The rise in mainstream popularity of video games has put in increasingly bright spotlight on the industry and some of its practices. The term “crunch,” while widely used for decades, has become increasingly tied to the definition “a period of working much longer than normal hours without days off, in an effort to finish work on a video game before it’s slated for release.” As the term has risen in usage, so too has the push for game development staff to unionize. To this end, a victory was achieved last month in Ubisoft Halifax with a successful union vote. Now those employees are out of a job.
Of the 71 employees at Ubisoft Halifax, 61 voted to unionize leading to a successful percentage needed to form a union. The victory has been short lived to say the least.
Ubisoft has confirmed all 71 positions will be cut. “We are committed to supporting all impacted team members during this transition with resources, including comprehensive severance packages and additional career assistance,” Ubisoft said in a statement. It’s unclear if “additional career assistance” means transferring them to other teams or locations, but generally when that happens, the employer outwardly says so.
The timing of this is extremely suspicious. Large companies often point to unions as a reason for price increases on products and a lazy workforce because it’s harder to fire union employees. The truth of the matter is employees have the right to unionize if they choose, and unions have consistently been one of the best ways employees can protect themselves against the power and resources of an employer much larger than they are as an individual. Does this mean the company will have to spend more for wages and benefits? Of course, but it also means better rights and protections for the employees.
Is this enough to say Ubisoft decided to terminate the branch because of the union? Their official statement is this was part of a two year effort to “streamline operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs.” There could be some truth to that. The Halifax teams had been in charge of the mobile game Assassin’s Creed: Rebellion, released in 2017. Upon release, it got average to surprisingly strong reviews, but we don’t have any revenue data to show if it was generating profit for Ubisoft.
It’s also true Ubisoft has not been getting the numbers it was hoping for lately. “Assassin’s Creed: Shadow” is supposedly doing well, but “Star Wars: Outlaws” was an outright flop. And their other big games in the last two years like “Xdefiant” and “Skull and Bones” were even bigger flops. So does it make sense that the company wants to streamline? Sure, logically that adds up. But would they have eliminated the Halifax branch if it wasn’t unionized? Now there’s a very tricky question that we may never know the answer to.
Our hearts go out to those impacted by this decision.
