Ubisoft closes its recently-unionized Halifax studio, says it's not because of the unionizing

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Two weeks ago, staff at Ubisoft Halifax officially formed a union, with 74% of its employees voting in favor of forming a bargaining unit after the Assassin's Creed Rebellion developer filed for unionization in June. Today, Ubisoft announced that it's closing the Halifax studio, claiming that the timing is merely coincidental (via GamesIndustry.biz).

"Over the past 24 months, Ubisoft has undertaken company-wide actions to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and reduce costs," the publisher said in a statement. "As part of this, Ubisoft has made the difficult decision to close its Halifax studio. 71 positions will be affected."

Ubisoft Halifax began as a branch of Longtail Studios, founded in 2003 by Ubisoft co-founder Gérard Guillemot. As IGN reported in 2023, Longtail's Quebec branch had previously started one of North America's earliest game studio unionization efforts in 2008, which ultimately collapsed thanks to company management's opposition to the organization drive.

Ubisoft isn't the only major company in the industry that's recently eliminated the jobs of employees who've pursued workplace unionization. Last year, Rockstar fired more than 30 GTA 6 developers who had been involved in labor organization, generating internal and external protest and inviting parliamentary skepticism despite the company's claims that the workers had engaged in "gross misconduct."

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Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

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