Ubisoft Closes Game Studio Where Workers Voted to Unionize Two Weeks Ago (aftermath.site) 151
Ubisoft announced Wednesday it will close its studio in Halifax, Nova Scotia — two weeks after 74% of its staff voted to unionize.
This means laying off the 71 people at the studio, reports the gaming news site Aftermath: [Communications Workers of America's Canadian affiliate, CWA Canada] said in a statement to Aftermath the union will "pursue every legal recourse to ensure that the rights of these workers are respected and not infringed in any way." The union said in a news release that it's illegal in Canada for companies to close businesses because of unionization. That's not necessarily what happened here, according to the news release, but the union is "demanding information from Ubisoft about the reason for the sudden decision to close."
"We will be looking for Ubisoft to show us that this had nothing to do with the employees joining a union," former Ubisoft Halifax programmer and bargaining committee member Jon Huffman said in a statement. "The workers, their families, the people of Nova Scotia, and all of us who love video games made in Canada, deserve nothing less...."
Before joining Ubisoft, the studio was best known for its work on the Rocksmith franchise; under Ubisoft, it focused squarely on mobile games.
Ubisoft Halifax was quickly removed from the Ubisoft website on Wednesday...
This means laying off the 71 people at the studio, reports the gaming news site Aftermath: [Communications Workers of America's Canadian affiliate, CWA Canada] said in a statement to Aftermath the union will "pursue every legal recourse to ensure that the rights of these workers are respected and not infringed in any way." The union said in a news release that it's illegal in Canada for companies to close businesses because of unionization. That's not necessarily what happened here, according to the news release, but the union is "demanding information from Ubisoft about the reason for the sudden decision to close."
"We will be looking for Ubisoft to show us that this had nothing to do with the employees joining a union," former Ubisoft Halifax programmer and bargaining committee member Jon Huffman said in a statement. "The workers, their families, the people of Nova Scotia, and all of us who love video games made in Canada, deserve nothing less...."
Before joining Ubisoft, the studio was best known for its work on the Rocksmith franchise; under Ubisoft, it focused squarely on mobile games.
Ubisoft Halifax was quickly removed from the Ubisoft website on Wednesday...
Shame (Score:1)
Re:Shame (Score:5, Insightful)
They turned Rocksmith in to a SaaS subscription game. Fuck them.
That is really low (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The union busting, the killing of the franchise or turning the studio into a mobile only sweatshop?
Re: (Score:2)
Stupid too.
For a business, the most disruptive thing that can happen, because it always causes financial losses, productivity crashes, and permanently lowered moral, is to lay off a large number of people.
And over what? Because you've been abusing your employees for so long that they decided to unionize. They could have just left, but they felt loyal enough to your shitty company and each other to unionize instead, giving them a greater voice and helping your business improve.
What I hope, and what everyone
Re: (Score:2)
But that's always an option, closing I mean.
I also assume those employees went to the permanent do-not-hire list. All largish companies keep one.
Re:That is really low (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
and yet, we have games syudios here in europe that are more or less fully unionized and the survive. Uions might not be the issue here
For example Ubisoft which has quite a few of its devs as members of Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo
Re: (Score:2)
That doesn't work in a multinational. You have to individually unionise every country. To be clear all of Ubisoft Canada unionised here.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: That is really low (Score:3, Insightful)
Despite you being downmodded, this is an accurate assessment of Slashdot comments.
Re: (Score:3)
Oh shut the fuck up you dipshit karma whore.
Thanks for your contribution, I didn't even ask for a little bitch to step in and self-identify, but there you were!
Re: (Score:2)
For what it's worth, you're marked as a Friend of a Friend and a Foe of a Friend for me, and I'm an absolute centrist.
Slashdot is not pro-capitalism or pro-Communism. They're pro-Anarchism and pro-Fuedalism, more or less. In different batches and different people.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Slashdot is not one thing, but it's owned by a company which is one thing, which is to say peddling bullshit to cryptocucks.
Slashdotters are also not one thing, but I've been here for quite some time (this is my second account, and I lurked for a while before getting the first one) and I have always seen a bias towards crony capitalism here.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL! You
...have an identity, unlike ACs.
Uncheck the post anonymously box if you want people to think you're not a troll bot, and that your comments might have value. They still won't, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
LOL! All brain dead rsilvergun's Chinese troll farm members
As far as I'm concerned, you're the one running the bot that comments on his comments. Every AC is suspect.
