Ubisoft CCO Serge Hascoet resigns in wake of sweeping allegations

I seem to recall Ubisoft working with a number Sarkeesian-type consultants in the years following gamergate. Seems like a case of the guiltiest being the first to accuse if I remembered that right, but I don't recall where I got the idea. Does anyone here know where I might have got that impression?

Weird to see this here.

I have limited knowledge on these things; FD: I work for Ubisoft in their Massive Studio.

Ubisoft itself is incredibly silo'd; each studio and each function operates like a loosely coupled bundling of companies.

You can think of it like:

* Marketing has offices (or colo's in some offices) but has a completely seperate reporting structure all the way to Yves.

* (same for other business functions such as server hosting, exchange administration etc;)

* Studios operate with an entirely different culture from HQ.

* Studios develop games, those games are submitted for "stage gates" which is when Editoriale can say if something is fun, or if something needs to be cut or added.. Editoriale in HQ can only speak during those times (big milestones). Otherwise the Studio doesn't really talk to HQ. (save: marketing, I guess)

I can say that Massive is incredibly progressive, this isn't just a result of being Sweden, even some (not all) of the Swedes who work here think we're overcorrecting for progressiveness. We had Sarkeesian on site a few times to consult on games (and paid her handsomely for the privilege)

However.. and this is a big however:

There is also a culture of partying in the upper echelons, self-promotion, congratulatory/promotional incest and an "untouchable ego" that a lot of the upper management seem to have, this means that people at the top stay there, enrich themselves and keep others out. This doesn't apply to Yves himself, strangely, I've met him many times and is a fantastically humble, down to earth and generous guy. In fact he's made many moves that are directly against enriching himself in order to ensure that nobody can get the idea of shuttering a studio and putting people out of a job- and has actively worked (personally) against crunch culture.

--

What I'm trying to say is that: each "head" is responsible for the culture they create; and some people are given the freedom to abuse that culture.

Yves see's that ability to abuse as a failure of HR and that's why (I speculate) that Cecile has been let go.

As far as I understand Serge has had no allegations levied against him; however it's unconscionable how much power he had- and it would have been easy to abuse accidentally (an off-hand comment/joke being taken as an instruction). Not saying he's not guilty of anything but that kind of power should not have been levied.

Notably the Editoriale team (gatekeepers for games) was recently expanded to be more diverse.. that diversity was all middle-aged white french guys who came from the same school and had worked in that department before.. so.. not very diverse.

I know the case of a company where "Woke" consultants stepped in (well, they weren't consultants but part of a workers union), demanded about half females in tech department (and a handful of similar claims), and some time forward most of tech + commercial threatened to leave and carry clients with them. There was some power plays in between, with courts involved, and in the end the company agreed to let things stay as they already were.

After that the environment became so toxic that many people left anyways, and some clients went after this employees.

Actually the Liberacion report leverages a while host of issues directly at Serge

- homophobic behavior - drugging subordinates - sexual harassment - alcohol excesses in the workplace

as well as his direct reports (selling drugs at HQ, assault, harassment.)

>The article includes other specific allegations of clear sexual harassment, including "demeaning" jokes told to female coworkers that ended with solicitations of oral sex. Perhaps even more crucially, the report goes into great length about a combined culture of constant harassment, frequent plying of alcohol, and an HR system that resisted reports of sexual harassment.

Is it possible that forced coed employment is a suboptimal solution for society? That maybe it's time to stop throwing away some 10 thousand years of human history where men and women were possibly segregated in social and professional life for a reason, across time and culture?

We take so many modern tenets for granted without recognizing that most of today's more controversial social ideas are unprecedented experiments. Inclusion and diversity being one of them.

The road to hell...

Edit: banter is core to morale for many male relationships. That includes degrading and/or sexual joking. Asking men to make special accomodations at work for women disproportionately affects men, possibly in ways that lowers overall productivity. We at least have to acknowledge the possibility. We are talking about biologically innate human behavior.