Ubisoft acknowledges its “flawed” response to misconduct scandal

As allegations of abuse and scandal continue to rock some of the major players in the industry, some higher-ups in those companies are trying to do some damage control. Amid outrage at Ubisoft’s perceived lack of action following claims of abuse and harassment at the publisher, the company’s Chief People Officer has gone on the record to provide an update on what is being done to address the issues.

In an interview with Axios’ Stephen Totilo, Anika Grant claimed that while the company “spent a lot of time making sure that we had the right process in place,” a lack of communication with its employees led to some bad blood and people “los[ing] trust in that process.” She attributed some of the problems to the company growing “really fast,” suggesting that infrastructure like an up-to-date code of conduct and channels for reporting abuse was not able to be set up in a timely or helpful manner.

Grant also claimed that the number of worker complaints being filed has “declined enormously” in the last year, and that Ubisoft was “thinking carefully” about including some information about the complaints in next year’s annual report. However, she denied the claims of workers collective ABetterUbisoft that offenders get promoted or moved “with no repercussions.”

ABetterUbisoft itself was seemingly unimpressed with Grant’s interview, suggesting that the loss of trust between workers and executives is more than “just a matter of miscommunication.” On Twitter, the workers collective reiterated its claim that the only way to maintain effective and fair processes in the face of these allegations is for workers of all levels to “have a seat at the table,” something that Ubisoft, at the moment, appears to have little intention of doing.