Ubisoft Devs Grill Boss On Shifting Blame And Chasing Trends (kotaku.com) 32
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot faced tough questions from some exhausted and fed-up staff about recent missteps and future plans in a company-wide Q&A session on Wednesday. The meeting comes just a week after the Assassin's Creed publisher announced new cancellations, delays, and cost-cutting measures, and told employees "the ball is in your court" to help get the $3 billion company back on track. From a report: "The ball is now in our court -- for years it has been in your court so why did you mishandle the ball so badly so we, the workers, have to fix it for you?" read one upvoted question on a list submitted in advance through corporate communication channels and viewed by Kotaku. It was a reference to a now infamous email Guillemot sent to staff last week that appeared to shift blame for the publisher's recent mistakes and hold lower-level employees accountable for fixing the situation.
Guillemot opened the meeting by apologizing. "I heard your feedback and I'm sorry this was perceived that way," Guillemot said, according to sources present who were not authorized to speak to press. "When saying 'the ball is in your court' to deliver our lineup on time and at the expected level of quality, I wanted to convey the idea that more than ever I need your talent and energy to make it happen. This is a collective journey that starts of course with myself and with the leadership team to create the conditions for all of us to succeed together." While that clarification resonated with some developers, others who spoke with Kotaku still feel management is out of touch and found little in the meeting to reassure them.
Guillemot opened the meeting by apologizing. "I heard your feedback and I'm sorry this was perceived that way," Guillemot said, according to sources present who were not authorized to speak to press. "When saying 'the ball is in your court' to deliver our lineup on time and at the expected level of quality, I wanted to convey the idea that more than ever I need your talent and energy to make it happen. This is a collective journey that starts of course with myself and with the leadership team to create the conditions for all of us to succeed together." While that clarification resonated with some developers, others who spoke with Kotaku still feel management is out of touch and found little in the meeting to reassure them.
Guillemot shouldn't be CEO (Score:5, Insightful)
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Modern gaming companies are run by generic CEOs who don't understand a single thing about what makes a game good and successful.
First off, you have those "generic" CxOs at companies like this because developers and designers usually don't know fuck all about running a business, which is exactly what every CEO is doing. All that business shit the worker bees have little idea and/or no interest in doing.
As far as a CEO truly having that much of an effect on game quality and design, unless it's a matter of massive understaffing and budget constraints, I highly doubt any CEO has themselves knee deep in it and completely fucking with th
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Except a generic CEO uses generic solutions. Set unreasonable deadlines and punish the team for not meeting those deadlines. That's the typical game industry style. It is also common to lay off entire teams or even sites after a game is released slightly late (or even on time but not with the expected reception). Morale is already low in the industry, so one of these "sell more widgets!" CEOs just makes it worse.
Yes, its a business, but it's just one of many things a CEO has to deal with. The CEO needs
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Your first point is good. But not sufficient. I'll grant that most developers couldn't run a company. But the idea that a manager doesn't need to know about what he's managing is sheer hogwash. All it's good for is killing companies, and getting a few destructive managers some money. (Note that the destructive managers MAY be well intentioned. That piece of idiocy is part of many managers' education.)
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True, but you need a business person to run companies. It takes knowledge and experience to oversee HR, finances, sales, marketing, profit/loss, marketplace, ...
Should they be making general gaming design/play decisions? Probably not, and if that's what Guillemot is doing then he's certainly outside of his depth.
But keeping a business alive and afloat takes a heck of a lot more than just whether a game is good or not...
A perfect game being created by an inept company that has no business sense will never re
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Neither a perfect nor a decent game will be created if the executives permit developer death marches or unrealistic timelines. Also not if they squeeze the developer compensation until the good ones start leaving.
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But a CEO can make a mistake thinking that the product is simple and that all that is needed is more pressure on the team to increase his income. If this is just a company selling injection molded plastic stocking stuffers, then yes, go down to the factory floor and demand faster output, head to the design team and demand 10 new designs a week, etc. But that method of managing doesn't work for software development, and especially not for game development.