Re: (Score:3)
as if having a made up identity called "drinkypoo" is any better than AC
It absolutely is, because people know what they can expect from my comments. They know a single person has written all of them. Anonymous cowards, the lowest and most cowardly form of life on Slashdot, offer none of that. They lack the courage of any convictions. They are too afraid to associate even a throwaway email account with their ideas, because they know their ideas are shit. Every single time someone posts AC, they are stating outright that their post has negative value.
Re: (Score:2)
Collective bargaining for wages and benefits is a bad thing?
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
In a highly specialized talent industry?
Yes.
Re:That is really low (Score:4, Insightful)
Should tell all the professional sports teams that they're doing it wrong.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
In general in today's world.....yes.
There was a time for unions....they served their purposes well back in the early days way back (30's-40's?)....
But they're largely an impediment to labor and management these days.
I for one would NOT want to be forced to join a union where I worked.
If it is totally optional.....I guess ok, but I'd rather fend and negotiate for myself.
Re: (Score:2)
Lucky you, but not everyone is so fortunate. It's like healthcare. You may think you are better off alone, with low premiums, but if you ever get sick...
Unions tend to raise wages and conditions for everyone. Some people can do better on their own, but even they benefit from the union's work.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Chicken egg? (Score:5, Insightful)
Will the office close because of unionisation or did the employees unionise because they knew closure and redundancies were coming?
Re:Chicken egg? (Score:5, Informative)
Considering that everything that was valuable in Ubisoft has been packaged and sold to Tencent and remaining company seems to be just the vehicle to slowly spin down the rest, it's probably the latter.
Re: (Score:2)
Why not both? Let's see if Ubisoft's office in France is next to close, then we'll know it was the former since they are also unionised.
Re: (Score:2)
If I remember correctly, that was the owning family's business, so it's probably going to be last to go if at all.
It's probably still managing assets after all.
Damn! (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Ubisoft the gaming company has been dead for a while now. Everything that was valuable has been sold to Tencent last year.
And this is shit tier mobile games side of Ubisoft. Obviously Tencent didn't want it. So it was probably in the process of being shut down when employees decided to unionize in hope of getting better severance payments.
Re: Damn! (Score:2)
Good for them I say. If you're an employee trying to get the most out of Ubisoft while giving as little as possible in return, you simply have the same attitude to the company as they have to you.
Re: Damn! (Score:2)
This is a silly and ignorant take. These employees produced valuable work, which is why Ubi acquired their company several years ago. These employees didn't ask to be acquired by Ubi, and didn't feel the need to unionise before Ubi acquired them. It doesn't take a genius to see that Ubi acquiring their company was bad for the employees, and that they were doing good work before. Otherwise why would the acquisition take place to begin with? Your take makes no sense and performs very poorly at explaining real
Re: Damn! (Score:2)
Why? It seems like we agree to me. I'm not saying they were lazy, or mercenary. All I'm saying is that if they were mercenary in the way OP suggested (organizing to get better deals when threatened with closure), they did nothing improper to their new owner.
Re: Damn! (Score:2)
Indeed, I misunderstood who you meant with "they".
Re: (Score:2)
>These employees produced valuable work
Rocksmith 2014 is/was a wonderful thing. It's still on Steam and available with all the different DLCs.
Rocksmith's current version is crap subscription nonsense with greatly reduced functionality and none of the good music available in Rocksmith 2014.
Their last good output wrt Rocksmith was 12 years ago. I don't hold any hope of them returning Rocksmith to its former glory.
Re: (Score:3)
Whenever there's a good reason to boycott something, it's always something I'm not using.
Keep up the good work! :-)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Whenever there's a good reason to boycott something, it's always something I'm not using.
TBF, I stopped buying Ubisoft games years ago... Hell, I've even stopped playing most of them as well.
Much better games being made by much less scummy studios.
Re: (Score:2)
Blockage (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Blockage (Score:4, Interesting)
This tactic probably wouldn't work for all cases, but Japanese bus drivers strike by giving free rides [theguardian.com]
Instead of forming a picket line, protesting bus drivers in the Japanese city of Okayama have been completing their routes – but not taking fares from passengers.
The companies lost ticket revenue and still had to pay for fuel and maintenance...
