Multiple top Ubisoft execs out amid toxic workplace allegations

On a day when Ubisoft expected to be celebrating a hefty lineup of hyped reveals, attention is focused instead on the French publisher’s failures.

Three top executives are leaving the company in the midst of reports detailing a toxic workplace where sexual misconduct allegations are an alarmingly common occurrence. The details started to come out in late June, in the midst of a wider spate of #MeToo stories in the gaming and streaming space.

Ubisoft confirmed in a Saturday statement that Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoët, Managing Director of Ubisoft’s Canadian studios Yannis Mallat, and Global Head of HR Cécile Cornet are all stepping down from their roles. In a corresponding move, the publisher also promised a restructuring a several key departments, including editorial, human resources, and cross-team collaboration.

There’s plenty to be said about what led to these top-level exits, but that’s not where the story starts. In the last week of June, as numerous people stepped forward across the industry to highlight instances of abuse, two Ubisoft employees were named in firsthand accounts.

Andrien Gbinigie, a marketing manager, was accused by multiple women of sexual misconduct and, in one instance, rape. Stone Chin, an associate public relations director, had been outed years earlier for “predatory behavior” but his name came up once again amidst the latest industry reckoning.

Ubisoft responded at the time with a statement promising investigations and disciplinary action. The brief statement left out most of the details, including names. But by this point, the list had grown beyond Gbinigie and Chin to include: Maxime Béland, VP of Editorial (he later resigned); Tommy François, VP for editorial and creative services; Ubisoft Montreal and Assassin’s Creed Valhalla Creative Director Ashraf Ismail; and Antoine Edmond, a senior member of the community team at Ubisoft Massive.

Subsequent reporting described a “Mafia-like” culture at the top levels company designed to protect the people in charge and promote the ones who played ball. This led to what one Gamasutra report described as “a sense of immunity” among managers that “ushered in an era of systemic misconduct.”

The exits of Hascoët and Mallat, and possibly Cornet (we know she’s stepping down, but it’s not clear if she’s leaving the company completely) come after more recent reporting from the French newspaper, Libération. In a Twitter thread discussing the French-language article, shared on Friday, ICO Partners CEO Thomas Bidaux ran through the key points, painting a damning picture of life inside the company. (The below tweets are just a sampling from what is a much longer thread.)

The three extremely high-profile departures – and especially the exit of Hascoët, who has played a fundamental role in shaping Ubisoft’s current creative focus – come just ahead of a very different major event for the publisher. 

On Sunday July 12, a “Ubisoft Forward” live stream will share new details on a number of major upcoming games. More information is coming on much-hyped new entries in the Assassin’s Creed and Watch Dogs series’. There’s also a first look coming for Far Cry 6, which features Breaking Bad‘s Giancarlo Esposito in a major role.

That’s where things get tricky. Clearly, the revelations of recent weeks paint a picture of a dysfunctional corporate culture at Ubisoft that protects some of the worst offenders in ways both implicit and explicit. But even just one of the video games that will show up at Ubisoft Forward is the product of hundreds of people’s efforts.

Ubisoft has already made it clear that the event will stick to the games and avoid any discussion of what’s been in the news. But the justification is… let’s just call it highly questionable.

Yes, the publisher would have you believe that Ubisoft Forward won’t reference recent events because everything in the show was pre-recorded. But let’s be clear about the timeline here: this has been in the news for weeks. There’s no scenario where the publisher didn’t have time to put something together. Yves Guillemot, Ubisoft’s CEO, could have recorded a public statement on Saturday night and there still would’ve been plenty of time to add it to the stream.

Let’s even take it a step further: Ashraf Ismail has been intimately involved in the Assassin’s Creed series for years. He introduced Assassin’s Creed Origins himself at an E3 event that I attended personally. He was the creative director on Valhalla until just a few weeks ago (and revealed the game back in May). It strains credulity to believe he wasn’t going to have an on-camera presence during Sunday’s event. But you can bet he won’t show up, and you can also bet it’ll be because any pre-recorded contributions were removed.

There isn’t going to be any statement on the toxic workplace issues because Ubisoft doesn’t want to make one. But that also makes the situation so much clearer. This weak justification for passing on an opportunity to address tough issues head-on says more about the company and the culture that exists there than any PR-approved public statement possibly could.

The artists and coders and members of other disciplines at Ubisoft who just want to go to work and make cool games shouldn’t face repercussions because of bad behavior by a small but powerful contingent at the company. But it’s important to understand the business that’s fueling Sunday’s Ubisoft Forward event in the midst of all the new game hype.

UPDATE: July 12, 2020, 1:14 p.m. EDT Clarified the lack of information over Cécile Cornet’s position. It’s confirmed that she’s stepping down from her top role in HR but not that she’s leaving the company.