ubisoft's Montreal and Toronto studios each down at least 60 total workers in the last six months. Two current developers tell Axios the departures have stalled or slowed projects. One developer recently said a colleague currently at Ubisoft contacted them to solve an issue with a game, because no one was still there who knew the system.
Interviews with a dozen current and former Ubisoft developers cite a range of factors for the departures, including low pay, an abundance of competitive opportunities, frustration at the company's creative direction, and unease at Ubisoft's handling of a workplace misconduct scandal that flared in mid-2020. One developer with more than a decade of experience at Ubisoft before recently leaving said the company is "an easy target for recruiters," given the company's myriad issues. Said another now-former Ubisoft worker who was disappointed by directives from the company's Paris HQ: "There's something about management and creative scraping by with the bare minimum that really turned me away." Many spoke fondly of much of their time at the company, and one said they'd even consider returning, but the past year and a half was a breaking point. "Management says it's on top of it, telling Axios that attrition is up but that the company has hired 2,600 workers since April," the report adds.
"A spokesperson noted that questions in a recent companywide survey, about whether employees are happy at the company and would 'recommend Ubisoft as a great place to work,' returned a score of 74, which they said was in line with the industry average."
Interviews with a dozen current and former Ubisoft developers cite a range of factors for the departures, including low pay, an abundance of competitive opportunities, frustration at the company's creative direction, and unease at Ubisoft's handling of a workplace misconduct scandal that flared in mid-2020. One developer with more than a decade of experience at Ubisoft before recently leaving said the company is "an easy target for recruiters," given the company's myriad issues. Said another now-former Ubisoft worker who was disappointed by directives from the company's Paris HQ: "There's something about management and creative scraping by with the bare minimum that really turned me away." Many spoke fondly of much of their time at the company, and one said they'd even consider returning, but the past year and a half was a breaking point. "Management says it's on top of it, telling Axios that attrition is up but that the company has hired 2,600 workers since April," the report adds.
"A spokesperson noted that questions in a recent companywide survey, about whether employees are happy at the company and would 'recommend Ubisoft as a great place to work,' returned a score of 74, which they said was in line with the industry average."
when 'industry average' is good enough. (Score:4, Insightful)
what stupid management-talk is that?
so long as we're as shit as the rest of the industry, it's ok to be shit.
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You should understand that to mean, "When there is a company survey, always complain." I do.
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I wouldn't mind if you left.
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"refund."
Get off my lawn before I find my glasses or I'm gonna turn the sprinklers on!
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Okay, Slashdot is reimbursing your membership fee.
Re:when 'industry average' is good enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
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Yes, if they are "Gaming industry average" working conditions, that means that they are horribly bad compared to almost any other tech job.
It used to be that the gaming industry was small companies with people who had a passion for games, that created a culture of people willingly stretching. But when the industry changed to a big business and most people just work there without major passion and yet the expectation seems to be the same stretching...
Re:when 'industry average' is good enough. (Score:5, Interesting)
Trust me, that's common PHB-think.
I was once arguing with our local telecom about various things when they tried to upsell, and the salesperson eventually admitted I was right with all my complaints and that they do indeed suck, but then argued there is only one other viable option (true) and that they also suck.
"Okay okay, I admit, Mussolini is an annoying leader, but Adolf is your only other choice around these parts. Our poison showers use warm water, theirs is cold."
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We had one done and the results were revealed at the next departmental meeting. The manager, near the end of the meeting, announced that everything was great.
Everyone looked at each other in disbelief. Really? Everyone is happy with the department? Why bother with a survey then?
Afterwards we starting asking around to get an idea of the voting. Not a single person said anything posi
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I think a lot of larger tech companies suffer from the same illness, which I like to call "management inflation". Tech companies usually start small, with engineers that are innovative and do productive work. As the company grows, more and more managers are added on top as the engineer to manager ratio regresses further and further. And I'm sorry, I'm probably being unfair to some hard working managers out there, but my impression is that a lot of managers are redundant idlers that don't really contribute m
As normal (Score:1)
I had the impression that a 30% turnover was normal at game companies.
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I thought the only one here was Cowboy Neal?
