Ubisoft has sent out an internal letter in response to a massive wave of more anonymous abuse allegations. This ongoing mess has further implicated the entire structure of the company in commonplace abuse and harassment. The reality here is that Ubisoft might be too far gone to save based on how common and longstanding the abusive culture has become.
GameSpot initially reported the letter, showing that the company may be beyond redemption at this point. According to the report, “The survey showed that roughly 25% have experienced or witnessed some form of workplace misconduct in the past two years, and that 1 in 5 do not feel fully respected or safe in the work environment.”
That’s already alarming when you dig into the surface data, it only gets worse from there. The reports come as Ubisoft has continually face ongoing issues. This all comes as more and more high-profile names jump ship. The creator of the Rayman franchise was recently forced out.
The trend appears to reinforce the obvious, that minorities suffer more abuse than other groups. When sorted by gender identity, women experienced harassment more than 30% more commonly than men, with non-binary respondents going all the way to 45% having experienced abuse. The survey included responses from anonymous reports of “nearly 14,000” employees.
In response to all this, Ubisoft continues to assert that hollow response that seems increasingly pointless. The four-point plan is a vague collection of points that ring of buzzwords and nothing more. Ubisoft probably won’t fix this nonsense anytime soon.
CEO Yves Guillemot has announced a four-point plan that focuses on multiple areas of improvement. The company says it will “Guarantee a working environment where everybody can feel safe” by improving internal communication and reporting practices to better identify this kind of behavior and crack down. Of course, that doesn’t change a culture of abuse on its own. Victims are still pretty unlikely to come forward if they feel they will face further abuse for doing so. There will also be compulsory anti-sexism and anti-harassment training as well later this year, so maybe that will help.
The company also aims toward “Putting diversity and inclusion at the heart of everything we do” which will see a new set of executive positions like a new Head of Diversity and Inclusion that will work with HR to help push through necessary changes. The organization will also “refocus and strengthen our HR function” as part of both hiring and ongoing review practices.
The final point “Make the managers of the group accountable and empower them” has Guillemot promising to “better support our managers so they become more exemplary and become champions of these changes throughout our organisation” all while noting that only about 2/3rds of all respondents to this new report say they got support.