• tomkatt@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    5 hours ago

    Just sell Splinter Cell to a company that knows what the hell to do with it already.

      • deltapi@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        9 hours ago

        He was attached to Ubi’s office Montreal, QC, Canada.
        If there isn’t anything more than what is mentioned in the article, it’s highly that the CDPDJ would rule against Ubi if the dismissal is challenged; this would likely be protected as Freedom of Expression, as nothing negative was said about Ubi besides the implication that Ubi thought that their employees wouldn’t see their motives.

        • MangoCats@feddit.it
          cake
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          ·
          8 hours ago

          Curious: Does Montreal allow “employment at will” like most states in the US do? If it does, I can’t imagine an UbiSoft contract not including it. The article definitely makes it sound like a termination for cause, but what’s written on his termination paperwork may be entirely different.

  • VibeSurgeon@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    65
    ·
    1 day ago

    RTOs are most often a “one free layoff”-card that businesses play, so firing someone for criticizing it is very much in line with the underlying intent of the policy.

  • Gorilladrums@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    61
    ·
    edit-2
    20 hours ago

    Is there a company that’s trying to destroy itself as much as Ubisoft? The CEO and board that’s running this company are genuinely some of the dumbest motherfuckers in the world. These idiots are still dedicating significant resources to make NFT games, they’re still trying to insist that microtransactions are fun, they refuse to do anything to make their games more enjoyable to players, and they’re trying everything in their power to squeeze out their talent. At this point, Ubisoft deserves to collapse.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      23 hours ago

      They released one game last year that I’d expect to make money (Assassin’s Creed 14).

      Not sure how they’re actually in business right now. Surely they need more than that to stay afloat. None of their microtransaction games are whale milking machines like EA’s FIFA/Madden or Activision’s COD series.

      I’ll kind of miss them when they’re gone. They’ve always been the least evil of the big publishers.

      • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Assassin’s Creed 14

        What the fuck there’s 14 Assassin’s Creed games? Surely they’re gonna run out of historical periods soon. It’s only a matter of time before the announce Assassin’s Creed: Unga Bunga where you just sneak around the forest as a cave man

      • Woht24@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        ·
        13 hours ago

        Ubisoft is one of the least evil? I guess to a point, but I’d argue they haven’t made a truly great game in about a decade.

        No real loss in my opinion.

    • Saryn@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      1 day ago

      I’ve been waiting for Ubisoft’s collapse for years now. Unfortunately, the consumer has proved me wrong time and time again.

  • NewNewAugustEast@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    86
    ·
    2 days ago

    I am so thankful that the executives took a productivity and happiness survey when we went full time remote.

    Any time a new manager brings up maybe we should return to the office, our offcial remote manual begins with data: we are far more productive remote working. There is the data, the proof.

    The second part about being overall happier reminds us that we didn’t really like being in the office either.

    We also have two more metrics: amount of time saved by a company in commute reduction, and the increase in safety.

    But the first two are the most important.

  • Zacpod@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    53
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    2 days ago

    I stopped buying Unisoft games decades ago. Because they suck. The owners suck. The management sucks. The corporate culture sucks. I feel bad for the coders working for them.

    Stop. Buying. Ubisoft. Games.

    • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      15
      ·
      2 days ago

      I get the impression Ubisoft wants to lay off as many people as possible anyway. They don‘t care who so as long as they can meet some quota. I’m guessing they‘re trying to push operating costs down while they‘re looking for buyers of their IPs.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      50
      ·
      2 days ago

      It’s big brain moves like this that’ll surely return the like … 20x? … value they’ve lost over the last few years.

      • Kalothar@lemmy.ca
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        17
        ·
        2 days ago

        I’m sure the publicity of it I’ll land this guy a higher paying job anyways

  • MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    118
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    2 days ago

    bad-companies.md:

    Ubisoft

    2026:

    • fires team lead after return-to-office critique
    • closes Halifax studio 1 month after Union formed

    2025:

    • full-in on gen-AI after shares plummeting
    • NOYB sues because of covert user tracking
    • Ubisoft wants to monitor your RAM (🏴‍☠️)
    • EULA demands deleting delisted games

    2024:

    • deletes inactive customer accounts with purchased games
    • “Gamers need to get comfortable not owning games”
    • adds Denuvo after reviews were made

    2023:

    • ads in games
    • started that list here

    To be fair, they also want to be bought up (rebranding), after multiple buy-outs and mass-layoffs.

