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IGN: Ubisoft Montreal is currently in Turmoil

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StereoVsn

Gold Member
Yep, worst working enviro, just unbearable. Last time I worked in open office with 50 people in it, there were few using old noisy keyboard etc, just terrible, never again.
I turned down a job with a fairly decent promotion/pay because I would have to give up my office. Fuck that, can't understand how one can be productive there.
 

proandrad

Member
People love to shit on people that don't want to go back to the office when they should be shitting on the shitty companies. Offer a 30% pay raise for going to the office and see how many people want to go back. Ubisoft is just another corporation that cares only about making as much money as possible and squeezing the consumer and their employees for every dime they can get. The employees should treat them the same way.
 
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Eotheod

Member
This working from home nonsense needs to stop
Why? There doesn't seem to be many legitimate reasons in keeping the old style business operations of an office space outside of supporting real estate agents and socialising, which reduces productivity anyway.

People do know it's kind of obvious when you are not pulling your weight while working from home in the context of a video game developer, right? You can't just pretend to squiggle on paper and look busy for the webcam teams meeting, not when your skillset functions are key to the development pipeline.

I'd argue (and the data is showing it) that working from home actually produces significantly higher quality work because you are not being distracted from a social standpoint. The time wasted at work is quite considerable, and reducing that is a good thing.

Again, unless you are the owner of the building, in which case you wanna keep work office culture staying for bottom dollar return.
 

Skifi28

Member
There is no need to transfer everything to culture wars. People got used to one thing and now that the company wants them to come in there are some concerns.
I just can't deal with the "but they promised us" bullshit. It sounds like dealing with third graders instead of working adults. Much like with your salary, all your benefits should be in writing on your contract. If it doesn't say anything about working from home in there, then ask for it to be included in writing. Otherwise don't take anything for granted because somebody said it.
 
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Fbh

Member
Ubisoft lied to their employees. I'm sure you people would be up in arms if they downgraded your games' graphics but lying to employees is just fine and people are whiners.

Honestly both parties are dumb here.
Ubisoft fucked up and should have never even hinted at 100% remote being an option post covid.

On the other hand though, at least based on the article it doesn't sound like Ubisoft was promising people 100% remote work no questions asked. A company statement like "100% remote 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.” isn't the sort of thing on which you should base major life decisions like moving to another city/country
 
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Saber

Gold Member
There is no need to transfer everything to culture wars. People got used to one thing and now that the company wants them to come in there are some concerns.

In what point the employee demands stuff? Do the positions changed?
They are just going back to the work office(aka back to normal), why even have concerns? Are we dealing with 6 year old here?
 

Shut0wen

Banned
I guess i feel bad for them because they were promised working from home was something that wouldnt change, a guess alot of people changed there commitments just for that, reason why i left office work for life
 

Sentenza

Member
Your employer wants you in the office...shock horror.

Oh no, not the office. Anything but that
For fucking real.

I mean, I get why the employees may not be thrilled about it and how being able to work for home was far more convenient for them...
But can we PLEASE fucking stop talking about being called back in the office to do your work (as your original contract probably demanded you to) as if it was some fucking violation of basic human rights?
 
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Topher

Identifies as young
Obvious reason why a company would change policy and require employees who were working from home to come back to the office is that very little work was being done at home.

I work from home and I guarantee you that if my productivity fell off then I'd be yanked back into the office in a heartbeat and I would deserve it.
 

hyperbertha

Member
I can’t be the only one who noticed that Ubisoft went from consistently pumping out massive AAA games that were developed by teams across the globe to being totally unable to ship anything on time, and this coincided with a massive purge of senior leadership, the leadership that made the company what it was.

if there is any company that should be mandated RTO it’s Ubi because what they’ve been doing the past few years is not working and the devs seemingly do not care (another piece of evidence: when the CEO said that the success of the company is on everyone in a critical year they whined to the press). this company is totally doomed.
TF you talking about? They have been a failure for over a decade. They only pumped out 'aaa' games regularly because they were pumping out the same fucking games over and over. If that's changing great.
 

FeralEcho

Member
Angry Christmas Vacation GIF
Literally this! Get back to work you lazy fucking cunts! No wonder game development timeframes have reached such ridiculous amounts with these lazy ass mindsets.
 

