Ubisoft Bad Behavior Profile

Updated 12/4/2023

This page will include actions both by Ubisoft as well as subsidiary companies.

Ubisoft owns multiple subsidiary developers:

1942 Studio

Blue Mammoth Games

Future Games of London

Green Panda Games

Hybride Technologies

i3D.net

Ivory Tower

Ketchapp

Kolibri Games

Nadeo

Owlient

Quazai

Red Storm Entertainment

RedLynx

UbiSoft Abu Dhabi

UbiSoft Annecy

UbiSoft Barcelona

UbiSoft Barcelona Mobile

UbiSoft Belgrade

UbiSoft Berlin

UbiSoft Bordeaux

UbiSoft Bucharest

UbiSoft Chengdu

UbiSoft Dusseldorf

UbiSoft Da Nang

UbiSoft Halifax

UbiSoft Kyiv

UbiSoft Leamington

UbiSoft Mainz

UbiSoft Milan

UbiSoft Montpellier

UbiSoft Montreal

UbiSoft Mumbai

UbiSoft Odesa

UbiSoft Osaka

UbiSoft Paris

UbiSoft Paris Mobile

UbiSoft Philippines

UbiSoft Pune

UbiSoft Quebec

UbiSoft Reflections

UbiSoft Saguenay

UbiSoft San Francisco

UbiSoft Shanghai

UbiSoft Singapore

UbiSoft Sofia

UbiSoft Stockholm

UbiSoft Toronto

UbiSoft Winnipeg

Some of the most popular franchises owned by Ubisoft are the Tom Clancy franchises (Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell, and Ghost Recon, H.A.W.X. and The Division to name a few), Assassin’s Creed, Rayman, Rabbids, Far Cry, Watch Dogs, Prince of Persia, Just Dance, Trials, Rocksmith, Trackmania, and Might & Magic

Abusive Employment Conditions and Disproportionate Wages

In 2023, UbiSoft Lays Off 60 Employees With No Notice, and 60 More Elsewhere

In 2023, UbiSoft social operations manager Matthew Hayes announced that the company had laid off 60 employees in its US and UK offices without notice. This is in addition to six other employees laid off on another occasion, and 54 laid off when UbiSoft shut down its London studio.

UbiSoft 2023 Return to Office Policy Provokes Accusations of Broken Promises to Employees

In 2023, UbiSoft Montreal made a mandatory requirement demanding employees work in their offices a minimum of two days a week, resulting in fury from employees, who complained that the company was going back on earlier promises that the company would provide a “hybrid, flexible working environment” where “100% remote work will be possible depending on various criteria, such as productivity and impact on the team, as well as the nature of the work being done.”

Employees further complained about poor working conditions in the office, such as noisy calls in an open office, transit costs, a lack of sufficient equipment or accommodations for specific accessibility needs and working styles, as well as past issues such as leaks, rats, bugs, and a lack of typical office perks such as free coffee.

2023 Arrests of 5 Former UbiSoft Executives for Sexual Harassment

In 2023, French authorities arrested five former UbiSoft executives in connection with an investigation into sexual harassment allegations at the company. These arrests are linked to a lawsuit filed by French union Solidaires Informatique. Those arrested include ex-CCO Serge Hascoet, and VP of Editorial and Creative Services Tommy Francois, who is accused of attempting to forcibly kiss an employee while she was held by members of his team.

2020 Sexual Misconduct Accusations

In 2020, multiple UbiSoft employees were accused of sexual misconduct, resulting in numerous employees leaving the company, including Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla Director Ashraf Ismail, Tommy Francois, Maxime Beland, Yannis Mallat, Cecile Cornet, and Hugues Ricour.

French newspaper Liberation published a report on UbiSoft revealing further details of the culture of harassment at UbiSoft, pointing to a key role played by Serge Hascoet, chief creative officer at Ubisoft. The report states that reports of these incidents had been made to UbiSoft HR for years, but that the HR team had acted as a “silencing arm” for the company. Serge was allegedly present when Tommy Francois tried to forcibly kiss another employee, and only laughed in response. Another claim was made that “Serge […] said this “bad fuck” was hindering his creativity and that someone should open her mind by “[fucking her] from behind” and “share her around until she gets it”.

According to another claim, “He reportedly blocked a woman in the elevator and put himself against her, making groaning sounds and looking her in the eyes. Some of his collaborators in the Editorial team reportedly did the same, to the point it became [a signature move].”

Reports where managers were accused of sexual harassment were silenced. “Basically, as soon as something was deviating [from the established tone], the stance was to pretend the person was anormal. [sic]” One of the person that came forward was described in the team at the time as “a [slut], a crazy woman that we should ignore”.

The head of HR is also reported saying, “Yves [Guillemot] is ok with a toxic management as long as these managers’ results exceeds their toxicity level. [Ubisoft] gives a 2nd chance, or a 3rd chance, or more if necessary to its key employees, the ones that proved themselves.” Supposedly, at the time of writing, Ubisoft had “officially taken action on only 3 persons”, but “there are 20 odd people being investigated by external auditors”. These reports were corroborated by Jason Schreier of Bloomberg, with Schrier further uncovering that these issues of discrimination had affected the games’ development, such as the company deliberately avoiding the inclusion of female protagonists in its games, with the reason being that Hascoet claimed that games with female protagonists did not sell. Reputedly, Hascoet was close with Guillemot, who purportedly knew about Hascoet’s behavior prior to it becoming public, but dismissed concerns regarding it.

Gamasutra further investigated these issues to find that they had spread to multiple studios, becoming a widespread culture of abuse within the company.