    • ByteOnBikes@discuss.online
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      37
      ·
      2 days ago

      For things before 2023, there was sexual harassment (multiple) bullying and hostile workplace and their excitement over NFT. They had a boys club and made it a really toxic atmosphere, where the CCO literally said “Women don’t sell”.

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      2 days ago

      I feel like this file would be valuable for every company we might purchase from, and also nearly impossible to maintain.

      • willington@lemmy.dbzer0.com
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        15 hours ago

        If only instead of each one micromanaging our purchases there could be a system set up to thwart the bad corporate behavior in a broad and systemic way, with the dedicated pros doing oversight professionally.

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          11 hours ago

          That’s ridiculous. It would take some sort of centralized entity designed to represent the will of the populace. I wouldn’t even know where to start to create such a thing.

  • rozodru@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    160
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    2 days ago

    I have to wonder what the end goal here is for Ubisoft. you got people leaving in droves, people leaving and forming their own studios and producing games that are quite literally games of the year, and they’re axing people left right and center.

    And lets not kid ourselves this company is essentially the cockroach of gaming, how it’s still alive in 2026 is in it’s own right quite the achievement. I can’t even recall the last good Ubisoft game I played.

    • CosmicTurtle0 [he/him]@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      72
      ·
      2 days ago

      The goal of companies mandating RTO is attrition. They want people to quit without firing or laying them off.

      Their goal is to hire younger, hungrier (both literally and figuratively) coders who are cheaper and less experienced and will use “AI” to clean up their code.

      • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 hours ago

        And as the market moves the jobs away from the sort of low paying work those hungry coders end up flipping burgers or driving uber instead. The wages and expectations at the places like ubisoft make for only the very worst/desperate of devs apply. Its happening all over the tech industry, you make more doing almost anything else.

    • Akh@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      80
      ·
      2 days ago

      Management have over inflated egos. They think, oh, fuck John, John’s division only did $25m. They only see bottom lines. But they fail to realize they killed off John’s ideas that would have brought in $500m. So John leaves, gets to develop his own ideas, then shocked peakachu face.

    • red_tomato@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      27
      ·
      2 days ago

      I believe they want to divert all their resources into one huge Fortnite like success story. Something that can bring them a reliable recurring revenue stream.

      • Breezy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        2 days ago

        All they have to do is make the best game of the year. Yet they have a severe case of skill issue

    • fuzzyfirefox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      Last Ubisoft game I purchased was Rainbow Six Vegas. Great game, but nothing else after that has interested me.

    • Sturgist@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 day ago

      I (begrudgingly) enjoyed the first season of Mythic Quest. Knowing that it’s meant to be a fluff piece to improve the image of Unisoft boggles my mind. It’s in no way flattering to the industry, and I question the intelligence of anyone who thought it would be.

  • pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    87
    ·
    2 days ago

    Okay. I’m keeping my commitment, but I’m going to need help.

    Everytime Ubisoft makes the news for being idiots, I buy another Indie game.

    I’m going to need your recommendations for great indie games.

    Because Ubisoft has recently gotten me through my wishlist.

    • lad@programming.dev
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      14 hours ago

      It may not be the best of all time, but I remember Celeste has been a blast to play, and it’s really well polished

    • avav2y1rs@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      edit-2
      2 days ago

      Pulled from my Top Playtime on Steam (so you know you’ll get your money’s worth if you like them!)

