Ubisoft’s Internal Town Hall Meeting Fails to Reassure Employees on Its Future
Ubisoft held an internal Town Hall Q&A meeting with employees yesterday to instill confidence in the company’s upcoming changes, but, according to over a dozen employees who spoke to Insider Gaming anonymously, it appears to have had the opposite effect.
The Town Hall featured a host to read out the questions, along with Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot, Executive Vice President Cécile Russeil, Chief People Officer Sébastien Froidefond, CFO Frederik Duguet, and Chief Studios & Portfolio Officer Marie-Sophie de Waubert, in a roundtable format.
Acknowledged Lack of Communication
One positive from the call was that Ubisoft acknowledged the lack of communication about the announced structural changes, with Executive Vice President Cécile Russeil acknowledging that most employees learned about many of the upcoming changes from media reports.
Russeil acknowledged that the live Q&A session that took place at the end of the day was the wrong decision, as employees found out about a lot of the details from media rather than the company itself.
“We heard you, and in the future, we will attach the press release with an internal email so that you get all of the information at the same time of media and investors.”
Duguet weighed in to mention that Ubisoft is a publicly traded company and “we have disclosure duties with our investors, which means, in concrete terms, that we cannot share anything that is sensitive internally at large before updating the market on these very elements.”
Selling a Creative House / Assets Is Possible in The Future
One of the biggest questions in the call revolved around Ubisoft’s Creative House structure and what will happen if a Creative House fails to be profitable.
On that, CFO Frederik Duguet said, “First, I would like to repeat that we are setting up the Creative Houses for success. We want them to win. It’s the whole purpose of what we’re doing. Of course, we should keep in mind that not all of them might not be profitable on day one, but the important element will be for the five of them to project into the next years and see to what extent they can continue to the overall Ubisoft performance improvement.”
He continued, “Now, if in some years from now a house is not profitable, if it underperforms versus management expectations, then ultimately we will look at the root cause. We will discuss with the GM and the team in charge to see whether there is a way to bring it to performance and profitability.”
“So, selling a house will be a possibility, but it shouldn’t be the first route to work on. If we open the perspective, and the options, if we find a powerful and motivated partner, and we agree on long term vision, and it comes with an important cash injection, with the force to invest in the future of the brands, if this is good for the house or Ubisoft, it is something to consider.”
