Ubisoft Closes Canadian Studio After It Unionizes
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/36712639
Ubisoft's first North American union, located at their Halifax, Nova Scotia studio, was certified on December 18th, 2025. Now, not even a full 30 days later, Ubisoft Halifax is closing.
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Capital would rather burn everything down than lose a penny to the working class. Yes in this example, highly paid developers are considered working class relative to billionaire owners
I like to think that we're all working class, and that to subdivide classes further benefits only the capital
Yes in reality, like 90% of people are working class, but I just wanted to make that designation for anyone reading it and going "software engineers aren't working class". I mean it in the more general working class vs capital owners.
Anyone who cannot stop working and live off their own wealth (and not rely on the working income of others) for the rest of their lives is, by definition, working class.
I agree, but I think there are enough people who conflate working class with blue collar that making the distinction is justified.
They don't live week by week, they have thousands to tens of thousands of dollars of disposable income per month.
No, I'm not going to treat them the same as my fellow lower classes.
That's a mistake. If you treat them as your equal then you can make then see they aren't special or "middle class" and then you have another pair of hands to help the working class.
That's well natured but naive.
Richer 'working class' already do shit on the poorer classes, they already punch down with ferocity.
Don't get me wrong. I'm talking about not treating then as special but just as anyone else and reply as you would with anyone else, not as if they are superior.
Everybody who has to work for a living is part of the working class. Further division is just "divide et impera" by the owners.
Exactly right: a doctor who earns $500k/annum is working class where a landlord earning $50k/annum is capitalist class. The division between the two comes from whether or not the person sells their labour to generate income versus making money from capital assets without expending labour. It has nothing at all to do with the amount earned.
Now, the truth is that there are a fair few working capitalists - those who sell their labour, then use the proceeds of that sale to purchase capital to gain further income - but that’s where the waters get a bit more muddy. I am one of these people; I earn dual income from my job and from my investments. Many might consider me a class traitor, and there’s a fair amount of reason to that accusation, but I personally consider that I am just operating within the confines of the system I was unlucky enough to be born into. I’ll consistently vote for people who would take away my privilege to capital investments but, until they gain power, I’ll use the current system to my advantage.
Not in the games industry, lol
Just making the distinction that both blue and white collar workers are all still the working class generally. Colloquially, "working class" can be used more to mean blue collar workers, but in my context I mean anyone not in the capital ownership class.
Really? I always assumed they made more than developers in the “enterprise” world.
Noooo, not even close. There may be some senior devs in AAA studios making bank, but the vast majority of people doing the day-to-day art and development work on games typically get much worse pay and benefits than similar roles in other parts of the tech sphere.
A lot of people are very passionate about making games, and the games industry heavily exploits that passion to short change its workers. A lot of (mostly young) devs are willing to accept less pay to work on games because they feel like it will be more fulfilling than working on other mindless corporate crap, and those who do get jobs in the industry are afraid to ask for more money or try to unionize because they know there are a dozen equally passionate candidates waiting to replace them for less money if they make too many waves.
The result is that wages stay lower than other tech jobs and hours worked are much higher. With AI on the rise the problem will no doubt get even worse as execs use it as an excuse to shrink teams and "do more with less".
Not to mention generally enterprise devs aren’t beholden to public launch dates set externally by publishers and therefore end up burning out really fast trying to make a deliverable happen. Not saying that doesn’t happen elsewhere in software, but it’s really common in the games industry
That’s interesting. Because writing code for 3D graphics is way more complicated than writing an SQL query or some input form UI. I assumed those devs are super skilled and hence paid accordingly.
Those that write code for 3D graphics get paid a lot. That's why most companies nowadays use middleware like UE5...
Generally the more money that depends on their systems being functional without errors or interruptions, the more an industry is willing to pay for devs.
However in addition to that there is also the supply-demand effect: in demand specialists for which there are few available experts get paid more than people doing the kind of work for which there are a lot more experiences professionals around.
3D graphics programmers would benefit from the second effect but generally not from the first.
As a comparison, for example Quants (who program complex mathematical models used in asset valuation software for complex assets such as derivatives) in Investment Banking in London - thus who gain from both effects - about a decade ago had salaries of around £300k per year as they're both working on critical software elements in systems used for managing billions of dollars of assets and have a very rare expertise (they're usually people with Mathematics or Physics Masters or Doctorates who are also developers and who also have quite a lot of specific knowledge of the business of investment banking, which all adds up to a very rare combination of skillsets)
Gaming industry relies on game devs being super passionate about it, so they can pay them less.