      • Factorio (Even though the DLC is pricey, it at least doubles the playtime. Though, like RW below, it takes a lot of content/concepts from fan-made mods.)
      • RimWorld (Though I dislike how many DLCs they’re pumping out and how much is basically taken from mods.)
      • Terraria
      • Mount & Blade (Warband 1 & 2 are prime)
      • Kerbal Space Program (NOT the sequel)
      • TerraTech (The original is a better experience)
      • Both the Pathfinder games
      • Grim Dawn
      • The Riftbreaker
      • UnderRail
      • Mindustry (Open source/free, but deserves the support from buying it on Steam.)
      • No Man’s Sky (They’ve gone above and beyond in shaping up since the clusterf release.)
      • The Long Dark
      • Rise to Ruins
      • Space Pirates and Zombies (1 and 2 are both great, in their own ways.)
      • Caves of Qud
      • Tales of Maj’Eyal
      • STALKER (I’ve heard bad things about #2, but the rest are great, high replayability with Anomaly.)
      • Astroneer
      • War for the Overworld
      • Autonauts (and Autonauts vs Piratebots!)
      • felixwhynot@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        ·
        2 days ago

        I think the formatting is a markdown thing… try using double line breaks if you edit or just next time

        • DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          2 days ago

          In case you haven’t deciphered where the cut off points are:

          • Cassette Beasts
          • Pseudoregalia
          • Return of the Obra Dinn
          • Chants of Sennar
          • Gloomwood
          • 5too@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            2 days ago

            Yeah, I was just poking at what I assumed was a day off the cuff response. Didn’t occur to me they might have tried formatting it, and failed.

            Thanks for breaking them out!

      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        2
        ·
        1 day ago

        Psuedoregalia I think has some of the best movement in any game. I was sad for it to be over, I needed more. I love games that leave room for “breaking” the intended path if you can find the right places to push the movement tech to its limits. Not many games do it.

    • fuzzyfirefox@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      1 day ago

      Zero Sievert - single player extraction shooter and you can customize the difficulty with granular controls

    • DragonOracleIX@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 days ago

      Here are my recommendations then:

      CrossCode is a personal favorite of mine. An action RPG heavily inspired by retro games.

      Library of Ruina is a great non-roguelike deckbuilder. Technically it’s a sequel, but it’s not necessary to know anything about Lobotomy Corporation to get the full enjoyment of its story. At most you can just look up LC’s true ending if you aren’t interested in brutally hard management sims.

      Tactical Breach Wizards is a really intertesting mix between a turn-based tactical game and a puzzle game.

    • Schal330@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      9
      ·
      2 days ago

      Monster Train 2 if you like card games. It’s got a load of content and replay and they recently released a patch today to add more!

    • thisbenzingring@lemmy.today
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      7
      ·
      2 days ago

      The Last Caretaker and StarRupture are pretty fun if you like the factory survival type game. TLC is something really special IMO. The boat aspect is just so much fun.

    • BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      2 days ago

      Terra Invicta is amazing. It’s as if Paradox made an X-Com grand strategy game. The developers were clearly passionate about their game.

    • Buffy@libretechni.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      2 days ago

      Bloodthief is great, fast paced with an extremely high skill ceiling. Unlockables give you something to strive for and the level based structure makes it easy to quickly pick up and put down. Some other games I see people recommended here that I love are Signalis, Pseudoregalia, and Sayonara Wild Hearts.

      Signalis is the best modern take on the old Resident Evil formula I’ve ever played, hands down. Pseudoregalia is a blast to play, the movement and tech in that game are unrivaled. I thought about comparing it to some Mario games, but that wouldn’t do it justice. Sayonara Wild Hearts is short but beautiful, there is nothing out there like it and it probably has some deeper meaning to read into.

    • Goldholz @lemmy.blahaj.zone
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      16
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      2 days ago

      Always.

      But we need to get this huge problem away that always a power hungry dictator gets to power and then it turns into just any dictatorship!!! And not socialism!

      • wpb@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 hours ago

        Yeah! And we need to do it in a way where the incredibly rich and powerful who have a vested interest and desparate need for us to fail won’t kill our movement! In the past and present, any socialist movement was met with

        • death squads
        • propaganda
        • military invasions
        • assasinations of heads of state
        • funding, arming, and training the opposition
        • economic sanctions
        • so, so much propaganda

        all funded by the absurdly wealthy to make nations fail and make them more amenable to re-exploitation by the owning class.

