My last company waited until January 1st to layoff about 500 people, and in such a way as none of us could get unemployment. Oh, and then the next day they announced that one of the executives won a new truck for being such a great suit and the sales team was going on a tropical getaway.
I honestly don't know why people don't just burn down the fucking office building at that point. I mean, what else do they have to do to people to rile them up?
Ubisoft has imploded big time. Allegations of bullying, sexism, the mess they made with the characters in AC Shadows, and now trying to sell off parts of the business to China. Its shares have dived. As for the lay offs hoping these guts start their own games development company.
Feeling it myself, but at least it wasn't some soulless exec pulling the level cause numbers didn't go up fast enough (I mean it was... but that was beyond our control)
My wife was told to replace her current team and tell them their last day is December 16th. Apart from not being qualified for it, this is why I could never do her job
Tiny build closed Versus Evil studio on 22 dev last year. I like the Tiny Build games a lot but that one still stings. As many other studios were already closed for the holidays. So the fired people couldn’t even apply for new job till after New Year’s Eve.
Funny how people still buy their games though. And yes, you can include me in this.
Still, from now on, I think I'll put them on my shit list and simply skip their meager offerings. It's not like they're going for originality these days, anyway. I'm also aware of very few exceptions. Again, still.
Just do what we do. Wait until their games go on sale. And I don't mean the first sale. I mean wait until it's significantly reduced in price. They get practically no profit from it and actually lose money on it and I still get to check out the game. Though it can hurt the developers more that UBI
Why are you still buying them? Haven't they been coasting on the same mechanics for like 10 years now? Far Cry 5 was the last one I played and it felt sooo underwhelming compared to 2 mechanics-wise or 3 story-wise.
I have been saying this about ubisoft for YEARS. People see how bad they fucking suck every single year and then they announce another ass creed and everything is suddenly forgiven.
Totally sucks. Hope they get decent pay outs. Does Ubisoft realise a games as a service model only works if can I trust them to keep servicing my game, otherwise why would I bother getting invested.
Us game developers are always getting the sharp end of the stick. When will our work and prowess finally be respected by these "Big Gaming" corporations? If it wasn't for us, these major corporations would not even exist !!
I had an employer who scheduled the office christmas party on christmas eve, of all days, and then told me I was fired because I'm gay immediately before the party... and told me that I had to go to the party and pretend like nothing was wrong, or he wouldn't pay me until I sued and won.
Interesting. My son was trying to play one of their games today and the updates didn’t work. No one in his friend group could connect. Wonder if this is employees showing the company how much they are needed.
Well no, that wasn’t the ceo it was the guy in charge of their subscription service, and he was saying that subscription services were getting more popular because people were getting used to not owning their games
I’ve been saying this for years, Ubisoft is not deserving of your money. They’re like EA but worse somehow. EA is no longer under that one guy so now other companies compete to be the worst of the year/generation. Never buy another Ubisoft title again please and thank you. Use that money on indies
Companies don't care. I've been laid off twice in 2 years after perfect performance reviews. It's all about $$$ despite soaring profits. Should be criminal.
So they can charge even more for the games to offset union bloat from profit making the games less likely to be purchased and this leading to the people losing their jobs anyway?
Wouldn’t they just fire them all like they’re doing now tho. Not saying unions don’t help just it doesn’t seem like the gaming industry cares about its workers Imo
Do unions help with sexual misconduct? Cause that seems to be a big issue in gaming industry that HR isn’t helping with. That’s my main issue with current gaming, how shit the companies treat female devs
🎯Seems like AAA companies prefer this. The general pattern seems to be, squeeze your employees to ship the game in time for the holiday rush, then before you're even done shipping the patch that makes the thing playable, cue the layoffs and the apology tweet.
I remember the times when Ubisoft logo meant you are in for a good piece of entertainment. And now it's just a greedy conveyor belt which provides endless slop and drowns you in micro transactions. Christmas laid off is just on brand for them at this point
Buy indie games guys. More bang for your buck, more diversity, more moral.
Just more in general really. Check Humble Choice if you’re not sure where to start:
An inherent cruelty of capitalism. It's the end of the fiscal year. They have to establish the budget for next year, to lower labor costs for next year the layoffs need to happen before the next year.
Could we do it better? Absolutely. It's all arbitrary. But we do not care to because there is not a punishment for doing so. It's all gains to the people doing the cuts.
I hate to say this, but it sounds about right. That company is on thin ice financially. They've lost a lot of money. All they make is Assassin's creed. That's the only game I've heard come out from them.
