We are conscious of and deeply saddened by the fact that these systems may not have done enough to protect our employees and community in the past, and we have launched a comprehensive audit to understand why. Even amid all of this, the choking story stands out. It felt like someone should do something, but I didn’t really see any power in my role to do that, so I felt like it was easier to just sort of let it slip.”, Complicating things further was who was in HR. Jane assumed Brek had heard about the incident. But they also felt let down by what’s happened. [9][10], By March 2012, Ubisoft Toronto had grown to 200 people, and to 300 by September 2013. Brek, like Béland, did not reply to multiple requests for comment.

Marine Layer Diver Dave Button Down Shirt, Former reality TV host tests positive for COVID-19, U-Haul's Motorcycle Trailer Is Really Good But You Can't Ever Own One, YouTube TV Is Losing Regional Sports Channels Because Cordcutting Is No Better Than Cable, Last Call: Remembering the golden age of fast food buffets, “The way the studio—HR and management—disregards complaints just enables this behavior from men.” — former Ubisoft Toronto employee, “I didn’t want to get drunk anymore, I wanted to get a promotion.” — former Ubisoft Toronto employee, “There are a lot of people who could have done a lot of stuff and didn’t.” — former Ubisoft Toronto employee, “I’ve seen a lot of women’s careers get destroyed by speaking up.” — former Ubisoft Toronto employee, develop its own AAA games while also co-producing franchise sequels, in exchange for $263 million CAD in subsidies.