Nubulax

Member
Get the fuck over it. My parents drive 2.5 hours total to and from work every day, 50 hour work week for over 30 years at the same job.

And reading more, they only have to come to office now 2 days a week at ubisoft? What a dream job...
Not only that but most jobs in IT pay absolutely massive bank
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I think work from home is an abomination and should never be allowed to exist again. For everyone 1 person that can be productive from home 99 others drastically lose productivity. Often significantly so.

Show some balls Ubisoft and fire those lazy bastards.
 

FeralEcho

Member
First couple of posts and none bother even reading the first few sentences?



Ubisoft lied to their employees. I'm sure you people would be up in arms if they downgraded your games' graphics but lying to employees is just fine and people are whiners.
Maybe you should read the thing you poated before acting all snarky!!!

They said it "would be possible to work 100% from home depending on various criteria like productivity etc."

Sounds to me like the upper management realised that working in your boxers while jerking off in front of your laptop on zoom aint as productive as many employees thought...So yes they need to get the fuck back to work like the majority of the world's population does daily not 2 fucking days a week and cry about it like little bitches. Cry me a fucking river.
 

Meicyn

Gold Member
If employees are failing to meet target goals, then you tell them that that’s why they’re reversing earlier decisions, and that WFH is a privilege, not a right. But you don’t tapdance around the issue with corporate PR like “agile development” or other pussy-ass attempts to avoid confrontation.

It’s entirely possible that goals aren’t being met. But workers are entitled to honest feedback about their performance and it looks like they aren’t getting it. That is a failure of leadership.

Being upfront and honest with your employees is important. You have to set expectations if you’re going to offer incentives. Otherwise you foster an environment of malicious compliance when you take things away and don’t give a clear reason why.
 

Reaseru

Member
This is what happens when you hire marxists instead of hard working people. Their dream job is to be a Union representative, not a video game developer.

People do deserve to have their work rights protected, regardless of the job...refusing to show up at work 2 days a week because you don't like to be around other human beings isn't one of them.
 
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HarryKS

Member
This report is making it out to be a bigger issue than it really is. However, it is essential to aggravate the tenor of the discourse sometimes when it comes to labour issues. If you give an inch, they'll take an arm. So, it's okay to complain. If I've learnt anything from being part of a big corp., those who complain get their way more often than not.
Sometimes, it's the only way.
 
Can't see myself ever going back to an office unless I'm very close to one, I'm not wasting 2 hours per day just on traveling and then sitting at a desk with just loud people all around me, and people wanting to chat about stupid shit in their boring lives so I ultimately get less work done.
If these people were promised 100% remote work then good that they are upset about it; most of this back to the office shit isn't about productivity anyway, it's about empty buildings that still need to be paid for, and the devaluation of those buildings because nobody really needs them, and managers who are afraid of their job security because they don't know how to manage remotely.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
It's odd how many people are championing for corporations here.

The modern office environment is fairly anti-productive. Massive cube farms or open work environments with zero privacy, extremely difficult time focusing on tasks, constant "water cooler talk" interruptions. Employees these days must also put up with all kinds of bullshit constantly - notifications from 20 bosses, notifications from Corporate HR about bullshit nobody cares about, massive stat tracking every little thing and having to report status on a near constant basis to superiors. The days of just going to work and doing a value-added job are gone. And it's a demotivating enviornment. Remote makes it a little bit more tolerable.

In an ideal environment, nobody would be working in an office that is performing technical or artistic work at a computer. But there are challenges with training, collaboration, etc. Some sort of hybrid arrangement makes sense on occassion for days where such collaboration are important, but I don't think an official policy mandating certain days is the right answer.

If people take a step back they'd realize just HOW LITTLE work gets done by being in an office setting. Sure, the people that don't work in an office may be WORSE at home. But the people that actually get shit done (80/20 rule) thrive better in an at home environment free of distractions. Who do you think the corporation depends on more? The superstars, by far. They get most shit done.
 
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Gaiff

SBI’s Resident Gaslighter
Maybe you should read the thing you poated before acting all snarky!!!

They said it "would be possible to work 100% from home depending on various criteria like productivity etc."