        Any ideas on how to defend ourselves against this phenomenon which occurs over and over again?

        • Goldholz @lemmy.blahaj.zone
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          1
          ·
          4 hours ago

          About the dictatorship problem: How about instead of rallying around a single leader to lead the movement, we set a truely democratic system from the start, council leadership and not a single person. Short a federation parlament system like switzerlands from the start!

          And thats why, among other reasons i am against revolution to archiev socialism. Because there the undemocratic side will have no issue overthrowing a new democracy if they dont like the election outcome (lenin is a good example)

          No revolution also solves the death squads and mostly military invasions. Speaking about a place where democracy is already in place in some form and that has strong allies ofc. If change democraticly cant be archieved revolution for democracy is ofc a neccassary first step.

          Funding from outside, like russia and china are doing, must be met with laws against MPs being able to earn extra income or get gifts next to their MP revenue. And a strong seperation of power.

          Against real militairy invasion im afraid the only solution is allies…

          Propaganda can only be countered threw education.

          But most importantly it is unity of the movement and rooting out antidemocratic advocats from the beginning.

          The first steps for a workers movement to succeed is to meet the people on their level! Trade Unions! Organizing the workforce to fight for better working conditions. And this doesnt work only for work, but also renting. Its scary how union membership are dropping. I am currently preparing to start a study why selfishness rises, solidarity and union membership declines (in germany)

          Its all easier said than done but i really belief that we are on a breaking point of the old system, the people are mad and the card deck soon will be reshuffled. Only question is: who will come out ontop for the next era. fascists or worker democracys… Only together can we, the people, the workers, change the course of history, for us and our desendence. Its a hard, never ending fight but the only other option is becoming enslaved and losing what is remaining of the harvest our ancesters fought and died for.

      • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        4
        arrow-down
        9
        ·
        2 days ago

        This huge problem stems from “we need”. Collectivism leads to hierarchy, because a collective isn’t semantically compatible to one person. A collective can’t be responsible, a collective can’t make a decision, a collective can’t think, a collective can’t speak in one voice. But collectivism means trying to treat a collective like one person. Leading to dictatorships.

        • TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          13
          ·
          2 days ago

          You talk as if with corporations a single person can be held responsible…

          You can have syndicates and get close to socialism

            • TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              24 hours ago

              Yeah but only when it’s the dominant form of doing business? We have a bunch of them in my country but we’re definitely still capitalism.

              • Goldholz @lemmy.blahaj.zone
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                4 hours ago

                Syndicates existing doesnt mean the country isnt syndicalist. What i tried to say is that if syndicates were in charge that were syndicalism.

                I am assuming syndicates as used by you means collection of workers aka a trade union/workers union.

            • TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              1 day ago

              My country has a bunch of syndicates, even some big coops, it’s not uncommon in Europe. You just need the legal structures for it.

              • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                1
                ·
                17 hours ago

                Syndicates and coops are fine, just show me how you do that with power. Police, financial regulations. That usually doesn’t work so well.

                Even in late USSR coops were a thing and could function, while everything was falling apart. It’s just that the pressure of power matters.

                • TheBlackLounge@lemmy.zip
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  edit-2
                  15 hours ago

                  Let’s start with normalizing it for businesses like game companies! Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good!

                  The idea that it should be all or nothing is at best defeatist and at worst dangerous - lest you end up with USSR Communism indeed.

          • IronBird@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            edit-2
            1 day ago

            shit, the average public corporation is a more representative democracy than the US’s actual government is.

            • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              3
              ·
              1 day ago

              With voting power weighted by the amount of money they have invested.

              Kind of like the way the US actually works.

              • IronBird@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                1
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                1 day ago

                average US corpo is just 1 vote 1 share, just right there it’s more equal representation than the US government has been for it’s entire existence.

                throw in shit like recalling/installing new c-suites etc.

                far more responsive/equal form of government than the clown show that is US “democracy”

                • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
                  link
                  fedilink
                  English
                  arrow-up
                  3
                  ·
                  24 hours ago

                  average US corpo is just 1 vote 1 share, just right there it’s more equal representation than the US government has been for it’s entire existence.