Re:Blockage (Score:4)
Explain to me how drivers that refuse to collect tolls aren't eligible to fe terminated, union or no union?
If you ran the bus company, and your drivers pulled this stunt, how would you feel inviting the union in as your new partner?
If, for example, those Starbucks workers looking to unionize were to refuse to charge customers for their drinks, by what logic would Starbucks have to keep them on the payroll?
Re: (Score:2)
They are eligible for termination, but they're not terminated because it's not just them, it's the entire work force. You would have to stand up an entire collection of scabs to replace the entire striking unionized work force.
If I ran a bus company I would know that my choices are work with a large number of employees who know the job, or replace them with a large number of brand new employees who don't know the job. Both have costs. But you know what those bus drivers have that I wouldn't? The good-wi
Re: (Score:2)
Probably illegal to fire workers doing job action as long as the rules were followed.
Similar happened here. Bus drivers took a strike vote, gave notice and took steps.
1st step was work to rule, no overtime, not wearing uniforms, etc. 2nd step was refusing to enforce charging costumers their fare. 3rd step was stopping most work, the handicap buses kept taking people to the hospital etc.
In civilized countries, it is illegal to fire strikers. Your Starbucks example (if they were unionized) would have resulted
Re: (Score:3)
Americans are also so goddamned brainwashed into buying into the cult of self-sacrifice to the billionaires that socialist ideas like solidarity will never happen as they did 100-120 years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Carter became president in 1977. How could he have had an effect on the 1973 energy crisis?
Re: Blockage (Score:2)
Solution: Worker-owned co-ops (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
There's nothing now preventing any of these people
sigh (Score:2)
At this point I wouldn't even pirate a ubisoft game.
Re: (Score:2)
Same.
Union busting move..lawsuit coming (Score:2)
Good old Ubisoft assholes (Score:2)
Always doing the least moral thing they can. Well, I have long since stopped buying anything from them. It would require real desperation on my part to look at their offerings now.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps it's people like you that are driving Ubisoft to close/consolidate operations?
I'm not a gamer, but the comment section here is rapidly filling up with comments about Ubisoft selling off valuable chunks of the company and how they seem to trying to squeeze maximal revenue from players, and the players resentment it and are boycotting their products.
If that is the state of their business, it shouldn't be hard to document losses that inspired the shutdown.
I'm not sure how Canadian unionizing works, but
Re: (Score:2)
Since you are not a gamer, you obviously have no clue about the overall quality of Ubisoft games lately. They are shit.
By all means, unionize. But don't expect to keep your jobs when you make shit games.
Union or not, you can't force a company to keep offices open just to safeguard jobs.
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps it's people like you that are driving Ubisoft to close/consolidate operations?
Are you trying to make him popular?
Opportunity (Score:2)
By closing the entire studio, this provides an opportunity for workers to form their own game studio(s). It's risky but you have a collection of people that have the skills to do the work needed to publish a game.
how (Score:2)
How do you force a company to keep operating?
Typical (Score:2)
Subsidies (Score:4, Interesting)
Ubisoft receives an enormous amount of subsidies from Canadian governments, mostly in the form of tax breaks. So if it decides to close a studio, it should be forced to pay back any subsidies it received to open that studio.
Otherwise, it's just ripping off taxpayers.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree. But if you accept subsidies and then renege on the implied promise that got you those subsidies, then that's doubly bad.
Opportunity? (Score:2)
Kids these days don't know how to unionize (Score:3)
The modern group think in the VFX and game industry is "If we unionize, they can't take away our jobs". As if the simple act of unionization prevents and employer from laying people off. But unionization only works when the union has leverage. The Halifax studio joined the Canadian CWA union which is a digital media union. The problem is that union has no representation with any of Ubisofts other offices in Canada. So CWA is unable to apply any pressure what-so-ever to Ubisoft. This venture was doomed to fail from the beginning.
Does Ubisoft's entire board have evil goatees? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
I am Italian, my great-grandmother met Mussolini once, and no, fascism is right-wing.
Throwing this out there ... On Trump’s Anti-Antifa Executive Order [cato.org]
So... anti Antifa? Meaning anti anti fascism? Meaning pro fascism?
(Given his and his administration's trajectory, that checks out.)