My game dev friends almost all got out of it because they weren't paid well and had to crunch all the time.
In corporate software you get paid well and just hate the work you do.
On the flip side, errors in 3D graphics typically won't cost a company millions, while errors in an SQL query very well might
It's not by chance that for example the Investment Banking industry pays a lot more money to developers than the wider IT industry - a system breaking down for an hour or two there can cost millions because, for example, trader's can't actually trade certain assets.
Generally the more money that depends on their systems being functional without errors or interruptions, the more an industry is willing to pay for devs.
I'm moving from a "not bottom of the ladder but pretty damn low" test automation position to the game industry and I'm expecting to make half as much
Everyone wants to work in games. Few want to work on accounting software and client messaging organization programs. Who do you think gets paid more despite doing basically the same thing?
Doing matrix operations in C++ is super annoying and difficult coompared to writing SQL queries wrapped in Java jdbc, or creating some REST APIs in python/ruby for some js react UI. Another comment response acknowledges this.
But I get that probably most people want to write games. Having the skills to do 3D graphics programming is another thing. (I remember this kid in my undergrad linear algebra class, who was complaining he failed the class like three times, and that he was going to go to the department head and get the professor fired lol. I think that guy wanted to do game programming. I’m betting he’s writing unit tests now.)
Devs are working class
Because they actually work on products literally, they're the base of their profession with pretty much nobody under them bar a few juniors if any
I fear the day when being a dev like me becomes so normal I make minimum wage and can't afford anything anymore... It's seriously terrifying to realize I worked and learned all this time and it may be for nothing in like 10 years..
lol that day is coming sooner than you'd think, I think 10 years is being generous tbh
You should learn a highly niche specialization within SWE if you don't already have one (that's what I have). That will be overtaken by AI too, but it'll give you more runway at least.
Yea... I definitelly need to do that...
If I were in your shoes (and I am), I would start trying to blindly use AI to do various aspects of my job (and I have).
The results are laughable.
There are things that I do that AI can do. Stupid, boring, uninteresting things. In particular, AI excels at doing things I already wrote a simple Bash script to do for me a decade ago.
Seriously, I encourage everyone to give it a try.
Let's all build that passion project we've been dreaming of and host it for the world to enjoy.
In the best case, the world has a happy little passion project chugging away being useful.
In the worst case, we learn what AI cannot do yet, and realize we can still keep charging people for our labor for a few more years (and decades and centuries).
To repurpose The Fermi Paradox, if AI allows anyone to easily make a useful product, then where are they all?
Is that The AI Fermi Paradox?
E: obviously this is the FermAI Paradox.
I mean, at least you always have those supple wrists to fall back on.
I hope more people do follow this advice, though. It's always a joy to discover people's little passion projects. They make life richer for the rest of us.
Currently working on an Ubi-style game set in Middle-Earth. Maybe my niece and I will be the only ones to enjoy it, but I'm ok with that.
Oh yea I know that. I use it as well and it's exactly as you said.
I can get the base of a feature laid out with it but it's not going to finish it for me, ever
Higher wage working class is working class. If your income doesn't come from owning things, if you put in work to get your income, you are working class. Division among ourselves only weakens us.
100%. I always ask people to look at their tax return. Does your money come from your labour/work, or from the things you own? If you aren’t living off of the things you own, then you are working class.
I mean I own stocks and stuff in index funds, so... AM I THE CAPITAL?? lol jk
If your income comes mainly from your work, you're Working Class (even if you own you own business), if your income comes mainly from the money made by the money you have (in assets or even "investments") you're Owner Class.
Certainly, modern politics only ever divides people in those two classes, with mainstream parties generaly only working for the good of the Owner Class which is how you end up with falling salaries in real terms and growing Asset valuations in the form of bubbles on all kinds of assets, most notably stocks and realestate (notice how most mainstream politicians see the rising of both stockmarkets and house prices - tough of late, they don't say it about the latter quite as openly - as being good things).
The single greatest scam of modern Neoliberal Capitalism was making people who own their means of production - sometimes only partially or not really because they're in debt for it - but still have to work for a living think they're not Working Class and hence Neoliberal Capitalism is actually working for their benefit.