                  And an individual can hold multiple shares. So some have more votes than others. That’s not democratic in any way.

                  throw in shit like recalling/installing new c-suites etc.

                  That’s a lot harder than you make it sound. That dysfunction is the main executive pay relative to performance has massively inflated over the years: accountability to shareholders in matters of compensation is piss-poor.

        • youmaynotknow@lemmy.zip
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          3
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          1 day ago

          Finally, someone had to say it. While capitalism is far from perfect, I’d rather have billionaire capitalist assholes that I can then call on their bullshit than so-called ‘socialism’ which is just the pretty way to call a dictatorship. Show me one ‘socialist’ country that has thrived. One, come on.

          • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            3
            ·
            1 day ago

            OK, I can name one. It’s Israel. Before 90s it was (administratively, politically, socially) socialist (not like marxist, but with collectives and communes and kibbutz, and much of economy being state monopolies). One reason after 90s everything changed about it was because there were certain reforms which, eh, significantly raised level of life, making all the old institutions unpopular. So it’s no more socialist in anything.

            A-and, of course, the part about collectivism was present. Some things I’ve heard about Israel before 90s emotionally reminisce USSR. Sort of a procrustean bed of a society, if you don’t fit it’s your problem.

            • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              2
              ·
              1 day ago

              Calling pre-1990s Israel socialist is like calling the Confederate States of America democratic.

              Yeah, it was, except for a large disenfranchised population. If you count them as people too, then it’s not. And don’t come back at me with false distinctions about what was “Israel proper” versus the bantustans-- oh, sorry, “occupied territories.” Those places have no real sovereignty.

              • vacuumflower@lemmy.sdf.org
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                2
                arrow-down
                2
                ·
                17 hours ago

                Occupation is a normal legal term and its presence doesn’t limit calling the system inside “Israel proper” socialist.

                I think that to properly limit the difference we should compare how these all came to exist.

                CSA were a split off part of a state created by rich landowners, and so it was a republic of rich landowners. Nothing surprising in that.

                South Africa was part of the British Empire where natives were considered inferior from the very beginning, and their “bantustans” were sort of British traditional “to each his own” decorations, similarly to how even in the British Isles technically they have a United Kingdom and even Wales is not the same as England and so on, but in fact it’s more or less one state. Tradition.

                While Israel was initially a bunch of Zionist settlements on sparsely populated land, like Tel-Aviv and such, which didn’t have much of said disenfranchised population and had lots of socialist traits in organization. Also among Zionists in the beginning of XX century the left part was far more numerous and popular than the right part (which has captured dominance in Israel since about 80s), especially after WWII, these things tend to make effect. That left part basically had just one Zionist idea - that Jews should have a nation-state in Palestine, all the rest was pretty normally leftist for the time (a bit obsolete by now, with planned economy traits and collectivism and so called meritocracy and so on).

                Then that bunch of settlements in the war of 1948 became state of Israel. And then in subsequent wars it captured/occupied territories, without expelling much of populace. Which then lived under occupation status.

                So the difference is that for Israel occupied territories were really occupied territories. There’s a clear difference between Tel-Aviv and Haifa on one side and Hebron on the other. While in South Africa bantustans were sort of big zoos\reservations with people set here and there through its territory, and CSA was in its entirety a republic of rich landowners.

  • CaptPretentious@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    9
    ·
    1 day ago

    So Ubisoft, that failed hard on their own launcher. Made several mistakes when it comes to the games they’ve released, made the wrong kind of news with “The Crew 2”, cancelled a bunch of games (but don’t worry, Beyond Good and Evil 2 is definitely coming out…), goes and fired a lead designer.

    Let me break out my magnifying glass to check on their stocks. Oh, they made a slight “comeback” from earlier this week, they’re up to 92 cents a share.

    Mgmt at that place is making bold decisions for a company; when if their stock gains a penny, it’s worth celebrating.