Quoting The CATO Institute in the link above:
Yes, on the surface, the EO is idiotic on multiple levels.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The mistake is believing that Antifa is equivalent to anti-fascism (like politicians stating "We are all Antifa"). That's not to say they are pro-fascism, or that they do not at times indeed protest against actual fascist-like things, but anti-fascism is by no means the sum total of their agenda. You can be against that agenda or the means by which they pursue it, and still be decidedly and solidly anti-fascist. The enemy of your enemy is very often not your f
Re: (Score:2)
That is literally what it means. The "fa" in "antifa" is for "Fascism". "Antifa" means "against Fascism", and that is all it means.
No, that is not good enough. To name another movement relevant to the discussion, the german Nazi party NSDAP had the word "socialist" right there in the name, literally. Yet no one seriously calls them a socialist movement. Things are not always what they say on the tin.
You seem to labour under the misconception that Antifa is a club or an organisation or something.
It may not have a central organisation or leadership, but it is more than a mere position; it is a decentralized movement. They share a flag, tactics, and ideology that goes far beyond merely fighting fascism. The ideology does vary so
Re: (Score:2)
They share a flag, tactics, and ideology that goes far beyond merely fighting fascism.
It may seem that way if you're busy defending fascism.
Even when anti-fascism is the real motive, in practice it often goes far beyond that.
For example? You've made that assertion multiple times with nothing to back it up.
Re: (Score:2)
Antifa demo, mostly pro-Palestine / anti-anti-immigration, no ostensible fascist targets [trouw.nl]
Counter-demonstration against an anti-immigration group [www.duic.nl]
A longer article about the roots of Antifa in German protest groups, but also what kind of demonstrations they often join: a lot against Israel or nuclear power, or "eat the rich" [historischnieuwsblad.nl]
The thing is: there is very little actual fascism to protest against over here. There are some fringe organizations with an agenda that could
Re: (Score:2)
So all you've shown is a lot of evidence that you don't understand what fascism is. Thanks for clarifying that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Indeed there is no surer sign that someone loves Hitler than when they claim the Nazis were socialists. It's a very convenient dog whistle, in that we all can hear it easily.
Re: (Score:3)
Are those other people in the room with you right now?
Oh look, there's one now. See sig.
Re: SOCIALISM And DEI fail. Woke Union Activists. (Score:3)
They are certainly posting a lot of slashdot.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: SOCIALISM And DEI fail. Woke Union Activists. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are an ill informed cad and bounder. Unions are what got us the labor laws and protections we have. Without them we'd be working 60+ hours a week, in dangerous conditions, for pennies. You need to learn some labor history.
That was the past (Score:3)
Now in most civilised countries (this may not include the USA) however employees have legally binding - on both employer and employee - contracts and employers can't treat people like cattle or worse. And thats over and above any working condition legislation the given country may have.
Re: SOCIALISM And DEI fail. Woke Union Activists. (Score:4, Informative)
A shorter working day and improved working conditions were part of the general protests and agitation for Chartist reforms and the early organisation of trade unions.
Re: (Score:2)
To elaborate, if you look for the sorts of things that seem like they are causative, the big ones are war and politics. Some magnates like Henry Ford probably had a big influence as well. It's very difficult to tease out the causality, but based on how little mention unions get, it seems like they were at most a part of the conversation.
Re: (Score:2)
Jimmy's off his pills again.
Re: (Score:1)
It's probably the opposite. They went woke with their key titles (they made that hilarious NYC hate crime simulator in place of long awaited Japanese Assassin's Creed), and sales cratered.
So everything that was still valuable in the company, like the brands was sold to Tencent last year. Remains of Ubisoft seem to be a vehicle to just spin down a handful of remaining studios.
So wokeness killed the company in another way already. This is likely employees fishing for better severance as they almost certainly
Re:SOCIALISM And DEI fail. Woke Union Activists. (Score:5, Informative)
"Fascism is LEFT wing, and always was"
The 14 principle characteristics of Fascism, as laid out by Eco:
1) "The cult of tradition," characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
2) "The rejection of modernism," which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
3) "The cult of action for action's sake," which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
4) "Disagreement is treason" – fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.
5) "Fear of difference," which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
6) "Appeal to a frustrated middle class," fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
7) "Obsession with a plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often combines an appeal to xenophobia with a fear of disloyalty and sabotage from marginalized groups living within the society. Eco also cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
8) Fascist societies rhetorically cast their enemies as "at the same time too strong and too weak." On the one hand, fascists play up the power of certain disfavored elites to encourage in their followers a sense of grievance and humiliation. On the other hand, fascist leaders point to the decadence of those elites as proof of their ultimate feebleness in the face of an overwhelming popular will.