If there is one thing that around a decade working for the Finance Industry has taught me, is that almost all government policies are directed to help those who make money from having money make even more money, which is why, for example, plenty of countries have lower taxes on income from "investments" than on income from "work", when the fair thing would be the other way around since the former is parasitical so lower taxes on it just induces more economic actors to engage in non-productive, extractive economic activities.
You're not familiar with the games industry are you?
Their wages are significantly lower than related software fields of similar skill sets.
Yeah, that's another fun aspect of our culture. Jobs that many people actually want due to what they are passionate about lead to abuse.
It's the reason I never seriously considered getting into game development or becoming a teacher.
I am the rare father involved in the PTO (parent-teacher organization) along with my wife at our kid's elementary school. We were handing out basic cheap supplies to the teachers last month as a Christmas thing. We'd interrupt the class to give the teacher a SINGLE roll of paper towels and then a small box of tissues or some glue sticks or whatever, and they were excited and grateful every time!
Capitalism will let us all eat shit and die and still cut that shit with the last of the Amazonian sawdust.
how highly paid are we talking? I doubt they're making 200k
keep in mind that Canadian tech sector wages are not on par with american - as a rough rule, just keep the dollar value and change the currency (i.e. 100k USD salary is 100k CAD salary)
Oh come now, Its not just about money.
Its about making sure frat boy culture of sexual harassment and assault continue unabated.
"hey know how we cut a few developers loose and they created an iconic video game without our oversight? Should we do that again and forsake all profits and consumer goodwill a second time??"
Cue that Ants scene... they want to nip resistance in the bud, before it grows too large.
Wow, a whole unionized and competent studio now free to pursue internally chosen productions? I sure hope they don't get some of those "Canadian Heritage" media subsidies. Seriously though this is the shit the state should be funding, it'd be a shame to have this kind of resource squandered.
Yep. Rename to Unisoft and start making good games.
Scarcisoft?
They realy could make another clair obscur
Ubisoft is just seeding their own demise.
They weren't my favorite studio before, but they're definitely never getting another dime from me. There's a lot of fish in the sea.
Ubisoft has been utter shir for more than a decade.
I used to love Prince of Persia, I tried to play Warrior Within half a year ago, that's how much I love it.
But it hasn't been the same, it's just generic shit all over the place.
Have you played the two new prince of Persia games? They are very good. But not the same gameplay as the ps2 classics.
Ubisoft asked the Rayman team (who have produced some of the best platformers) to develop Prince of Persia The Lost Crown, regarded as the best metroidvania of 2024.
It failed to meet sales expectations, so they disbanded the teams and cancelled the sequel.
Turns out gamers™️ do vote with their wallets, and they vote for churned out sequels.
No, even Two Thrones felt off.
The combat and movement was so good in WW that I didn't try anything new after TT.
It amazes me that anyone played any far cry or assassins creed game in the last 10 years and went "yes this is a good game". All they make is bare minimum surface level crap and it's been that way for a loooooong time.
For Honor was their last good game.
Thanks for reminding me Assassins Creed Syndicate came out 10 years ago.
oof
This particular studio is responsible for some of their best titles.
If the Canadian government were real it would exact punishing fines on the company's Canadian held assets in response to this. And I don't mean cost of business fees, I mean hurtful costs, because these giant fucking companies seriously damage Canadian lives when they just rugpull the labour after making massive profits of Canadian operations. There is no justifiable reason to side with Ubisoft or their scumsucking management here.
I completely agree. This isn't so much a failure of business; it's a failure of the government to properly hurt businesses that enact policies that hurt workers and consumers. And in democratic countries with voters, it's also the failure of the voters.
This is why we need people like Lina Khan to be given much more power in society. There are good, liberal economists out there who understand that if you don't regulate externalities, then market systems will cause extreme disfunction in society. Smart economists understand this, elite rich people understand it, the problem is that the bottom tier of society that is ignorant and believes in religious myths is easily deceived by the upper classes.
The result is a society with progressively more unequal wealth distribution, rapidly descending into environmental hell, with a public that is mostly confused, religious, and idioticly upset about market conditions, but glad the evil trans girl won't be able to play softball.
All of these issues are part of the same problem: how do you convince the poor and stupid to not get tricked by the elite again? But perhaps it's just impossible. After all, the poor are mostly religious and believe in crazy things like virgin births and flat earth... Until the poor reject such lunacy, or society becomes so awful that they are compelled to reject it, there's really not much hope for change.
