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[Liberation] Sexual harassment at Ubisoft: "We knew". (>100 cases from harassment to rape, half were known to HR, toxicity tolerated with results)

Nightengale

Nightengale

Member
Oct 26, 2017
5,726
Malaysia
This seriously deserves another thread given it's newly reported and flying under the radar.

Investigation piece by France newspaper, the Liberation - goes deeper into the deeply toxic culture at Ubisoft and how HR and leadership protects them, so long as they deliver the results: https://www.liberation.fr/futurs/2020/07/10/harcelement-sexuel-a-ubisoft-on-savait_1793985

The establishment of a crisis unit after the accusations published in "Liberation" did not prevent the multiplication of testimonies describing the toxic culture at work in the video game business. Many point to number 2, Serge Hascoët.
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Thread by Thomas Bidaux , which translates key takeaways from the piece. Required reading.

 
Silver-Streak

Silver-Streak

Member
Oct 25, 2017
3,038
I am glad they brought in an external investigation group. It will be interesting to see what happens. If the allegations prove true, and Hascoet isn't removed at the end of the investigation, I guess I'm done with Ubisoft games.
 
Kenzodielocke

Kenzodielocke

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Oct 25, 2017
13,302
So why isn't this being picked up by media outside of France? No guts? Not as important to report on? I guess FC6 leaks gives them more clicks.
 
Birbos

Birbos

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Banned
May 15, 2020
1,354
This is like only 1 step above having a room where they try to bring woman to have sex like one VR news outlet had. Road to VR maybe.

Pretty awful stuff.
 
Dphex

Dphex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,811
Cologne, Germany
In the case someone didn´t read it so far, here is the other thread
www.resetera.com

Multiple Ubisoft leaders implicated in horrifying and systemic sexual misconduct, still not fired (details inside)

Edit: Here's a human translation of another article on the matter and parts of the one I originally linked. http://www.dulcamarra.net/2020/07/02/english-translation-of-a-press-article-by-liberation-about-allegations-against-ubisot-about-sexual-misconduct/...
www.resetera.com www.resetera.com

be warned, it is absolutely disgusting.

Ubisoft needs a major shakeup because this way of thinking seems deeply integrated in the studios at this point.
even more damning is that they try to paint themselves as a company where inclusion and diversity is big but in reality it is deeply concerning how these themes are handled.
 
cmdrshepard

cmdrshepard

The Fallen
Oct 30, 2017
1,581
This needs much more attention in western media outlets - it is big news and the spotlight needs to continue to be on Ubisoft management for such a failure and enablement of abuse of their own employees. While an external investigation has started, much more needs to be done to change the seemingly boys club culture of the company.
 
Carlius

Carlius

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 27, 2017
3,000
Buenos Aires, Argentina
absolutely disgusting...i already cancelled my uplay+ sub and as a fan of ubisoft where i would buy their games day 1, will not do so again.
 

Fliep

Banned
Feb 13, 2018
460
Don't think I will buy a ubi game in the foreseeable time. Hopefully this will all be investigated and people involved will meet consequences.
 
Morrigan

Morrigan

Spear of the Metal Church
Member
Oct 24, 2017
35,576
As I said in the other thread, many of Yves Guillemot's right-hand men are implicated, so I refuse to believe he wasn't aware. His last PR statement is complete fluff. He should step down and all those men should be fired, otherwise his statement is gonna continue to be meaningless and nothing will change.
 
Aerial51

Aerial51

Member
Apr 24, 2020
3,749
This is so disgusting Jesus Christ. The fact that Yves Guillemot knew of the toxic Leadership but didn't do shit because they produced Results and only started to change once th Public is terrible.
 
Tremorah

Tremorah

Member
Dec 3, 2018
5,045
Seems to be a horrible place to work that has absolutely disgusting people being protected by their higher ups

Hope this gets picked up widely and they have to do something about it
 
.exe

.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,808
Of course they knew but didn't give a shit. They wouldn't have responded with measures against some of these individuals within days of the accusations if they didn't.
 
Castor

Castor

Member
Oct 29, 2017
1,259
New York City
Edit: Ugh I just fucking can't. The top of this company should be dropped with their golden parachute cut off so they hit the ground hard.
 
