The Ubisoft employee who took to social media last week to say he had been placed on a 3-day suspension after comments criticising the company has now said he has been terminated by Ubisoft.
David Michaud-Cromp, who has worked at Ubisoft for more than 13 years, took to social media last week to announce that his suspension was related to “public comments” that he “expressed regarding the company’s return-to-office policy, and based on an alleged breach of the duty of loyalty.”
Insider Gaming gave Ubisoft the opportunity to comment on our coverage of Michaud-Cromp’s suspension, but did not, only acknowledging that the opportunity was given.
However, following our coverage, screenshots of Michaud-Cromp’s comments in Ubisoft’s internal communication channel, Agora, were sent to Insider Gaming, providing greater clarity on why the suspension and, now, the termination may have occurred.
Michaud-Cromp criticised Ubisoft’s RTO policies, the closing down of studios, and investing in GaaS that “keeps running away to bite us in the bollocks,” he said. Michaud-Cromp also hit back at the decision to have Vantage Studios run by now co-CEO Charlie Guillemot, who is the son of Ubisoft’s CEO Yves Guillemot, citing that he’s pretty much only got Unagi games on his resume.
In his message, he continued to say that it’s the employees who pay the price for successive bad decisions taken by executives, who “keep swimming in millions of dollars”. He concluded that he agrees costs should be trimmed, but that it needs to start at the top, because nothing will change otherwise.
Frankly, I think everyone at Ubisoft, both internally and externally, is on board with this message, but perhaps it was a little too transparent.
According to Michaud-Cromp, Ubisoft has concluded that Michaud-Cromp can no longer work at the company and has subsequently decided to terminate his position.
Both current and former employees can contact me securely and anonymously at [email protected] if you would like to weigh in on current events, or share your story.
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Tom Henderson is Insider Gaming's Co-Founder and Editor-In-Chief. When he's not running one of the industry's leading independent video game websites, he's probably playing an FPS like Call of Duty,…
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obviously no executive wants to know the truth. they are too busy diving in the dollas
Ubisoft demands loyalty but treats it’s employees like used con dumms. Typical corporate family.
He wasn’t already? Company needs to burn down. China buying up Europe just found out they own Salamon and now 30% of Puma. Ubisoft is next.
If china owned ubisoft it would actually be a good thing LOL
Maybe they should have embraced his bold, but sensible, ideas . They might not be nearing complete irrelevance, and financial ruin, if they had.
It’s over, Ubisoft. It’s so over.
Managers and Corporate leaders don’t want to hear there is a problem from someone lower than they are.
The nail that sticks out gets hammered down. Tale as old as time.
Clock in, clock out, do what they tell you to do. Don’t do a fucking fraction more.
He’s not wrong but perhaps he should have been more cautious in how he criticized the company. Especially when doing it on an the company’s own communication network.