6 ms·

Ubisoft CCO Serge Hascoet resigns in wake of sweeping allegations

59 points by zeristor 6y ago

SuoDuanDao 6y ago
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?
- amp180 6y ago
  I don't think Sarkeesian could even possibly be the problem if Ubisoft HR changed their definition of harassment to allow sexual harassment and non-gamer journalists are reporting on it. Companies have "woke" consultants in to make speeches all the time but it's performative and it never changes anything.
  - iagovar 6y ago
    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.
  - SuoDuanDao 6y ago
    I'm more wondering about the value of woke consultants as an indicator - if a company is very concerned about making such performances, could it be an indicator of a guilty conscience?
    - dijit 6y ago
      I can only speak for my admittedly hyper-progressive studio: We brought Sarkeesian in to find our blind spots. (there was also the fact that the studio wanted to fund her work on a more personal level). But if you consider that roughly 86% of the studio at that time was male, it would have been easy for something to slip through that could have been perceived as anti-women. A great example is in the game Hitman; there is a moment where you're infiltrating a strip club and an option exists (although, is penalised) for murdering a scantily clad stripper. This was caught by Sarkeesian and used as an example of poor game development that allows for the objectification of women. (or, women as background objects)[0] We didn't want that. [0]: https://youtu.be/4ZPSrwedvsg?t=603 https://youtu.be/4ZPSrwedvsg?t=603
- GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
  I assume any “woke” movement from a corporation is either to 1) avoid legal liability 2) capture some market via signaling. I would guess that genuine efforts are few and far between.
dijit 6y ago
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.
- throwvatars5 6y ago
  Ah Québec. Isn’t that the place where systemic racism is celebrated by the pure laine and made it into a law called Law 21 ?
drevil-v2 6y ago
I am deeply troubled that we have normalised public executions on the basis of allegations. No person or group should have that power to effectively end someone’s career on accusations alone.
- rbg246 6y ago
  I'm more worried about the 95%+ of sexual assaults that perpetrators get away with.
  - drevil-v2 6y ago
    Citation needed for that “95%+” claim. And While you are at it, can you spell out what exactly you mean by “sexual assault“? It seems to me that the meaning has been corrupted in order to further political and ideological aims of the accusers and executioners.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - rbg246 6y ago
      Yes no problems it's all out there. 19% of women report sexual violence to police. (1) 10% of those reports result in a conviction. (2) So actually I was being conservative, it's actually 98%+ get away with it based on these two sources. And we haven't even got to child sexual assault conviction rates. (1) http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/056A404DAA576AE6CA2571D00080E985/$File/49060_2005%20(reissue).pdf http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/056... (2) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-14/why-do-so-few-sexual-assault-result-in-convictions/10492256 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-14/why-do-so-few-sexual-...
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - thatoneuser 6y ago
        Very interesting that men experienced sexual assault almost twice as much as women. Yet I've never seen a media witch hunt for female aggressors (maybe it's happened, I've just never seen it.)
mtgp1000 6y ago
>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.
robinduckett 6y ago
Can people not just work somewhere without sexually abusing staff please?
- loraa 6y ago
  It's the easiest lottery right now.
- robinduckett 6y ago
  Apparently not, according to the downvotes. I've noticed the quality of commenters and submission decline on this site of late. Keep it coming /s
  - DangitBobby 6y ago
    The downvotes I don't think indicate others believe that it's okay to just sexually harass people. In fact, I'd venture to say that people here would be in nearly unanimous agreement that it's not okay. With that in mind, your comment to me appears to either be seeking in-group approval ("does anybody else?" When yes, almost everyone else) or is an attempt to be funny. All this to say, neither of those things are really valued here. Hence, downvotes.
loraa 6y ago
I remember when video games and gaming was great. Now it is a political circus where the object is to pretty much destroy every white male with any decision making ability. Don't get me wrong, I am not a white male and I definitely understand the want to diversify, but all thes stuff recently is one big witch hunt to get rid of anyone who would still dare use alpha males as main characters.
alitoiu 6y ago
M

