Ubisoft’s recent restructuring has pushed its employees to a breaking point this week — the halls of the massive publisher are unusually empty today as a three-day, company-wide strike kicks off.
Following a wave of studio closures, project cancellations, and a forced return-to-office mandate, a group of French unions — including the STJV, CFE-CGC, CGT, Printemps Écologique, and Solidaires Informatique — has called for a company-wide strike on February 10, 11, and 12.
This isn’t just a small disagreement over office perks. It is a battle for the future of game development at the publisher.
The Firing That Sparked the Strike
How a LinkedIn Critique of Ubisoft’s Return-to-Office Policy Escalated Labor Tensions
The tension reached a breaking point on February 2 when David Michaud-Cromp, a key designer on the Assassin’s Creed series, was fired for commenting publicly on Ubisoft’s new policy requiring workers to return to the office five days a week.
“So… Ubisoft wanna bring back 5 days in the office… because they ‘believe in collaboration’… but c’mon, we’re not completely stupid… we very well know why you want to go back to 5 days in the office… (Spoiler alert: it’s not about efficiency or collaboration),” he wrote on LinkedIn.
Ubisoft officially claimed the firing was due to a “breach of the duty of loyalty,” but the developer community isn’t buying it. In an exclusive interview with GameRant, a STJV (Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo, or the Video Games Workers Union) representative explained that this move is a classic scare tactic.
“We won’t be silenced by intimidation tactics,” said the union in a collective response to GameRant. “However, let’s be real: that era [where AAA leads can speak transparently] has pretty much never existed, people have always been told to keep quiet. If anything, people speak out more, hence the conflicts arising.”
The unions believe individual transparency is dead in the AAA space, making collective bargaining the only safe way to speak up.
“The union as an organization can afford to speak out truths that could cost an individual their position,” added the union.
Michaud-Cromp himself later told reporters that success in game development is about “fundamentals like clarity of goals, trust, documentation, tooling, and communication practices,” not physical proximity. GameRant reached out to Ubisoft for comment with an interview request on this topic, but has received no response as of publication.
Return To Office Is A Stealth Layoff
Unions argue Ubisoft’s five-day office mandate is designed to push remote hires out without severance
The strike is also a reaction to the mandatory five-day office week, a policy unions say makes developers feel “like children who need to be supervised.” But beyond the loss of respect, the STJV sees a darker motive. The union argues the RTO mandate is actually a tool for “constructive dismissal” — a way to force people to quit so the company doesn’t have to pay severance.
“The evidence lies in how many of our colleagues are telling us outright — and have told HR and management — that those decisions are pushing them away,” the union said. “Many workers were hired with fully remote contracts and live hours away from the office. For them, this policy change means there is no option but to leave.”
Carmel Smyth, president of CWA Canada, the country’s only all-media union, pointed out that the industry’s crunch culture makes working from home a necessity for survival.
“Work from home is highly desired in this industry because workers are routinely forced to work long hours—12 hours, 7 days a week—to deliver projects on schedule,” Smyth told GameRant via email.
“Oftentimes their work is coordinated through Teams/ Zoom anyway and does not occur strictly ‘in-person.’ They may be required to be present in the office in person and then meet with their colleagues on Teams/Zoom,” she said.
Smyth also noted that most employees worked from home for over two years during the pandemic without any issues, making the sudden ban feel like a deliberate disruption of their personal lives.
The Reorganization Nightmare
Why Labor Groups Say Ubisoft’s New Structure Makes Future Layoffs Easier to Justify
The strike is fueled by a massive restructuring called Ubisoft’s new operation model — backed by a $1.39 billion investment from Tencent, Ubisoft has split itself into five different creative houses. Each house in the systems was promised autonomy.
The STJV thinks these “houses” are a scam.
“The argument that the structure should foster creativity may sound fine in the abstract,” the union noted, “but … in the very email where Mr. Guillemot announced the structure, he also decided all on his own to go back on work from home arrangements, that doesn’t bode well for the promised autonomy.”
Instead, it sees the houses as silos designed to make future studio closures easier.
“This sounds like a way to offload less profitable brands to structures that could be jettisoned off at some point indeed,” the union said.
Management claims these moves are necessary to save $240 million over the next two years, but the STJV isn’t impressed by the massive Tencent payout.
“Management is blind to the fact that it didn’t have a hand in building those ‘billions-earning brands,'” it said. “The strike is a way to remind them that to make games, they need us, workers, much more than IP.”
The union also warned that the Tencent investment likely comes with “strings attached,” advising management to listen to workers if they want to remain profitable.
The Halifax Shutdown and Union Busting Claims
Unions question the timing of Ubisoft’s studio closure following a successful union vote
The labor war has become particularly ugly in Canada. On January 7, Ubisoft abruptly shut down its Halifax studio, leaving 71 people jobless. The timing was highly suspicious: it happened just three weeks after 74% of the staff had voted to join CWA Canada on December 18, 2025.
