The trade union of video game workers (STJV) and Solidaires Informatique called a strike this Friday at Ubisoft, to denounce the managerial practices of the management.
Invocation of an unprecedented strike by all his staff in France, stock market crash, matches cancelled. French video game giant Ubisoft has been experiencing a multiple crisis since announcing in mid-January that it lowered its financial forecast for the full 2022-2023 financial year.
The video game workers union (STJV) and Solidaires Informatique have launched a “call for strike” by all Ubisoft’s French entities, this Friday from 14:00 to 18:00, to denounce the management’s managerial practices.
A fairly rare protest movement in the video game industry, recently marked by the five-week strike of the publisher Activision Blizzard at the end of 2021, which resulted in the creation of the first union within the American company last May.
200 million euro savings in two years
What set Ubisoft’s dust on fire? An internal email sent by CEO Yves Guillemot, referencing “structural adjustments” to come as Ubisoft pledged to markets to deliver €200m in savings over two years.
“For us, that means redundancy plans. And when we talk about saving money, it means firing people and not increasing the salaries of those who stay. Knowing that we are under pressure saying: ‘It’s up to you to do better.’ reproaches Marc Rutschlé, representative of the trade union section of Solidaires Informatique.
In their press release, the unions ask in particular for “the opening of wage negotiations”.
A harassment scandal against several former executives of the company, which has 18,000 employees worldwide, including 6,000 in France, during the summer of 2020 also left its mark, eroding employee confidence in their management.
Sales down ‘more than 10%’
Financially, the French publisher also fell heavily on the stock market after announcing in mid-January that it was lowering its financial forecasts for the full year 2022-2023, due to a context of “worsening macroeconomic conditions”.
Ubisoft has revised downwards its revenue growth target for 2022-2023, with sales down “more than 10%” compared to the previous year, when it originally communicated a “more than 10%” growth target. As a result, its share price returned to the lows of 2015-2016.
The founders of the French video game champion, the Guillemot family, inked an alliance with Chinese giant Tencent in early September to secure a hold on Ubisoft in a consolidating video game market.
Another element against: the umpteenth postponement of the “Skull and Bones” game, initially scheduled for November 2022, while Ubisoft has also indicated that it has stopped the development of three projects “without notice”, in addition to the four stops already announced. July 2022.
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