59 points by zeristor 6y ago

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?

amp180 6y ago
I don't think Sarkeesian could even possibly be the problem if Ubisoft HR changed their definition of harassment to allow sexual harassment and non-gamer journalists are reporting on it. Companies have "woke" consultants in to make speeches all the time but it's performative and it never changes anything.
- iagovar 6y ago
  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.
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  I'm more wondering about the value of woke consultants as an indicator - if a company is very concerned about making such performances, could it be an indicator of a guilty conscience?
  - dijit 6y ago
    I can only speak for my admittedly hyper-progressive studio: We brought Sarkeesian in to find our blind spots. (there was also the fact that the studio wanted to fund her work on a more personal level). But if you consider that roughly 86% of the studio at that time was male, it would have been easy for something to slip through that could have been perceived as anti-women. A great example is in the game Hitman; there is a moment where you're infiltrating a strip club and an option exists (although, is penalised) for murdering a scantily clad stripper. This was caught by Sarkeesian and used as an example of poor game development that allows for the objectification of women. (or, women as background objects)[0] We didn't want that. [0]: https://youtu.be/4ZPSrwedvsg?t=603 https://youtu.be/4ZPSrwedvsg?t=603
GaryNumanVevo 6y ago
I assume any “woke” movement from a corporation is either to 1) avoid legal liability 2) capture some market via signaling. I would guess that genuine efforts are few and far between.

dijit 6y ago

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.

throwvatars5 6y ago
Ah Québec. Isn’t that the place where systemic racism is celebrated by the pure laine and made it into a law called Law 21 ?

drevil-v2 6y ago

I am deeply troubled that we have normalised public executions on the basis of allegations. No person or group should have that power to effectively end someone’s career on accusations alone.

rbg246 6y ago
I'm more worried about the 95%+ of sexual assaults that perpetrators get away with.
- drevil-v2 6y ago
  Citation needed for that “95%+” claim. And While you are at it, can you spell out what exactly you mean by “sexual assault“? It seems to me that the meaning has been corrupted in order to further political and ideological aims of the accusers and executioners.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - rbg246 6y ago
    Yes no problems it's all out there. 19% of women report sexual violence to police. (1) 10% of those reports result in a conviction. (2) So actually I was being conservative, it's actually 98%+ get away with it based on these two sources. And we haven't even got to child sexual assault conviction rates. (1) http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/056A404DAA576AE6CA2571D00080E985/$File/49060_2005%20(reissue).pdf http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/056... (2) https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-14/why-do-so-few-sexual-assault-result-in-convictions/10492256 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-11-14/why-do-so-few-sexual-...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - thatoneuser 6y ago
      Very interesting that men experienced sexual assault almost twice as much as women. Yet I've never seen a media witch hunt for female aggressors (maybe it's happened, I've just never seen it.)

mtgp1000 6y ago

>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.

robinduckett 6y ago

Can people not just work somewhere without sexually abusing staff please?

loraa 6y ago
It's the easiest lottery right now.
robinduckett 6y ago
Apparently not, according to the downvotes. I've noticed the quality of commenters and submission decline on this site of late. Keep it coming /s
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  The downvotes I don't think indicate others believe that it's okay to just sexually harass people. In fact, I'd venture to say that people here would be in nearly unanimous agreement that it's not okay. With that in mind, your comment to me appears to either be seeking in-group approval ("does anybody else?" When yes, almost everyone else) or is an attempt to be funny. All this to say, neither of those things are really valued here. Hence, downvotes.

loraa 6y ago

I remember when video games and gaming was great. Now it is a political circus where the object is to pretty much destroy every white male with any decision making ability. Don't get me wrong, I am not a white male and I definitely understand the want to diversify, but all thes stuff recently is one big witch hunt to get rid of anyone who would still dare use alpha males as main characters.

alitoiu 6y ago