Genuinely, invest in education and you can resolve a lot of this in one fell swoop. I firmly believe that a large part of the reason the US is in its current state is because of the systematic cuts to our education system which have been happening for damn near half a century (fucking Reagan). Invest in the youth, give them the critical thinking and media literacy skills needed to draw their own conclusions, and I think you’ll have made significant progress on the issue.
Easier said than done, though, I’ll admit, and it’s a plan that operates on a pretty goddamn long timeline - a much longer one than the current critical situation is likely to allow us.
This is a great point. Specifically an increase in economic education required of students would be helpful, including helpful for things like understanding environmental science, because externalities and environmental science and regulation have overlap that most don't understand.
"Instead of logic and reason, we will replace that with religion and superstition. We will kill your ability to think."
Well put all around, and in response to your final point, I'm really not sure. I want to say this is the value of public education, but I don't recall a terribly strong effort to educate people in common sense and media literacy so as to not be manipulated so easily, and end up voting against our own best interests back when I was in the system. Still, I had access to better education than most young people do today.
I think that lackluster regulation of media really is failing us too, since any billionaire can just buy up a large organization and dictate what it will and will not report on, and how it aims to persuade people in out society. All of this requires rooting out apathy and corruption in our governing public servants, and strengthening regulation, and every day I see more of the exact opposite of that. It's hard to tell what the endpoint is that's going to force a turn-around, if such a thing even exists beyond a systemic collapse that strips the power to manipulate the systems of governance from the ultra-rich.
Generally that means terrible suffering for all, and I'd much rather see a better path, like, oh I don't know, massive taxation of enormous and excessive private wealth. Until I see politicians willing to take meaningful actions to resist and confront oligarchy, and a general public developing more self-awareness, I'll continue to believe that outcome seems like a pipe dream.
Eh, we are already unionized in France. The difference is we have laws protecting workers so they can't just shut a studio down willy nilly.
So do we in Canada... But that doesn't mean that they are enforced
Ok so did they organize and sue the company?
Cuz enforcement usually requires more work such as a class action suit. Lawyers aren’t just jumping out there suing companies and filing the paper work to protect workers all on their own. There’s usually at least one person organizing it.
So who’s the person who got let go at Ubisoft that got it started?
My 10+ year long Ubisoft boycott still looking like a good idea.
I started to Boycott Ubisoft when they started online DRM checks for single player games that you could not play offline anymore. It was with the release of Assassins Creed 2 and I think it was Settler 7. That was about 16 years ago.
I started to boycott Ubisoft when I can't think of a single game of theirs I would even want to play.
I really wanted to play Watch Dogs when it came out. Unfortunately they also publish a lot of games. They have some cool titles ngl, but I pull through.
I pirated it at some point, it's was as expected, stuffed with repetitive boring tasks to increase playtime. Didn't get far before deleting it.
Oh and driving was still beyond broken over a year past release
Oof yeah ok dodged that bullet I guess 😂
Eh, I haven't boycott Ubisoft. But also, they don't make good games so I haven't bought any either. Might just make it official after this though.
indeed
As far as I'm concerned, unionization should be government mandated for every company everywhere in every industry.
But unfortunately we live in hell.
Absolutely this. We need mandated unions for every single company that exists. And with loopholes closed, like offshoring/outsourcing, corporate “headquarters” is a closet in Delaware, etc.
I get where you're coming from but unions should not be mandated, they need to be formed for the actual workers that want things to change for the better. Just look at Sweden for a good example of how to implement unions at almost all workspaces without the need for the state to be involved.
Look at Belgium for a good example of how they are mandated.
So how do they do it?
With stronger union protections, necessary unions will form organically.
By not getting the state involved at all. All negotiations happens between the workers and the companies with about 88% of workers in Sweden having a collective agreement. All workers also have the right legally to join or start a union and unionbusting is illegal. If the company doesn't want a collective agreement it usually results in strikes such as the ongoing one against Tesla that has been going on since 2023.
But union busting being illegal is the state getting involved.
True, that we can agree on is necessary to not get into the same situation that happened here. What I'm saying is that it is not necessary for something to be mandatory for it to still be almost universal.
"Doesn't need government" proceeds to name gov protection
Was a bit tired when writing the comment, should have been adjusted to minimal involvement as the main procedures should still be between workers and companies with the state just guaranteeing that these procedures can take place at all.