Sounds to me like the upper management realised that working in your boxers while jerking off in front of your laptop on zoom aint as productive as many employees thought...So yes they need to get the fuck back to work like the majority of the world's population does daily not 2 fucking days a week and cry about it like little bitches. Cry me a fucking river.
They never once cite that.

“The blog post cited things like ‘Ubisoft culture’ and ‘collaboration’ as the reasons we needed to return to the office, but never once explained what problems a lack of these things had caused, or what steps had been taken to alleviate them before turning to RTO as the solution, or what kind of changes management expects to see as a result of RTO and how we are to measure the success of this plan,” one employee told IGN.

Some employees even speculate that this is part of a sot layoff to get rid of people who will refuse to come to the office.

The fact that their games suck seem to have little to do with remote work. Bringing their employees back to the office wouldn't stop their games from bombing and being vilified by the masses. The fact that they axed so many top leaders over the years has a lot more to do with their current predicament and having people back at the office will change fuck-all. The ship will continue sinking.
Don't need to say the obvious when it's apparent to everyone else on the outside.
There's no reason to hide this, on the contrary. If you tell your employees verbatim that shit isn't productive, then most of them would be more on board with righting the sinking ship than just going "Well, we need to collaborate and do teamwork" which is more often than not needless corporate drivel.
 
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draliko

Member
We really saw how work from home didn't really impact the development... not at all... if we had proof it worked for game Dev, studios would been happy to lower rents and expenses, in reality it went like shit and games prove it
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
If employees are failing to meet target goals, then you tell them that that’s why they’re reversing earlier decisions, and that WFH is a privilege, not a right. But you don’t tapdance around the issue with corporate PR like “agile development” or other pussy-ass attempts to avoid confrontation.

It’s entirely possible that goals aren’t being met. But workers are entitled to honest feedback about their performance and it looks like they aren’t getting it. That is a failure of leadership.

Being upfront and honest with your employees is important. You have to set expectations if you’re going to offer incentives. Otherwise you foster an environment of malicious compliance when you take things away and don’t give a clear reason why.
This is fair. Tell them that work at home isn't getting things done and if we don't meet goals cuts will have to be made and "work from home" will become "stay at home"
 
Why? There doesn't seem to be many legitimate reasons in keeping the old style business operations of an office space outside of supporting real estate agents and socialising, which reduces productivity anyway.

People do know it's kind of obvious when you are not pulling your weight while working from home in the context of a video game developer, right? You can't just pretend to squiggle on paper and look busy for the webcam teams meeting, not when your skillset functions are key to the development pipeline.

I'd argue (and the data is showing it) that working from home actually produces significantly higher quality work because you are not being distracted from a social standpoint. The time wasted at work is quite considerable, and reducing that is a good thing.

Again, unless you are the owner of the building, in which case you wanna keep work office culture staying for bottom dollar return.
You aren't as productive in the house, no matter what some like to say. And for videogames I believe you can bounce off ideas in a grope better with face to face contact. Playing with your own mates online, just isnt the same as playing with the very same mates in the same room.
 
Personally, from my limited experience of working in an office environment, I always quite liked the fact you got to see people and I always enjoyed the social aspect.

A lot of the people complaining got too comfortable sitting at home working in their pyjamas, and now they're trying to figure out how to maintain it.
 
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StereoVsn

Gold Member
In what point the employee demands stuff? Do the positions changed?
They are just going back to the work office(aka back to normal), why even have concerns? Are we dealing with 6 year old here?
They were told that 100% work was going to be remote. So I am sure some folks made life decisions because of that.

Plus apparently it's open office floorplan over there and not good setup/equipment, hence further outcry. That said, 2 days is pretty mild.

Then again, Ubi starts with 2 days and then goes to 4 or whatnot, never know.
 

James Sawyer Ford

Gold Member
You aren't as productive in the house, no matter what some like to say. And for videogames I believe you can bounce off ideas in a grope better with face to face contact. Playing with your own mates online, just isnt the same as playing with the very same mates in the same room.

That's really not true. I manage teams of employees and have an RTO mandate, and the employees are less productive for on-site days. They are more likely to socialize about bullshit all day than get their jobs done.

But this is in general, there is variability obviously
 
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