Keeping the "business" alive means knowing where th
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Re:Soon to be former employees lol (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been in companies where exactly this happened. Shit business decision after shit business decision leads to a punch in the profits and employee morale going into the toilet. Big meeting is called. President comes in and asks for feedback. Henchmen stand by taking "notes" on the feedback they receive. A few weeks later, the most vocal in the meeting are escorted out by same henchmen in the name of "streamlining the workforce for better agility in a fluctuating business environment."
I have yet to see proof that any higher management team anywhere wants real feedback from their workers. Those that ask for it are actually the LEAST likely to want it. Some exist that just do it as a matter of course. Some exist that avoid feedback altogether, because they know better. The ones that ask for it? They're looking for excuses to cut you.
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The cost-cutting will consist of management poring over the questions to find the troublemakers and start making up the pink slip paperwork.
Usually those that have the balls to stand up to management like this know their worth.
In fact, they often know their specific worth with a company, when quite often the CEO has no damn clue. Reminds me of the time I was instructed to attempt to get back one of our developers after he was let go, 36 hours later. Management realized they screwed up in a big way. It was reinforced when the dev told me no thanks.
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Or they don't care and already have a backup plan if they do get shown the door, or they're planning already on leaving. I've been at a company that had a mass exodus of good talent, and what was left wasn't necessarily bad talent but they either weren't risk takers, were getting closer to retirement, believed in the company/product, etc. Some good people stuck around. But productivity went down: too few people doing too much, loss of technical knowledge, morale was rock bottom, a buy out by a heavy hand
I need your energy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Management is wrong (Score:3)
If projects are late, it's either the vast majority of your workers are slackers, or management was incompetent and didn't plan properly (or overpromised). Knowing that game developers get paid peanuts (vs. other developers at large firms) and stay typically because they love games and the industry, I suspect the former isn't true. Knowing Ubisoft management pushed on NFTs and then backtracked when they realized how much of a useless dumpster fire that was (after spending company resources on it), the latter is almost certain.
Having the gall to say "the ball is in your court" to the employees you mistreated is just the cherry on top of that sundae.
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Having the gall to say "the ball is in your court" to the employees you mistreated is just the cherry on top of that sundae.
I've called this Corporate Arrogance for years now, and we should expect a hell of a lot more of it unless the workers unite en masse and start demanding union protections now. Probably too late for that now, sadly.
Any leverage, any unionization efforts, any small gains anyone made as an employee during the stress of COVID will be eradicated soon due to the looming recession and possible depression. All of those gains will be gone, and more.
The entire industry will have gone from begging for workers due
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It's not me, it's you. (Score:2)
Not me! (Score:5, Insightful)
" I'm sorry this was perceived that way"
Words - and their arrangement in relation to one another - carry meaning to others. If M. Guillemot's words were "perceived" to be something other than what he intended, my question to the Ubisoft board is: Why is he tasked with "leading"? Would it not be a better choice to put someone who knows how use words effectively in such a position?
Or is his "perceived" apology actually just a way of him never taking any responsibility? Yes... I think that's it.
Ubisoft are shit.... (Score:1)
when they sell shit, like the physical copy of just dance 2023, that is a literal box with a download code.....
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/prod... [jbhifi.com.au]
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when they sell shit, like the physical copy of just dance 2023, that is a literal box with a download code.....
https://www.jbhifi.com.au/prod... [jbhifi.com.au]
That approach is cheeper for the game manufacturer than having to press a bunch of CDs or DVDs and then hire a truck to haul them to your home/apartment and dump them on the doorstep.
Chasing trends isn't the problem (Score:2)
It's choking the industry. 5-10 games are sucking up 90% of gamer time and money. How do you make modern AAA games in that environment? You can say "Just make Better games" but that's not so easy. You don't have to make "better" games, you have to make a game so ****ing awesome they put down Fortnite fo
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Those aren’t the same gamers that play triple aaa releases
All the Guillemot brothers need to go (Score:1)
sexypg1688 (Score:1)
777 (Score:1)