Now that's a nuanced take!!!! That I'm on board with.
The pinkertons have entered the chat
Don't worry, the America's free market provides many paramilitary groups to shutdown those pesky unions and curious journalists. No need for government involvement!
Damn, didn't even know about those. Starting to sound like the US is just majorily fucked up with how they perceive the neverending chase for more profits (and money in the owners pockets). The problem still with government involvement is that it can then just as easily be removed and you're back on square one. I'm not well informed enough about the US to actually give any valid input on how you would actually solve this.
That's the way it works in France (and other EU countries, I assume?). We literally have to have a workers reprensative council past a certain number of employees.
As a Canadian living north of the nut-hatch, I wish I had the money to excercise my dual citizenship and get out of here to Portugal, or anywhere else in the EU.
I live in Germany. Here its not mandated to have a workers representative council, but you are entitled to be allowed to make one. A workers representative council is distinct from a union, though.
That would be normal in a socialist society, not in a capitalistic one.
Right... They closed it as a "cost-cutting measure" and "not because the studio unionized". This is where the lawmakers are just letting everyone know that they are garbage to be walked all over. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to realize that "cost-cutting" a studio that just unionized is because they unionized, because a union means they have to start paying their workers their fair share, which means "higher costs" to them, when it should've been like that from the start.
How does this sort of thing usually get handled in Canada anyway?
A lot of the reasons unions form in the USA are mitigated by Canadian labour laws. So you generally only see them in large work forces such as government employees, school teachers, and trades. People already get severance pay based on length of employment for getting fired without cause. If you're laid off you can get EI (60% wages from gov't).
So to answer your question... nothing probably -though I am speculating. Unless they did something egregious they likely broke no laws.
Anti-union industry is vast.
You have advisors that have preprepared media statements, threats, worker
conditioningpropaganda, etc.But ultimately it's the govs issue not to enforce the law.
When the butchers at a single Walmart successfully formed a tiny union, Walmart responded by firing every butcher in every store in the company and switching to pre-packaged meats only.
Whelp, I already de facto boycotting Ubisoft since I'm a patent gamer. Guess I'll actively boycott them now.
Patent gamer?
You only play original ideas?
No they only play games while in the hospital
Nope, I only play games that are heavily discounted or given away
https://sh.itjust.works/c/patientgamers
I get that, I was just having fun with your typo 🙂
It's double funny because it's pretty much the opposite of what it was meant.
capitalism is terrorism
Jesus fucking christ so blatantly evil
Ubisoft is a dumpster fire of a company I'll never buy from again.
The open corruption and lack of empathy for the working class is just embarrassing. I hate EVERY company now since they only care about shares. They don't even consider us as human, we are simply just tools for them and can be thrown away at any moment.
They always have. The owners of industry crave for the days of the Golden Age of Capitalism where they get to be the robber barons instead of just hearing tales about their Grandpa.
Anyone notice that Halifax is spelt 3 different ways in the article?
My personal favourite is Hailfox.
All Hail The FOX.
Faxy Lody
But what does it say?
https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=jofNR_WkoCE
Boom Boom!
LMAO, a and o are on opposite end of the keyboard, how do you even do this?
Maybe the author has a Dvorak keyboard layout (a and o are next to each other there).
I see only see Hailfax but maybe they corrected the fox one.
It's so easy to not buy games. When was the last good game they made? I guess I'll continue to ignore their catalog.
I think they own hitman but honestly I still prefer blood money anyway. Play the oldies, goodies or the new Indies, goodies.
IOI bought Hitman back a few years ago, which is why World of Assassination is a thing. Before that, Ubi ruined it with a billion different packages. Now it's a simple thing to get all three (modern) games.
That was Square Enix not Ubisoft.
Oop, thank you! That's what I get for posting in the middle of the night.
Ah ok that's why its not a steaming pile of shit. I remember when they streamlined it but didn't realize there was a change over.
Solvent corporations shouldn't be legally allowed to dissolve positions.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until the rich fear for their lives
Ubisoft just continues to be awful.
How convenient this decision was supposedly made prior to the decision to unionize and is related to only financial issues.
I bet they are always discussing what studios to cut or downsize in case of "economic downturns" or "failing to meet quarterly projections" so they can't be accused of union-busting or retaliation.
I think we need to learn more about the union movement in Canada and US. People fought and died over these rights. Companies and governments forgot unions were the agreement we made to not drag their asses out in the streets and beat their asses.
