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Reports are rife that Ubisoft is currently struggling to retain talent as many developers have departed over recent months.
Axios reports a wave of high profile resignations over the last few months have caused some colleagues to refer to them as “the great exodus” or “the cut artery”. These include five of the top 25 names from Far Cry and twelve of the top 50 names on Assassin’s Creed Valhalla. However an additional one, writer Darby McDevitt, returned last month.
Two developers have claimed the number of departures has even slowed down and stalled some projects. The departures have also apparently hit mid and low-level workers hard too, especially at the company’s Canadian studios. According to Axios, it says LinkedIn shows sixty workers in just the past six months have departed Ubisoft’s Montreal and Toronto branches.
Axois’ report references a number of interviews with a dozen current and former employees citing several reasons for the departures. These include “low pay, an abundance of competitive opportunities, frustration at the company’s creative direction” and the company’s handling of the workplace misconduct scandal that broke last year.
Ubisoft, meanwhile, argues it’s on top of the departures, saying it’s hired 2,600 new workers since April. Ubisoft’s Anika Grant told Axios “Our attrition today is a few percentage points above where it typically is. But it’s still within industry norms.” LinkedIn says that this attrition rate is 12% according to data supplied by Ubisoft. That’s lower than Activision Blizzard at 16% which is also dealing with its own workplace scandals. However, it is higher than several rivals including EA (9%) and Take Two (8%).
Just last week Ubisoft announced it was working on a remake of Splinter Cell. The company is encouraging developers from across the industry who want to work on it to apply.
