Since the start of the year, several Ubisoft Paris employees have called for a strike and Ubisoft Montpellier has been targeted by the labor inspectorate. Today, it is in this fairly tormented social context that the Solidaires Informatique union is once again denouncing the working conditions of Ubisoft Paris and the crunch culture.
Overall employee burnout
The Paris offices of the giant Ubisoft are particularly known for their work on Just Dance 2023, but today, a survey conducted by NME highlights the working conditions of the developers of this major branch of Ubisoft. The British magazine interviewed several employees, but failed to get a response from Ubisoft management.
The developers spoke through Solidaires Informatique and spoke in particular of a “mess” in the pre-production of Just Dance 2023. The teams would have been responsible for modifying the game engine 11 months before its release. Leaders reportedly added new ideas “that needed to be considered at all costs” to already overstretched teams.
“Once the creative vision is clear, it is presented to the technical experts and is often ‘impossible’ to achieve. Either they have no choice but to achieve the impossible, or we are forced to change everything. It is morally and physically exhausting for the employees”.
The management would also not keep its promises and would take important and strategic decisions “lately”. The example above demonstrates this completely, but there would also have been talk of hiring more staff so as not to make the team pay overtime, but that was not done.
The developers denounce the fact that paid overtime was initially a controlled system “but over time it became commonplace and a system of double standards was put in place”. An employee mentions 13-hour days – 9am to 10pm – during the creation of Just Dance 2023. For some quality assurance testers, days from 10am to midnight are mentioned and some employees would even work more a long time.
“During daily meetings, some employees were explicitly encouraged to work overtime. The message was clear: “work overtime”.
The developers explain to Solidaires Informatique that the management brought together people “identified as shy” in front of “intimidating” figures during “small meetings”. For the developers, the demands of Ubisoft’s headquarters have harmed Just Dance 2023.
“They want us to be the first game as a service and the first big live game in Ubisoft’s portfolio. We showed them a realistic roadmap to get there, but they refused. »
Despite the fact that the latest Just Dance is the reference example in this context, the developers recall that “all Ubisoft Paris projects are affected by the crunch culture”: Mario + Rabbids: Sparks Of Hope, Watch Dogs and Beyond Good And Evil 2…
What next then? The syndicated developers want Just Dance 2023 to be pushed back to 2024, which the decision is against to have the game released for Christmas. However, the teams explain that the developers face real workload problems coupled with the fact of having to learn how to manage a new game engine. The new general manager, Marie-Sophie de Waubert, would have had a positive impact within Ubisoft Paris since his arrival, in particular by creating a “real cohesion” between the developers, but there is still a long way to go.
