This has not existed for a long time and certainly not at Ubisoft Montreal.
Ubisoft Montreal hires a lot of people, almost everyone is to believe that they have no plan to ending. By cons what is less known, are the people who are laid off overnight in silence. And they are much more numerous than previously believed, because the project is canceled or when a project goes wrong, they give back the freedom (fire) some employees. Indeed, it has happened more than once when junior (or even some senior) who did a good job got fired, but why? Well, we had to fire someone and it was the newcomer, or someone in a probation period, or it does not get along with his supervisor or before promotion period. Some other are dismissed because their project is canceled and did not find their other project, and there are still other reasons which are obscure and known only by some gray heads somewhere in the suburbs of Paris. This is even more disheartening knowing that Ubisoft Montreal is receiving signing bonuses of the Government of Quebec, around 25% of salary, it must be added that a junior is employed the first year to 90% of his time in training, and again they receive again money from the government of Quebec. And the last point is that they have tax benefits once again from the Government of Quebec to pay less tax. So they hire all these guys largely paid by the taxes of Quebecers to finally dismiss them like crazy for no good reason, without the government to say anything.
Another consequence is the termination of your social life around collegues (especially important for expatriates) and well all your world collapses. Because they do not invite you any more, nor the partis nor playing improvised evening with a colleague for the reason that you no longer part of the gang and they can not speak freely on secret projects where they work, even if he is an ex-colleague.
After the dismissal, Ubisoft Montreal keeps a file on the former employee, the reasons for which the employee was laid off. I’ll spare you the aberrations they register on the former employee is not always beautiful to read and even less true.
Why do you think there profile departures with Ubisoft Montreal? I do not speak of Martin Tremblay but Clint Hocking (Splinter Cell, Far Cry 2) and Patrice Desilet (Prince of Persia, Assassins Creed), and why Jordan Mechner (Prince of Persia creator) will never work with Ubisoft and is very disappointed with the last Prince of Persia. This is not a coincidence, especially as the company grew too quickly, yet not so long ago it had fewer than 1,000 employees and we saw this number as astronomical, and now we approach the 3000 (minus the silent layoffs), to become the largest studio (factory) in the video game world. While aspirant developers looking for experience and fame continue to knock on the door of Ubisoft Montreal begging for work even at rebate, there is no reason to change anything to their policy.
So why staying at Ubisoft Montreal as the urban legend with Ubisoft Montreal and elsewhere about EA said that it is worse there, and other major studios are not much better. So going elsewhere to find the same conditions, and start from scratch to risk worse, with this kind of argument they managed to keep a good number of employees, because over the years, there accustomed, Ubisoft Montreal is like a family, he becomes a veteran that is respected, we have buddies at work and so on. Other major studios have not yet the same recognition, even if the big guys are coming (Eidos, Funcom, THQ, Warner) are still awaiting the first games out of Montreal studios.
Then you have smaller studios, but you think it’s less serious, poorly managed, working on unfamous games and less work security. At least in a smaller studio they know you and you are not employee Number :3001.
Ubi Free 2.0 