Call for an unprecedented strike of all its staff in France, stock market crash, cancellation of games. The French video game giant Ubisoft has been experiencing a multiple crisis since the announcement in mid-January of the reduction of its financial forecasts for the entire 2022-2023 financial year.
The video game workers union (STJV) and Solidaires Informatique launched a “strike call” for all Ubisoft French entities, this Friday from 2:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., to denounce the managerial practices of the management.
A rather rare protest movement in the video game industry, recently marked by the five-week strike by the publisher Activision Blizzard at the end of 2021, which ended last May with the creation of the first union within the American company. .
200 million euros of savings in two years
What set fire to the gunpowder at Ubisoft? An internal email sent by CEO Yves Guillemot, referring to the “structural adjustments” to come as Ubisoft has committed to the markets to achieve €200 million in savings in two years.
“For us, that means redundancy plans. And when we talk about saving money, that means laying off people and not raising the wages of those who stay. Knowing that we are being pressured saying: ‘It’s up to you to do better.’ he criticizes Marc Rutschlé, representative of the union section of Solidaires Informatique.
In their press release, the unions demand in particular “the opening of wage negotiations”.
A harassment scandal against several former executives at the company, which has 18,000 employees worldwide, including 6,000 in France, during the summer of 2020 also left its mark, eroding employee confidence in his management.
Sales fall “more than 10%”
On the financial front, the French publisher has also fallen sharply on the stock market since the announcement in mid-January of the reduction of its financial forecasts for the entire 2022-2023 financial year, due to a context of “worsening macroeconomic conditions”. . “.
Ubisoft has revised downward its revenue growth target for 2022-2023, with sales falling “more than 10%” from the previous year, when it had initially communicated a growth target of “greater than 10%.” As a result, its share price returned to its 2015-2016 lows.
The founders of the French video game champion -the Guillemot family- sealed an alliance with the Chinese giant Tencent in early September to gain control of Ubisoft, in a video game market in full consolidation.
Another element against: the umpteenth postponement of the “Skull and Bones” game, initially scheduled for November 2022, while Ubisoft also indicated that it had stopped the development of three “unannounced” projects, in addition to the four stops already announced in July. of 2022.
Source: BFM TV