Ubisoft Toronto was founded in 2010 inside of a four-story brick factory originally built by General Electric that overlooks a quiet residential street in the city’s Junction Triangle neighborhood. On Monday, June 29, Parizeau held an all-hands video meeting with staff. It would happen in public and be laughed off in public and alcohol would be used as an excuse, or it was ‘just how that person is.’”, Another former employee said they eventually felt like the frequent parties were simply a way to distract from other problems in the workplace, like long hours and poor pay. “The meeting was handled respectfully for what it was, but Alex couldn’t discuss any of the allegations directly and we still want answers on those from studio leadership,” said another. 72 Ubisoft reviews in Toronto, ON. [2] Most of the studio's staff in its development phase, including Raymond, transferred to the new location from Ubisoft Montreal. Kotaku staff writer. A free inside look at company reviews and salaries posted anonymously by employees. Members of the studio, many still hopeful that Ubisoft can be a good place to work, are calling on management to deal more openly with problems of misconduct and how HR handles them, and to institute changes that could help create a safer and more respectful work environment. Raymond left the studio and was succeeded as general manager by Parizeau. He was constantly behaving the same way toward women in the office in broad daylight. There’s a story some people tell at Ubisoft Toronto, the studio currently finishing one of this fall’s bigger planned releases, Watch Dogs: Legion. The logic behind it was frequently cited in interviews with our sources as a deterrent to employees reporting issues to HR in the first place. The thing is, after reading all that about how HR is incompetent and too cosy with management to do their job proper, that people use drinking culture as a promoted perk and as the source of gaining promotion, that victims were encouraged to remain silent is that the only thing that sets Ubisoft Toronto apart from most of the industry aren’t the allegations but its that it’s actually come to light here and won’t elsewhere. Often, there was alcohol involved, as there appears to be at many Ubisoft Toronto events. By September 2009, Jade Raymond was put in charge of establishing the studio. Three days later, Bloomberg reported that Béland had been suspended by Ubisoft, pending an investigation into allegations of misconduct. Instead, the people we’ve interviewed described an overall workplace culture that undervalues women’s contributions, normalizes sexism and harassment, and makes excuses for the worst offenders while complaints about them go unheeded. [5], "Ubisoft Toronto Brings 800 Jobs To Ontario", "Jade Raymond heading up Ubisoft Toronto", "Building On Conviction: Inside Ubisoft Toronto, Page 1 of 4", "The Rise of Ubisoft Toronto: How a New Team Nailed its AAA Debut", "Ubisoft Employees Have 'Grave Concerns' Over Toronto Studio's Misconduct Allegations", "Building On Conviction: Inside Ubisoft Toronto, Page 2 of 4", "Building On Conviction: Inside Ubisoft Toronto, Page 3 of 4", "Building On Conviction: Inside Ubisoft Toronto, Page 4 of 4", "Jade's Empire: Building Ubisoft's Super-Studio", "Ubisoft Opens New Performance Capture Studio", "Ubisoft Toronto managing director Jade Raymond leaves company", "Ubisoft Toronto is Working on a New AAA IP", "Ubisoft unveils Starlink video game with toys that attach to your controller", "Ubisoft Toronto: "We can bring life back to toys-to-life, "Ubisoft Toronto's big bet: A new spin on toy-based video games with Starlink", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ubisoft_Toronto&oldid=972113538, Canadian subsidiaries of foreign companies, Pages with non-numeric formatnum arguments, All Wikipedia articles written in Canadian English, Official website different in Wikidata and Wikipedia, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, This page was last edited on 10 August 2020, at 06:51. Ubisoft Toronto, Toronto, ON. “Directors would get drunk and get handsy,” one person said. Ubisoft Toronto is a Canadian video game developer and subsidiary of Ubisoft Entertainment, located in Toronto, Canada. [9][10] By the latter, the studio had received 30,000 applications and given 1,800 job interviews. “I didn’t feel threatened by it. The letter also noted that the employees “expect HR to never order or suggest that a victim confront their abuser about an incident,” either. Ubisoft Toronto was founded in 2010 inside of a four-story brick factory originally built by General Electric that overlooks a quiet residential street in the city’s Junction Triangle neighborhood. Many of the alleged instances of misconduct described to Kotaku weren’t reported to HR, the people said, because of the department’s reputation for being unhelpful at best. Ubisoft Toronto began operating in late 2009 and formally opened in September 2010. The Ubisoft logo, as seen in Rainbow Six Siege. And they say they felt like raising these issues would have made it even harder for them to get ahead. In this article, for the sake of clarity, we’ll call her Jane. He did not reply to numerous requests from Kotaku for comment about the alleged choking story nor other complaints made about him. But, almost from the beginning, lots of people passed through Ubisoft Toronto who didn’t feel like their voice mattered. At the all-hands meeting Parizeau spoke about the failure of the Human Resources department at the studio to create a safe environment and said Toronto would contract with an outside firm to audit its current processes for dealing with complaints of harassment. “Even if you rejected their advances, it would continue to happen. Ubisoft announced in July 2009 that it was establishing a Toronto-based development studio. “I didn’t react right away, because I was sort of like, ‘What is happening here?’ and then by the time I realized what was happening he stopped,” she said. Coordinates: 43°40′N 79°26′W / 43.66°N 79.44°W / 43.66; -79.44. This should have been a time focused on the outward celebration of a new game launch, but it has become a potential turning point of inward examination and reform. “I sort of brushed it off because it felt impersonal and it felt like just a representation of how he looked at women, not an actual targeted thing.” She said she also didn’t feel encouraged to make a report since it seemed like a person with more power than her who was in a position to escalate the issue didn’t automatically do that. Among the people added to the group—a group of seven white men—was Maxime Béland, who would be returning to the company with a big promotion after briefly leaving for Epic. We do not and will not tolerate abuse, harassment or discrimination of any kind. Come test our games at Ubisoft! This list denotes games in the Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Franchise that have been developed by Ubisoft Milan. Among their concerns, some Ubisoft Toronto workers point to a party culture, where booze-filled events could sometimes prove hostile to female workers. Even employees who described working at Ubisoft Toronto as the highlight of their careers were critical of the HR department. They still want Ubisoft to be the place they believe it can be and are disappointed that it’s taken so long for studio leadership to confront some of these issues. It was still relatively early in the night when a former employee, who spoke to Kotaku by phone under the condition of anonymity in order to protect her privacy, said she was talking with Béland, one of the most powerful people in the studio. More than 24 hours later, they pointed us to a new statement from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot who promised “to revise the composition of the Editorial Department, transform our human resource processes, and improve the accountability of all managers on these subjects.”. It was a new branch of a giant company, but it operated with the pressures of a start-up pursuing lofty goals.

[4][10] Raymond left the studio and was succeeded as general manager by Parizeau. “Such complaints would thus have the advantage to allow authorities to assure the authenticity of these allegations and allow us to respond and demonstrate their falsehood,” the lawyer told the paper, based on a translation of his remarks by Kotaku. The past two weeks have been filled with accounts, some anonymous, some with names attached, as people, mostly women, take the risk of speaking out on social media about harassment, abuse, and assault, mostly against men in gaming. When asked about Béland and these deeper issues involving Ubisoft two days before the news of Béland’s resignation, a company rep avoided answering any specific questions. One former developer told Kotaku that he made her feel uncomfortable at a party after she expressed interest in working on one of the studio’s current projects with him. The recent claims and allegations are deeply troubling, and we take them, and the underlying questions they raise, very seriously. During the meeting, he announced that two people at Ubisoft had been suspended while a third had been fired—no names were given—and he promised reforms in how workplace complaints would be handled in the future. These events were billed as a way for the new hires constantly pouring in at the rapidly expanding studio to meet and socialize with coworkers. But she had heard about HR not following up on incidents in the past and was hesitant to do so.