Game dev ceos are some of the most cartoon villain ass people. I honestly wish there was some kind of regulation that states “If you are a bad boss, you should take the brunt of the loss”. I still think back to Bungie’s ceo showing his new, vintage cars a week before layoffs. It’s infuriating.
And anyone claiming it's due to "poor sales" is full of shit. Video game companies lay off hundreds of employees when they report record profits, too, so it has nothing to do with sales and everything to do with overpaid executives being evil fuckheads.
Exactly, though it's not just that, it's about perpetuating the lie of infinite growth. Most major studios have hit the point where they're selling as much as they possibly can, so the only way to claim more "profit" is by cutting costs. Such as employees.
There's actually been a ton of videos on the topic by @commandersterling.bsky.social of The Jimquisition. A favorite saying of hers is, "They don't just want a lot of money. They want ALL the money."
Not defending the fuckhead suits at all, but this round of layoff at Ubi isn't the kind where they make the numbers look nice for a bit and then rehire. A live game (XDefiant) was shut down so they let go of the entire team that was working on it
And xdefiant was the best fps-game released since Overwatch. Everyone wants to play BO6 I guess and I don’t understand why. Xdefiant is soo much better
Oh, there's a whole Jimquisition video specifically dedicated to "live services" killed within a few months of launching because these studios are run by shortsighted morons (Square-Enix being the specific topic at that time): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3yJ7vluW_E
True, but my argument still stands, the reason why they chose to do now in December and not in January (even though the xDefiant servers shut down in June 2025) is because 60% of executive bonuses are contingent on the returns provided to shareholders
A friend and I met due to a mutual love of one of the AssCreed games and we were recently talking about how we'll never buy another Ubisoft game ever again and stuff like this was exactly the reason...
It's why Bell Media can perennially go fuck themselves until the end of time. The corporation of "Let's Talk" about mental health and depression, did the same thing a few years ago right before Christmas. Radio announcers finding out while on air that they are fired.
This happened. Some were let go while doing their shows during commercials, and when the programming returned from break, it was canned stand up comedy segments with canned segues.
This is why, when my org tries this shit, I completely ignore it because it's performative - a lot of this stuff is. I'm not a trained seal and I'm not going to jump through the hoops so you can show how 'good' you are at the human things.
Layoffs that could be done in the new year and not make everyone's holiday season suck balls is the bottom feeding of humanity. It is like no one ever saw Scrooge.
I worked for a company, we were building a Kaiser Hospital, the company pushed us so we were way ahead of schedule, they even praised us at the Christmas party. We had 24 people working there, 2 weeks before Christmas they laid off 21 of us. Said we were too far ahead of schedule.
Many years ago when Sega put me out to pasture it was 4 weeks before Xmas, just around the time of my son's birthday. Apparently it was for my benefit?!
That’s shit.. no other way to say it. Some of my favorite games over the last twenty or so years have been ubi games… og splinter cell is still one of the greats..
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Let them burn it down. Then the real real enthusiasts can rebuild it and we'll get games focused on enjoyment and not profit.
Yes, those managers that do not care about games they develop and just check the game the month before release.
Indie will always have my heart, but I can’t make a living off of it forever 😭
Basically license out Spinter Cell to Hideo Kojima.
Isn't it neo-feudalism where you are from?
https://publish.obsidian.md/vg-layoffs/Archive/2023
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Apparently it was Epic Games last year but it was in Sept 2023
https://www.theverge.com/24009039/video-game-layoffs-2023
Still, from now on, I think I'll put them on my shit list and simply skip their meager offerings. It's not like they're going for originality these days, anyway. I'm also aware of very few exceptions. Again, still.
I mean, seriously.
You usually hear about things like this in books where everything sucks in the first half.
Ebenezer Scrooge, much?
I feel bad for any remotely creative person working there
its not clear cut, but we can say one thing: with a union the employees would have a better outcome
Longer answer: they provide methods for the union and its members to hold management accountable to provide a safe work space
this simply does not exist in a non-unionized shop, management can simply coverup and fire those who report with out a union
Of course hiring passionate creators would b better
Just more in general really. Check Humble Choice if you’re not sure where to start:
https://www.humblebundle.com/membership?_gl=1*13e1w8k*_up*MQ..*_gs*MQ..&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI3MmZxtKNigMVbatmAh3DYTyoEAAYASAAEgJ0jPD_BwE
corrected.
is it everyone at Ubi SF? goddamn
I hope everyone lends on their feet
Keep in mind that these are execs that just jump from company to company and have nothing to do with actual development.
https://www.waff.com/2024/12/03/boeing-layoffs-impact-over-150-huntsville/