one of The heavyweights in the video game has announced the internal investigation in the face of the testimony of employees or ex-employees of the French group.
Referred by accusations of violence and sexual harassment, and Ubisoft, one of the heavyweights in the video game, has announced the internal investigation, while collecting evidence on the sexism and abuse of women in this very male environment.
on Wednesday, the anonymous witnesses of employees or ex-employees of the French group have appeared on Twitter, targeting named frames of two studios in Canada, and denouncing of the facts in Bulgaria and in the United States, sometimes dating back several years.
READ ALSO >> A wave of accusations of harassment in the world of video games
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A “streamer” (player and commentator of live games), relaying several of these accusations, laments on the social network a “systemic problem for Ubisoft,” and claims to have received testimonies concerning the offices or studios of the company in Sweden, Brazil and Paris, which it intends to publish in the future.
“Drunk and mad”, a creative director of Toronto “has strangled an employee at an evening Far Cry”, one of the most famous franchises Ubisoft, says the author of one of these messages, who adds that the head of the studio in question was aware and “did nothing”, the person referred to had subsequently received a promotion.
“Licking the face”
other testimonies point to the industry’s “incredibly toxic to women’: a former employee tells a colleague asked him for a blowjob at a party while she was still working in his office, others reported that such a creative director of the Montreal studio was “licked on the face” of an employee in another business party.
“I made the object of ridicule when I went to see my boss to talk to him about my problems,” says one of them. Another witness denounces an atmosphere of sexist and homophobic in a studio of the company in Sofia (Bulgaria).
Ubisoft, one of the editors of the most important in the world of video games, with franchises such as Assassin’s Creed, announced in the night from Thursday to Friday, the opening of several internal investigations “with the support of external consultants specialized”.
“We are sorry. We are committed to creating an inclusive environment and safe for our teams, our players and our communities. It clearly appears today that we have not been able to achieve this goal,” admits the editor, in a press release. “Based on the findings of these investigations), we are committed to taking all appropriate disciplinary measures,” wrote the company.
“We are also conducting the audit of our policies, procedures and existing systems to understand where they were failing, and we ensure that we can better prevent, detect and punish any inappropriate behaviour,” she continued.
The medium is shaken for a week
Since a week, the video games industry in general is being shaken by a wave of accusations: dozens of women have shared on the networks, their experience of discrimination, harassment, or sexual assault in this environment yet very masculine. The wave of accusations recalled the case of the “Gamergate” in the United States in 2014, when a debate on the links between journalists and game creators had turned into threats of rape and murder against the processor-independent Zoe Quinn.
Since then, the mobilization #metoo broke, releasing the word about sexual violence and sexism in many contexts. The games industry seems to react very differently this time, with the outpouring of support, apologies and promises to better regulate the platforms. The platform streaming games to Twitch, a subsidiary of Amazon, said Monday that it would consider “with the forces of law and order, if necessary,” the accounts of the relevant creators.
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