[TheJoeMan]

I dislike that an executive is quoted as blaming "rising development costs", essentially blaming the workers/salaries, with no rebuttal. This is especially suspect with the timing of closing an office that just unionized.

It might be frequency-bias, but of the companies downsizing/closing in my area I see almost all of the published explanations are blaming wages. And there can't be a really fair counter-view by the journalist because what are they to do, interview a laid-off worker at the business? I doubt someone would go on the record lambasting their former employer, but it would probably turn up the truths such as fraud or waste.

[tormeh]

The rising cost has been a problem for a long time now. It's mostly models and textures fit for high-res screens, and cutscenes etc. to accompany them. That said, there is space at the top for a few companies to do this sort of development - maybe Ubisoft just isn't capable of playing in this space beyond AssCreed.

[ToucanLoucan]

> It might be frequency-bias, but of the companies downsizing/closing in my area I see almost all of the published explanations are blaming wages.

And lest we leave it merely implied, the problematic wages for the company are the workers, who make the products being sold. The wages of middle management + executives who allegedly steer the ship are magnitudes larger, but those are completely fine.

[palmotea]

> The wages of middle management + executives who allegedly steer the ship are magnitudes larger, but those are completely fine.

As is any money delivered to shareholders, for literally doing no work at all.

But it's morally repugnant to pay a worker one penny more than necessary.

[SJC_Hacker]

> And there can't be a really fair counter-view by the journalist because what are they to do, interview a laid-off worker at the business?

Umm, yes? Thats called journalism

They don't have to name people if they can get independent verification from multiple sources (standard was 3, sometimes 2)

[djfdat]

Many times your severance comes along with a non-disparagement agreement. And typically the people being laid off don't really have the insight into the operational costs to serve as a counter-point to that argument.

That's not to say the journalists shouldn't try. Having execs pushing their probably false or at least misdirecting narrative in order to control the optics without question or consequence means that they'll continue to operate dishonestly.

[jeffwask]

Same exec team that swept a shit load of sexual misconduct under the rug.

[miltonlost]

For every worker asking for more wages, there's the executives and capitalist class (who doesn't work) demanding even larger increases for themselves. Media often don't ask "hey, maybe you don't need such exorbitant profit" because they are themselves then owned by capitalists who don't work and don't need such outsized wealth.

[jeffwask]

The entire Guillemot family is ridiculously wealthy from Ubisoft and calling their employees greedy.

[TheJoeMan]

I'm a crazy person who reads game credits at the end, and whenever I read about "location scouts" I usually think "oh look, an executive's family took a vacation".

[pier25]

I mean he couldn't possibly blame it on the low quality of their games publicly, right? /s