It would be good for those in power to remember this compromise, because we are getting ripe for another wave of work reform.
Part of the problem is, back in the day you had company towns. And everyone knew where the boss lived. In the big ass house just outside of that shit hole town. So it was pretty convenient to go grab your pitchforks and rifles and walk half a mile while your rage built up.
Today you probably don’t know where your boss lives. Say you managed to find out. Supposing he doesn’t live in a different state, you get your guns and pitchforks and start marching. The cops will stop you before you get to that nice neighborhood.
Just pitchfork him when he shows up at work lol
The owners typically don't show up at all. They hire CEOs to run their companies, which is fair game. You pitchfork a CEO, you still send a message.
So apparently being a French or Canadian company doesn't necessarily mean that you respect or understand unions, I thought that was mostly American practice, I was wrong
French companies outside of France might as well be American with the way they treat non French workers.
Almost any large capitalist company, especially those that are publicly traded, will devour its own in the name of higher Q3 profits.
That's because they all adapt to local workers laws. That's how you know they would absolutely fuck us every which way if they could, hence why we (French people) need this sort of reminder.
Alas I doubt this would even show up in the news.
I guess I will continue to not buy their games. I'm lucky they make it so easy by making so many bad games.
Now all Canada needs to do is legalize piracy on Ubisoft products.
Well its not illegal to DL a torrent in Canada, if that is what you mean.
I'll just add it to the pile of reasons why ubisoft is on my shit list alongside ea, epic, and activision.
Next thing I'll learn will be that Splinter Cell was a pro fascist story all along
"Wait your saying the guy that goes in and forcibly changes country regimes with murder is a baddie? No that can't be it...."
Painful, but these companies need to fuck off then.
Could workers not form a 'dark union', gathering members from as many different companies as possible without informing the employers up-front -- gathering a strike-pay war chest before announcing any unionized shops? Then the next time they pull this, everyone everywhere quits out of solidarity. Draw from the war-chest to pay workers while the companies panic, and then dictate fair terms to return to work.
The huge difficulty would be keeping the membership drive truly 'dark' until it was large enough to pull off.
Stopped buying Ubisoft games for years. Don't even play the ones I already have. It's been a crappy company since at least Assassin's Creed 2 single player always online pioneering
B-b-but I thought it wasn't about unions...
It's about sensitive company knowledge!! such as uh..., the fact that we're union busters
Haha, fuck ubi.
I hope they open a new studio.
Right?
Got it. No more Ubisoft support and no more money given. I'm not a big fan of unions but with no federal laws to protect the workers I am even less of a fan of union busters.
Lol i dont even play ubi games anymore they dont put out much good stuff
They’re really up there like EA in terms of shit
At least they have a union to argue about severance packages for them
Tbf ubisoft is closing itself off quite fast lol this industry is so fucked
Carfule question: Could it be that the reason the workes unionised is the same reason as to why Ubisoft closed it down?
If things were looking bad, it makes sense to unionise. if Ubisoft was going to shut down sooner or later anyway, might as well do it when the studio votes to unionise, as closing it down later would only become more difficult.
I hate Ubisoft, but I actually do think this was decided to happen before they unionized and is just bad timing.
Decisions to close studios like this never happen so quickly and usually take multiple months between the time the decision is made to the time the actual closure takes place.
It is possible that the studio caught wind that they were being closed and decided to unionize in order to capitalize on the bad PR. But this is all speculation since we don't know every detail, and both sides will leave out various details to give themselves an advantageous position in the conversation.
It's possible but imo unlikely. I know its very different in a lot of ways but Starbucks at least will close a location to "save money" practically day of a successful unionizing vote. A union gets harder to squash the longer they're around, and more likely to spread to other locations, so companies get pretty trigger happy about shuttering places.
It's not as though unionization was a surprise for Ubisoft. They probably had plenty of time to prepare.
I have this rule; if a game requires 8 GB as minimum requirements, then DO NOT BUY IT EVER
..... What?
I trust this rule is from 1998 and hasn't budged since.
Basically Ubisoft makes games that are so not optimized & require you to have a monster of a PC to run. And the last time I checked it's also most AAA games. Anyone that doesn't put in the effort of optimizing games is someone who doesn't care about good industry practices & is probably a money-hungry asshole who likes to use & toss people aside.
This rule has not led me astray yet.