Remember, last October, employees of the giant Ubisoft chanted their discontent in front of the company’s various studios. More than four years after the Covid 19 pandemic, Ubisoft wanted to see its employees back in its offices. The French publisher then announced that it wanted to impose a number of days of teleworking granted to its employees, with an imposed return to face-to-face work three days a week.
Video games on strike this December 12 in France
For several months now, Ubisoft has been in great difficulty, notably with Star Wars Outlaws which did not meet expectations and the postponement of Assassin’s Creed Shadows (which multiplies the controversies), but it is the video game industry in its together who suffers. If layoff plans in the video game industry have attracted a little less interest from the media and the general public lately, the cuts in the workforce will affect more than 14,500 employees worldwide in 2024. Colossal therefore.
Also, the video game workers’ union (STJV) is launching a call for a national strike throughout the sector this Thursday, December 12, thus joining the call launched by the CGT for a major day of mobilization. For the STJV, it is obviously a question of asking for an end to all current layoff plans, of respecting social dialogue and the control of video game players.
The STJV is specifically targeting the case of Don’t Nod, a Parisian studio which was targeted this fall by a layoff plan involving nearly 70 employees. The latter would only be “the result of a management which has continued to refuse to listen to workers, to take responsibility and to act accordingly” according to the STJV.
As for Ubisoft, we announced this week the closure, as of June 2025, of the servers for the online game XDefiant. This was accompanied by yet another layoff plan, concerning the entire Ubisoft San Francisco studio (143 employees), as well as the entirety of Ubisoft Osaka and part of Ubisoft Sydney, i.e. more than 130 other employees laid off. the door.
“We remind you that this call covers the scope of action of the STJV in the private sector, and therefore concerns any person employed by a publishing, distribution, services and/or creation company for video games whatever their position or status. and whatever the field of activity of your company (games, consoles, mobile, serious games, VR/AR, game engines, marketing services, streaming, derivative products, esports, online content creation, etc.), as well as all teachers working in private schools in courses related to video games” indicates the STJV.
Note that this major mobilization desired by the STJV will take place on the same day as the great celebration of video games in the United States, with the now famous Video Game Awards, which have already sparked some controversy…