Smyth called the move “intentional corporate bullying.” She revealed that workers were delivering on projects right until the morning they were told to stay home.
“Managers and supervisors were equally surprised,” Smyth said. “As an employer with a union, the company should have shared any meaningful change in staff numbers with the union before announcing it to staff. It was also obliged to advise the NS Labour Board in advance … Ubisoft did not.”
She further questioned the company’s financial claims: “The company accepted money from the NS government including $1.78 million in 2025—why, if they knew they were closing?”
The CWA is now demanding that Ubisoft “open the books” and provide a paper trail to prove they were actually in financial trouble. Smyth noted the human cost, mentioning that several workers in their thirties had just bought homes in Halifax, unaware their jobs were about to vanish.
The STJV is working closely with the CWA to ensure Halifax doesn’t become a “blueprint” for how to crush a union. In France, worker council reports have legal weight, and management can be prosecuted for lying.
“We are in constant communication with union members in multiple countries,” the STJV confirmed. “It’s also crucial that a large number of Ubisoft entities, and companies in the video game sector, unionize: precisely to protect ourselves from the abuses and challenges to our fundamental rights.”
Millions in Tax Money and No Accountability
Unions demand a legal duty of care for studios collecting nearly $1 billion in public subsidies
A huge source of anger is the nearly $1 billion in Canadian tax subsidies Ubisoft took between 2020 and 2024. Smyth described it as “outrageous” for a company to take so much public cash and then walk away from its workers.
“It’s shocking that governments allow it to happen,” she said, pointing to other companies like Algoma Steel and GM that have done the same.
The CWA is proposing new tools to force conglomerates to be more accountable, such as mandates for studios to stay open for a minimum period, guarantees for the creation of high-quality jobs, and a formal commitment to help staff find new roles if staff reductions become necessary.
The STJV echoed this sentiment, arguing for a “duty of care” for companies that live off public funds.
“It makes sense to expect those who receive so many subsidies to participate when governments all over the world tell us to ‘tighten our belts,'” the union said.
It suggested management should “show some virtue” before asking workers to pay the price for executive failure.
Union Support Hits Record Highs as AI Anxiety Grows
GDC survey reveals overwhelming pro-union sentiment among the next generation of game makers
This strike is the climax of one of the toughest periods for workers in the gaming industry trying to stay afloat. The latest survey on game industry layoffs found that 28% of the workforce reported being laid off or seeing layoffs at their company in the last two years. In response, support for unionization has hit an all-time high of 82%. Crucially, zero respondents aged 18-24 were opposed to unions.
AI is another major fear. T.J. (Thomas) Gillis, a five-year veteran and Senior Server Programmer at Ubisoft Halifax, has become a prominent voice regarding these anxieties. Specialized in Linux and game build innovations, Gillis was a key figure in organizing the first North American union at a Ubisoft studio after representing his team at the Ubisoft Developer’s Conference.
Following the closure of his studio—a move he publicly branded as “suspicious”—Gillis warned that the broad global footprint of AI companies is putting the “artistic value of game development” at risk. He argues that collective bargaining is the only way to prevent developers from being “left to fend for themselves” as studios prioritize automation over the human creativity that builds “billionaire brands”.
Smyth noted that the CWA is making AI guardrails a priority in negotiations.
“A priority in negotiating with an employer is to agree all significant AI use is transparent, assists with work while not cutting jobs, is managed by a human who is accountable, and that workers’ interests, and that workers’ interests, well-being and intellectual property/copyright are included in discussions before implementation,” she said.
The STJV believes Ubisoft management is ignoring senior talent fleeing the AAA space for indie development, which it called a “digital fracture.”
“They are either doing it on purpose or this shows their blatant incompetence,” the union said. “There seems to be a deeply-held belief from them that Ubisoft generates value by just existing, even though that’s been proven to be very untrue.”
What Ubisoft Employees are Asking For
Staffers call for an end to authoritarian management and the restoration of worker autonomy
The unions have joined together and delivered three demands for Ubisoft management:
- Listen to the workers: “They should have their say in all important things: work conditions, salaries, game projects and more.”
- Cancel RTO: Implement a policy allowing workers to adapt their workstation to their personal needs.
- Transparency: Normalize internal whistleblower processes to end the established method of “opacity” that benefits no one but harassers.
The strike is set to end on February 12 — the same day Ubisoft releases its newest financial report — but the unions will be pushing for these goals past the strike period. As the STJV aptly put it:
“Management seems indeed to confuse monologue with dialogue… without us, Ubisoft would never have conquered and transformed video games as it has done. We are history, we are Ubisoft,” the union stated.
The situation is being closely observed across the industry. The outcome could influence how major studios approach labor relations and workplace policies in the future. Regardless of the result, the events at Ubisoft underscore the growing attention on developer working conditions and the evolving dynamics within AAA game production.
Ubisoft Employees Reportedly ‘Shaming’ Management Amid Struggles
Ubisoft reportedly faces more internal turmoil, with employees said to be openly criticizing management following recent restructuring.