Standard operating procedure (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Standard operating procedure (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why I always tell people to get a job in the most uninspiring industry you can get hired for. New grads are jumping over themselves to do video games, it's just supply and demand that you'd be better off writing business logic middleware or some obscure firmware than throwing yourself into that meet grinder.
For a generation of supposed contrarians, the kids really have a hard time grokking this.
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This is why I always tell people to get a job in the most uninspiring industry you can get hired for.
That is why the cigarette industry had superb pay conditions. Requiring unethical and borderline criminal work, they knew they had to bribe their employees accordingly. Pick an industry which is today in a similar situation (cough - Meta - cough) and you will get above-average pay as well.
Re:Standard operating procedure (Score:5, Interesting)
It's actually a pretty good market for game devs right now. I've been in the videogame industry for twenty-five years, and I'm constantly in demand, am treated very well by my employer, and have a very good compensation package. Could I earn more outside the videogame industry? Yes, absolutely, but that's always been the case, since making videogames for a living is pretty damn fun, and a lot of people still want to do it.
One thing to keep in mind is that the public only tends to hear about the horror stories. My impression is that game devs are actually treated much better than they were twenty years ago, back when the attitudes demonstrated in the infamous "EA Spouse" story were more prolific. Those attitudes have greatly diminished, as many of us are older, have families, and won't put up with that sort of slave-driving bullshit anymore. We've also got a lot of valuable experience, and can negotiate better conditions and compensation as well, and even influence how younger workers are treated.
Our industry is, in many ways, growing up. More companies are realizing that employees are valuable assets, and experienced workers can't be easily replaced like cogs in a machine. It takes a very long time for inexperienced devs to reach the levels of proficiency required on large, complex, multimillion dollar projects, and time is money. Unlike in many industries, mass outsourcing has never really been all that popular in the videogame industry. It's been disastrous each time it's been tried, so is hardly ever used outside of a few specialist areas, mainly artistic. And endless deathmarch-like crunches are widely acknowledged not as a normal part of the development cycle, but are properly attributed to a failure of management to control the project's scope and technological risk. Hell, according to my industry contracts, even EA is a pretty decent place to work now. Who'd have thought that twenty years ago? Times change, and industries change as well.
Yes, you still hear about the occasional scandal or horrific crunch, but keep in mind those don't, in my experience, necessarily represent the industry norms of today. Sure, near the end of a multi-year project, it's not unexpected for development to intensify, but at well-run companies, this only occurs in short bursts, like a sprint near the finish line. And asshole bosses are still going to exist in the world, because some people are simply assholes - that's not going away. But these days, wise companies are careful not to burn out or otherwise abuse their workers, because competitors will be glad to take them off their hands, possible for a better salary and improved conditions.
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A friend who works in the industry and recently changed company for better conditions says that it's often down to ego. The people at the top feel like it's their genius that created the hit AAA games, and everyone under them is just a cog in the machine. They don't value the hard work people under them put in, and claim all the credit for themselves. So naturally they don't care much about people leaving, because they think that they themselves are the magic sauce and they can just hire someone else to be
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Luckily... (Score:2)
We're unlikely to see the difference if we judge by quality on release day (or any time soon after that either.)
But hey... welcome to the "Free Market"âï of video games. Profit at the expense of all else.
Salaries at Ubi are terrible! (Score:3)
When I talked to the recruiter about what I was perceiving to be a difficult strategy to attract talent, he mentioned that a lot of the guidelines for comp and other treatments come from the French headquarters. I wasn't surprised - honestly I think salaries in most of Europe are a bit more conservative because the social safety net sort of makes up for the gap in pay - but it's a ludicrous strategy in North America - where salaries have become extremely competitive, and geography less relevant than ever.
Re: Salaries at Ubi are terrible! (Score:2)
Do you have an US dual citizenship?
This is not like a factory (Score:2)
Where there are machines do most of the job, and it's just a bunch of trained people operating em.
In the game industry, they ARE the machines pretty much, and those machines are just leaving the building and probably will self assemble as a factory somewhere else.
Wage inflation (Score:4, Insightful)
In a period of high wage inflation it's easier to increase income by shifting jobs than renegotiating.
doesn't seem anything unusual (Score:2)