9) "Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy" because "life is permanent warfare" – there must always be an enemy to fight. Both fascist Germany under Hitler and Italy under Mussolini worked first to organize and clean up their respective countries and then build the war machines that they later intended to and did use, despite Germany being under restrictions of the Versailles treaty to not build a military force. This principle leads to a fundamental contradiction within fascism: the incompatibility of ultimate triumph with perpetual war.
10) "Contempt for the weak," which is uncomfortably married to a chauvinistic popular elitism, in which every member of society is superior to outsiders by virtue of belonging to the in-group. Eco sees in these attitudes the root of a deep tension in the fundamentally hierarchical structure of fascist polities, as they encourage leaders to despise their underlings, up to the ultimate leader, who holds the whole country in contempt for having allowed him to overtake it by force.
11) "Everybody is educated to become a hero," which leads to the embrace of a cult of death. As Eco observes, "[t]he Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."
12) "Machismo," which sublimates the difficult work of permanent war and heroism into the sexual sphere. Fascists thus hold "both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality."
13) "Selective populism" – the people, conceived monolithically, have a common will, distinct from and superior to the viewpoint of any individual. As no mass of people can ever be truly unanimous, the leader holds himself out as the interpreter of the popular will (though truly he alone dictates it). Fascists use this concept to delegitimize democrati
Re: (Score:2)
Umberto Eco is laying out the "symptoms" of Fascism, things that indicate that Fascism might be going on.
The underlying cause (and why it's called fascism) goes back to before the Roman Republic. The imagery explains it: The rod represents civil authority (by an elder). The bundle of rods represents the elders uniting. The addition of the axe represents the military, which are young men (compared to the elders) overriding the traditional, civil authority. This is typically due to war.
Believers in fascis
Re: (Score:2)
Fascism was always and remains, socially very right wing. Whilst it has no official economic policy it is fundamentally incompatible with socialist economics. Hell, before the Jews the Nazis targeted trade unionists and Bolsheviks. The first people beaten up by the brown shirts were the German Bolsheviks in the 20s, even before a certain moustachioed angry little Austrian got on the scene.
Here's Martin Niemoeller's famous poem:
First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me
Pay attention to those that they first came for... and see who they're
Re: (Score:2)
You either have no idea what fascism is, no idea what left wing is, or both. In case you want to change this, you could start by reading the Wikipedia page on fascism [wikipedia.org] (at least the first sentence).
Trump was an asshole most of his life.
As for his political affiliation, Trump registered as a Republican in Queens in 1969 and in Manhattan in 1987; a member of the Indep [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Sure. But these things are in your head and not in reality. Get help?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't know what the politics of Ubisoft's management is. But if one goes by most of the market, and these guys are as woke as others, then it's hilarious to watch this: bankrolling the Left so that they don't turn on them, while in the meantime, cracking down on Left-leaning work policies such as unionization
If, otoh, they were apolitical (this being Canada, I can't imagine them being Right-leaning), then what you are saying is perfectly true
Re: (Score:2)
Re:LOL (Score:5, Informative)
Yup correlation is not causation and all that blah..
But if you want to predict why someone does something look at their past behaviour. Historically capitalism doesn't like unions, they get in the way of control and profit.
We need balance in all things. You are not being made to work 7 days a week because of collective action in the past. Learn your history. Capitalism doesn't care about you, you are a resource and a consumer to be exploited. The other 'ism's have their own faults, but being totally governed by greed so someone can have gold taps in their bathroom is a shit idea.
Re: (Score:3)
Ubisoft can think up of many reasons to close a branch, it's up to the unionists to prove it was because of them getting too comfortable. Which they can't.
In Canada in this case the burden of proof would actually be on the employer [justice.gc.ca]:
(4) Where a complaint is made in writing pursuant to section 97 in respect of an alleged failure by an employer or any person acting on behalf of an employer to comply with subsection 94(3), the written complaint is itself evidence that such failure actually occurred and, if any party to the complaint proceedings alleges that such failure did not occur, the burden of proof thereof is on that party.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The good news is that all of these developers are the means of production. They can form their own studio and make their own game. They don't need Ubisoft to
Re: (Score:2)