Hours before Ubisoft kicked off its second Ubisoft Forward of the year, the company posted an underwhelming video message featuring Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot addressing how Ubisoft is continuing to deal with the numerous accounts of workplace toxicity that began appearing on social media over the summer. Many of the allegations came from women working in or with the company who recounted situations in which they faced harassment, abuse, and even outright violence. Following these statements, Ubisoft began an investigation which has resulted in many changes and several employees leaving the company.

This morning’s video may have been a response, in part, to the backlash the company faced when it chose not to speak on its ongoing internal controversies during the last Ubisoft Forward, which took place in July. Instead, Ubisoft released a brief, vague statement before the show which confirmed it would not address workplace issues during the presentation - though the publisher promised it was commitment to the problem. Many were upset by this message, which seemed to push the workers’ problems aside in favor of the company’s presentation, and its bottom line. It didn’t help that Ubisoft inexplicably blamed the pre-recorded nature of the show as the reason it couldn’t address anything directly in the Ubisoft Forward.

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Echoing the last message’s sentiment, Ubisoft released today’s video just before the presentation. It kicked off with Yves Guillemot explaining the Ubisoft Forward event would be a place to celebrate games, insinuating it would not be the place for a message on company abuse. However, the CEO continues, he did want to take a moment beforehand to talk directly about Ubisoft’s workplace culture. He apologized to those who were hurt by the behavior of some - in many cases very high-ranking - Ubisoft employees and for the mechanisms which allowed such behavior to take place. As tangible examples of the work Ubisoft is doing to better it company culture, Guillemot announced that, over the next five years, the publisher would put $1 million toward creating opportunities for underrepresented groups in its graduate program.

The latter half of the apology also touched on a more recent controversy in which the company incorporated a symbol of the Black Lives Matter movement into Tom Clancy's Elite Squad to represent an in-game terrorist group. Guillemot insisted that Ubisoft has now put systems in place to ensure this kind of thing never happens again and will additionally donate to the NAACP legal defense fund to show its support of the movement.

Reaction to Ubisoft’s apology video came swiftly after it was posted, with many challenging the company’s decision to separate this message from its main presentation. In response, Ubisoft tweeted that the video would be available with the Ubisoft Forward’s VOD, but owing to time constraints, the publisher decided not to include it with the live show. Industry insider Geoff Keighley replied to this with a note which simply read, “Come on.” Given how quiet the company has chosen to be in publicly addressing its internal issues, it's hard not to be frustrated with the steps it is taking.

Of course, there is also a lot of praise for Ubisoft’s decision to record the message at all and for the undeniable steps the company has taken to correct its abusive culture. Though the way this message was handled may appear insensitive, hopefully Ubisoft will continue to weed out abusers in its workplace and put pressure on the industry as a whole to follow suit.

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Source: Ubisoft/Twitter