Labor shortage or not, Ubisoft is committed to Quebec, says CEO

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Ubisoft Entertainment SA, the French video game powerhouse, is forging ahead with plans to expand its operations in Quebec despite a troubling labor shortage in the province.

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“It is currently more difficult to recruit here than in Europe, but it is less difficult than in the United States,” Ubisoft co-founder and CEO Yves Guillemot told the Montreal Gazette in an interview. “Quebec fits somewhere between the two.”

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Guillemot spent a few days in Montreal last week to meet with employees and take part in celebrations marking the 25th anniversary of the opening of Ubisoft’s Mile End studio. The company comes from a record year of hiring in the city, having added more than 700 employees.

Ubisoft employs about 5,000 people in four Quebec cities, including about 4,000 at its Montreal hub. His newest Quebec studio, in Sherbrooke, plans to grow to about 250 people over the next decade from the current 20. It opened in November.

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Founded in 1986, the creator of the popular Assassin’s Creed and Rainbow Six franchises has studios in nearly 20 countries, including China, Finland, Japan, Morocco, Poland and the US.

“Ubisoft’s studios in Quebec are among the best in the world,” said Guillemot. “The creations that come out of these studios are popular everywhere, which allows us to recruit highly qualified people. But competition for talent has increased in Montreal. We have opened studios in the regions to make sure we can be closer to where people want to be.”

Lured by generous provincial tax credits and a pool of some 45,000 college students enrolled in video game-related programs, more than 200 studios dot the city’s landscape. Some 19,000 Montrealers work in the industry at companies including WB Games, Eidos, Gameloft and local pioneer Behavior Interactive, according to data compiled by Montreal International, the city’s foreign investment promotion agency. That makes Montreal the fifth largest video game hub in the world.

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As a French company, Ubisoft is generally unconcerned about Bill 96, Quebec’s language law that many employer groups have denounced as a bureaucratic and financial burden on businesses.

“Sometimes it’s a little more work to make sure we follow all the rules, but the fact that you can express yourself in your native language creates a lot of value for people who can create every day,” Guillemot said of the legislation.

“There is a real pleasure in working in your mother tongue. We’ve always pushed to make sure people can express themselves in their own language because you’re so much more creative that way. We have to continue promoting the French language. We just have to make sure that others feel included too. When people bring knowledge that is unique, we must also authorize communication in other languages.”

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As it charts the development of game franchises, Ubisoft is working to distance itself from the multiple episodes of sexual misconduct that emerged in 2020. Since then, it has taken behaviour to correct the situation, including hiring an ombudsman and creating an external investigation process to address employee complaints.

“I’ve been spending a lot of time with the teams this week and the atmosphere inside the studio is great,” said Guillemot. “It is a real pleasure to work for Ubisoft. But we have to make sure this is the case for everyone, which is why we have many systems in place.”

When asked about reports that some managers who behaved abusively were still working for the company, the CEO said: “All the people that there were concerns about were investigated and we took appropriate action. If people are still there, it’s because they can be.”

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Ubisoft has set internal goals, which Guillemot did not disclose, to improve diversity.

Women make up about 25 percent of the company’s workforce in Montreal, though about a third of hires last year were women, according to a spokesman. Companywide, the proportion of female employees is increasing by about one percentage point a year, Guillemot said.

“We are making progress,” he said.

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