Additional accusations pointed to Rayman creator and Beyond Good and Evil 2 director Michel Ancel being responsible for abusive practices as well, with this being pointed to as one of the reasons for Beyond Good and Evil 2’s repeated delays. This report came briefly after Ancel announced his retirement from the industry, and although Ancel denies a connection, some have speculated these complaints are the reason for his departure.

As a result of these reports, UbiSoft head Yves Guillemot promised sweeping changes for the company, including tying team leader bonuses to “a positive and inclusive workplace environment”. However, nearly a year later, UbiSoft employees are saying nothing has changed, although Guillemot contends that the company has enacted multiple new measures to curb harassment.

Ubisoft has subsequently been the recipient of a class action lawsuit by French workers’ union Solidaires Informatique.

In response to a similar controversy at Activision Blizzard, over 500 Ubisoft employees signed a letter in solidarity demanding that UbiSoft also make further steps to improve its company, to which Guillemot responded recognizing that “not everyone is confident in the processes that have been put in place to manage misconduct reports”. UbiSoft employees replied with another letter, stating “Ubisoft continues to protect and promote known offenders and their allies. We see management continuing to avoid this issue”, and demanding that the cycle of simply rotating the troublesome executives and managers between studios to avoid issues, for the employees to have a collective seat in ongoing discussions to improve the workplace situation, and establishing cross-industry collaboration for how to handle future offenses that includes non-management employees as well as union representatives. They sent another open letter to Guillemot 100 days later, stating that none of their demands have been met, and calling for everyone to join them in an open petition demanding change. Shortly after this, Ubisoft announced pay raises for staff, along with added benefits. However, these pay raises disproportionately go to upper management, and A Better Ubisoft points out that this raise still does nothing to address their demands.

Anti-Consumer Practices

UbiSoft Account Deletion Controversy

In 2023, a gamer received a worrisome notification claiming their UbiSoft account would be deleted if not used for a period of 30 days, sparking concerns that UbiSoft would be removing access to purchased games for users who were inactive for a month. Ubisoft senior corporate communications manager Jessica Roache later clarified, “Accounts that include purchased PC games are not eligible for deletion”.

UbiSoft Tricks Assassin’s Creed: Unity Players into Signing Away Their Right to Sue

After a buggy launch of Assassin’s Creed: Unity, players were offered a free game in compensation, which seems outright generous until you inspect the terms of the agreement, which include revoking the right of the player to sue UbiSoft over the game.

Unreasonable Monetization and Predatory Microtransactions

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Adds Post-Launch Microtransactions

Just over a month after its initial release, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla patched the game to add in microtransactions. Similar to those in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, these microtransactions allow players to pay to skip tedious gameplay.

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint Removes Pay-To-Win Microtransactions Only After Fans Complain

Ghost Recon: Breakpoint was released with Pay-to-Win microtransactions, which the company later removed in response to fan backlash… though the company admitted it may bring them back later (likely after the backlash died down again). Yves Guillemot responded to the complaints by claiming that UbiSoft games do not have Pay-To-Win mechanics.

Far Cry: New Dawn Also Adds Microtransactions to Skip Tedious Grinding

UbiSoft once again makes skipping tedious gameplay something they charge players for thanks to purchaseable in-game “credits”.

Rainbow Six Siege Introduces Limited-Time Outbreak Lootboxes

Raibow Six Siege’s limited-time Outbreak event included items that could only be purchased in lootboxes, and the limited time nature of the event and inability to purchase the items directly were pretty clearly poised to exploit “FOMO” and push players to spend money before the items were removed from circulation. This, in a full-priced game.

Trials Rising Includes Lootboxes and Exclusive Bikes That Can Be Considered Pay-to-Win

Trials Rising is a full-price title that includes lootboxes. UbiSoft initially claimed that “all bikes and tracks that ship with the game will be unlockable through in-game progression”, but “included with the game” doesn’t pertain to new DLC, like the Scarab, only purchasable using “acorns”, which are only available in limited quantity in the game.

Prince of Persia “Epilogue” DLC Locks the Game’s Ending Behind Paid Content

After what many saw as a cliffhanger ending, UbiSoft released an “Epilogue” ending behind paid DLC, requiring players to fork over more money to see the full ending. To make matters worse, this epilogue content wasn’t even made available to players of the PC version of the game.

Growtopia Subjects Players to Harassment From Other Players, Then Uses Microtransactions as a Protection Racket

Growtopia is a free-to-play game with MMO, Platformer, and Sandbox elements where players can deconstruct their environment and rebuild it, similar to Terraria or a 2D Minecraft. It is also always online, and other players can enter and exit your world freely… which sounds great, until you start running into other players. The game allows players to assault you or destroy your creations, and the only way to protect yourself is to buy “locks” to keep those players out. In essence, Growtopia charges players protection money so they won’t be abused and harassed by other toxic players. I came across this one myself, noting it in my review of the game. I found it to be so egregious that Growtopia was the the winner of eShopperReviews’ 2019 award for Worst Microtransactions and Worst Game as a result. This game is no longer available on the Nintendo Switch eShop.

Full-Price UbiSoft Games Regularly Include Microtransactions

These games include titles in the Assassin’s Creed, Tom Clancy, Far Cry franchises, and Trials series.

Lying To or Misleading the Public

Watch Dogs Trailers Misrepresent the Final Product

Gamers were disappointed and frustrated with UbiSoft when it became apparent that pre-release trailers for the game Watch Dogs were not accurately representative of the final product, which received a notable graphical downgrade.

The Division Adds Microtransactions After Claiming the Game Will Not Have Any

After claiming The Division will have no microtransactions, UbiSoft broke their word and added them into the game anyway.

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