Dphex

Dphex

Member
Oct 27, 2017
12,811
Cologne, Germany
.exe said:
Of course they knew but didn't give a shit. They wouldn't have responded with measures against some of these individuals within days of the accusations if they didn't.
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I have the feeling those "leaks" in the last week were deliberately shared to distract from the internal scandals. it was like someone threw a smoke grenade. they know that games media will rather report on game news than internal studio "culture".

from classic games media, only Kotaku had an article about Ubisoft Toronto but otherwise it is crickets so far.
 
.exe

.exe

Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,808
Having gone over some more of the quotes, holy fucking shit. Something needs to change very drastically at Ubi. I don't know what kind of regulatory policy or oversight body there is to deal with things like this, but obviously it needs to be dealt with by external actors.
 
Palette Swap

Palette Swap

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
11,990
Finally read it all this morning, yeah, it's even worse than last weel's article. That institutionalized wall of silence needs to break, and they're not there yet. Guillemot definitely believes surface changes will be enough for this to wash over, but then again, he thought it would all be old news by today.

Nice of a mainstream paper like Liberation to run their front page and 4 page articles on this two weeks in a row.
 
dosh

dosh

Member
Oct 25, 2017
2,377
The full article is damning to such an extent that this feels beyond Riot levels of harassment and toxic masculinity. Drugging people, blocking them in narrow spaces, straight up touching them, it gets more disgusting with every single paragraph.

And all that from a studio that likes to plaster a "made by a multicultural team of various faiths, sexual orientations and gender identities" disclaimer in front of every single one of their games. The irony.
 

Deleted member 73558

Account closed at user request
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Jul 2, 2020
21
Kudos to Libération. That's great journalism. Ubisoft has often been lauded in France as an example of French savoir-faire. Guess that'll change now (hopefully). This abhorrent behavior must stop. In the meantime, no more Ubisoft games for me.
 
Plasma

Plasma

Member
Oct 25, 2017
6,844
Not really that shocking even if it is disgusting, HR is there to protect to company not the employees. The only reason they're doing something now is because of the negative publicity not because they actually give a shit.
 
FF Seraphim

FF Seraphim

Member
Oct 26, 2017
15,072
Tokyo
Wait... they knew of over half the cases and they did nothing? Well fuck Ubisoft. I am not going to buy any of their fucking games until major changes are made. This is utterly unforgivable and every single person responsible deserved to be jailed. Those who committed the acts and those who did nothing to stop them.
 

Deleted member 73558

Account closed at user request
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Jul 2, 2020
21
Don't omit the fact that Libération, even though its not as important as it was, is still a major newspaper in France. I'd compare it to the LA Times to give you an idea. This story making the front page is a symbol.
 
Oreiller

Oreiller

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,352
Silver-Streak said:
I am glad they brought in an external investigation group. It will be interesting to see what happens. If the allegations prove true, and Hascoet isn't removed at the end of the investigation, I guess I'm done with Ubisoft games.
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I mean, you can easily find countless ex-employees talking about this shit on twitter. There's no way it's not true.
Kenzodielocke said:
So why isn't this being picked up by media outside of France? No guts? Not as important to report on? I guess FC6 leaks gives them more clicks.
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They probably don't want to get blacklisted by Ubisoft and lose the privilege of getting free review copies. They're useless cowards for the most part.
 

Deleted member 25606

User requested account closure
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Oct 29, 2017
8,973
Disgusting. I would say I am going to stop buying their games but I don't really to begin with, sure won't be starting now. I would hope it was convince a larger group to ignore the new AC or Far Cry but look at CDProjekt, I don't see it happening, though this is a lot worse and downright criminal.
 
Palette Swap

Palette Swap

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
11,990
Vibranium said:
Yves Guillemot should step down but he won't.
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Yeah.

Everything described here is rape culture 101. All this happened in a context where several top executives, including Guillemot and the head of HR, knew about it and enabled this, as the price of doing business. As long as they're still there, any bottom up approach, with more training and reporting tools, isn't gonna do shit.
 
His Majesty

His Majesty

Member
Oct 25, 2017
12,414
Belgium
Good on the mainstream press for bringing this to attention. This seems like a complete and utter failure of a workplace culture, starting all the way at the top.
 
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