Ubisoft’s bloodbath of game cancellations and restructuring yesterday has attracted the expected fiery response from unionised workers, with the French game industry union Solidaires Informatique calling a half-day strike today. Cost-cutting and potential layoffs aside, the strikers are protesting against Ubisoft’s decision to mandate a full return to office, with workers given an annual allowance of work from home days instead – something a publisher executive has justified as a move “to enhance collective efficiency” and “the sense of belonging”.
Ubisoft management’s latest bout of corpobutchery has seen them bin off six games, including the Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time remake, delay seven others, and confirm the closure of Ubisoft Stockholm.
More layoffs will follow, though Ubisoft have yet to share any precise numbers. It’s all part of the company’s Age of Sigmar-esque transformation into a collection of “Creative Houses” with heavy investment from Tencent, dedicated to a smaller number of hopefully better-selling games – in particular, open world and live service projects, with generative AI dutifully touted as a means of boosting production.
As part of this transition, Ubisoft recently shuttered Ubisoft Halifax (a few weeks after the studio voted to unionise – no connection, they insist) and announced layoffs at Tom Clancy’s The Division developers Massive.
In a statement, Solidaires Informatique describe today’s strike as “an initial response to the absurdity of management decisions”, with more action probably to follow. “It is out of the question to let a boss run rampant and destroy our working conditions,” they write, addressing Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot. “Perhaps he needs to be reminded that it is his employees who make the games.” The union are also calling for “decent pay rises this year” and “maintaining and extending the teleworking conditions”.
RTO policies are frequently the focus of union action. In October 2024, 700 Ubisoft staff went on strike over a requirement to work in-office three days a week.
Detractors of remote working argue that it’s less efficient and hinders teamwork. As Ubisoft’s senior vice-president of studio operations Marie-Sophie de Waubert told GamesIndustry yesterday, “the one and only objective [for the new RTO policy] is to enhance collective efficiency, to drive the dynamics, the creativity, the sense of belonging.”
Advocates for remote working argue that it doesn’t materially affect how much workers contribute, and that it can be vital for people with disabilities, family commitments and other practical challenges that make commuting or sharing office space unfeasible. When EA implemented a partial return to the office in May last year, anonymous staff offered childcare, medical conditions, and long commutes as reasons for needing an exemption from in-office work.
Advocates for remote working also argue that forbidding hybrid or full remote-working is a “soft layoff” strategy, since some remote workers may have no choice but to move on. That was the claim levelled at Microsoft last September, when they imposed a return to the office following thousands of layoffs.
I am very much Team Homeworking, inasmuch as I couldn’t do this job if I had to work in-office 9-5. In general, I think RTO mandates reflect an unexamined belief among managers that people become shirkers and layabouts unless they’re kept firmly inside the panopticon.
Arguments continue about RTO beyond Ubisoft. Rockstar’s recent implementation of RTO in the name of “quality and polish” is one of the reasons some GTA 6 workers chose to unionise, shortly before Rockstar laid off a number of workers for “gross misconduct”, in what British unions have called a case of “union-busting”.
