Developer Says Ubisoft Punished Him For Publicly Criticizing Its Return-To-Office Mandate

A team lead at beleaguered Ubisoft has claimed (thanks Insider Gaming) that he’s been placed on a three-day unpaid disciplinary suspension after he made public remarks criticizing the publisher’s recent return-to-office mandate. David Michaud-Cromp says he was told by bosses that this was because of “an alleged breach of the duty of loyalty.”

In amongst last week’s shock announcement that Ubisoft was cancelling a number of games (including the Prince of Persia: Sands of Time remake), delaying others, and restructuring itself such that even more studios would be closed, was a demand that all employees return to their local Ubisoft office, five days a week. After this new plan was sprung on 15,000 staff at the same time as it was made known to the public, Michaud-Cromp took to his LinkedIn account on January 23 to vent.

“So… Ubisoft wanna bring back 5 days in the office… because they ‘believe in collaboration'” wrote the Ubisoft Montreal level design team lead, “but c’mon, we’re not completely stupid… we very well know why you want to go back to 5 days in the office… (Spoiler alert: it’s not about efficiency or collaboration)”

Michaud-Cromp is not alone in his criticism of Ubisoft’s declaration that all employees must now return to working full-time in offices. Many Ubisoft staff took to the company’s internal message board to vent their feelings, as seen and reported on by Kotaku last week, not least because Parisian employees in particular had only recently completed negotiations to ensure they could maintain two work-from-home days a week.

It seems Michaud-Cromp’s initial comments did not go down well with his bosses. He now claims that his remarks have led to being disciplined. “Professional update,” he wrote on LinkedIn. “Ubisoft informed me today of a three-day unpaid disciplinary suspension, effective Tomorrow.” He says this was “presented to me as being related to public comments I expressed regarding the company’s return-to-office policy,” alongside the astonishing phrase, “and based on an alleged breach of the duty of loyalty.” He concluded, “I am sharing this information for transparency purposes. I take note of the decision and will make no further comment at this time.”

Ubisoft’s latest plan to try to reverse its rapid decline is a restructuring that will simplify development by the creation of a collection of “creative houses,” which appears to be further consolidation of its many teams around the world, and thus another raft of inevitable job losses. In its announcement (a pdf) it adds, “To support the effective implementation and operation of this new model, the Group also intends to return to five days per week on site for all teams, complemented by an annual allowance of working-from-home days.” Why? “This evolution is intended to strengthen collaboration, including constant knowledge sharing, and the collective dynamic across teams.” Um, what? “In-person collaboration is a key enabler of collective efficiency, creativity and success in a persistently more selective AAA market.”

Staff appeared to receive this with some hefty cynicism, including Michaud-Cromp’s. Another staff member told Kotaku the move was being made “with zero justification, zero documents, zero internal studies proving RTO increases productivity or morale, nothing.”

Due to covid, when everyone was forced to work from home, it became apparent how flexible work arrangements actually lead to improved productivity, but bosses at many big companies whose roles are perhaps somewhat threatened by this revelation have been pushing back.

Ubisoft staff are deeply unimpressed by this new announcement, and the threat of yet another round of job losses, and Kotaku has seen internal calls from at least five unions representing Ubisoft workers for a three-day strike by all employees in February.

We have reached out to both Ubisoft and Michaud-Cromp for further comment.