Generally speaking, and strictly speaking among the gaming community, Ubisoft is not a well-loved developer. A factor that certainly wasn’t helped when, as recently as last October, the developer basically decided to blame everyone (except themselves) as to why their games were often so poorly optimised for PC. – Over the last 18-months, however, Ubisoft has had bigger problems than the outside perception of them. Put simply, the developer has seen many key members of its staff resign. Perhaps as many as 100 just in the last 12-months.
The problem has, in fact, become so prevalent that, following a report via Eurogamer, even those staff members who are currently remaining at Ubisoft have already dubbed it “the great exodus”.
Ubisoft And The Great Exodus
The reasons for the masses of staff members resigning at Ubisoft are, although a little varied, generally quite consistent. Most of them cite a general dissatisfaction with the work environment combined with their perception (that we suspect is probably real) that they’re not paid anywhere near as well as people in similar roles at other companies. There are also suggestions that Ubisoft is, effectively, running things on a bit of a shoestring budget at the moment with very little done to positively motivate the staff it still has.
Put simply, this is an absolute dream scenario for head hunters working at or on behalf of other developers. If this continues, however, then it could potentially result in all of Ubisoft’s best talent, pretty easily, being entirely lured away.
What Can Ubisoft Do?
Although clearly not loved by those inside or outside, we’re certainly not suggesting that Ubisoft is in any kind of trouble in terms of its future prospects. Put simply, compared to the chaos going on at Blizzard Entertainment at the moment, this is undoubtedly a relative storm in a teacup. – Ultimately though, if Ubisoft isn’t willing to pay the money/wages necessary to attract the best talent, their games will undoubtedly suffer because of it. Especially so if they’re even struggling to keep what they have, let alone attract fresh faces.
While Ubisoft may claim they’re simply attempting to run a profitable and frugal studio, such sentiments rarely mean much to the staff on their relatively meager payroll!
What do you think? – Let us know in the comments!
