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Longtime CCO Serge Hascoet, described by Bloomberg gaming journalist Jason Schreier as “Ubisoft’s most powerful creative force” and “the man in charge of ALL their games,” immediately leaves the company, confirmed Schreier. Cecile Cornet, Chief Human Resources Officer, Ubisoft, and Yannis Mallat, General Manager, Ubisoft Canada, have also announced their intention to “resign” from their current positions, and although Mallat will leave the business entirely, the future de Cornet with Ubisoft is not yet clear.
The news follows the resignation of Ubisoft Toronto co-founder Maxime Beland on July 3 in response to a Kotaku investigation that was sparked, in part, by an internal allegation of abusive workplace behavior. Beland.
Content warning: sexual harassment and assault
The main allegation was that Beland had suffocated a Ubisoft colleague at a company party – in 2014. The article includes other specific allegations of clear sexual harassment, including “degrading” jokes told to colleagues women who ended up with oral sex solicitations. Perhaps more importantly, the report discusses in detail a combined culture of constant harassment, frequent alcohol use and a human resource system that resists reports of sexual harassment. Kotaku journalist Evan Gach describes “a global workplace culture that underestimates women’s contributions, normalizes sexism and harassment, and apologizes to worst offenders while complaints about them go unheeded ”
An article in the French publication Liberation, at the same time, confirmed and highlighted these accusations, while the media published a follow-up report on Friday containing new disturbing allegations about the history of Hascoet’s inappropriate behavior at the place of job.
As translated on Twitter, the July 10 Liberation report alleged that Hascoet had once responded acrimoniously to criticisms of a vice president of the company, telling his colleagues, “this” bad fuck “. [the VP] hampered his creativity and that someone should open his mind by ‘[fucking her] “And” share it until she understands it “. In another alleged incident, Hascoet “allegedly blocked a woman in the elevator and put herself against her, groaning and looking her in the eyes. Some of his collaborators in the editorial team would have done the same, to the point that he became [a signature move]. »
But this July 10 follow-up is also largely due to an immediate negative reaction from the Ubisoft HR team to the stories that aired on July 1. “Since your revelations, the situation here has worsened,” an Ubisoft source told Liberation. ” [Leaders] are convinced that this affects their freedom. They call it a “witch hunt”. On top of everything, as women, we have become a threat. “The article describes other hostile conditions allowed by Ubisoft HR, in particular a definition of harassment at work which was updated in 2015 to remove the example of a manager sexually harassing a reporting employee. Liberation’s The report then describes a meeting in early July during which an important HR staff member demanded that Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot make a public statement to exonerate the department from recent allegations, or she would leave the department. ‘business’ with half of my team’.
Guillemot made no such announcement on Saturday. Instead, he confirmed that he had temporarily assumed the role of CCO and promised to “restructure and strengthen [Ubisoft’s] HR function, “with efforts including a third party audit and the search for a new global HR manager. “Ubisoft has breached its obligation to ensure a safe and inclusive work environment for its employees,” said Guillemot in a statement released on Saturday. “This is unacceptable, because toxic behavior is in direct contrast to values that I have never compromised – and never will. “
