Ubisoft Montreal hostage situation

Ubisoft Montreal is responsible for some of the defining games of the past few generations Assassins creed, Rainbow Six Siege, Far Cry and the innovative but not quite successful For honor (which I loved)

At 1:30 PM EST on November 13th 2020. It was reported dozens were being held hostage in Ubisofts building, Which houses other businesses aswell.

Employees began promptly barricaded themselves in offices and taking to the terrace.

After the police inspected the building and found no threat.

According to Le Journal de Montreal, The threat was made from inside the building and there was mention of a ransom. No further details were given.

No one has been named in the incident yet I'm sure Ubisoft will handle this internally, but time to put on the tin foil hat and dive in for some good old conspiracy theories.

Now recently Ubisoft had been in the spotlight for some nefarious activities from sexual harassments to insane amounts of crunch which is sadly, a standard in the industry.

My conspiracy theory here is one of the fine employees over at Ubisoft Montreal might have lost it and called in a threat to the building to force an evacuation.

Ubisoft Montreal is currently working on Assassins Creed Valhalla, Hyper Scape and Watch dogs Legion. Two of those titles just launched and the end of the development cycle from many reports across many studios, is the most grueling part of the development process. Insane hours to meet deadlines barely being able to leave the office, sometimes even sleeping there.

Then even after release, crunch still exists managing any issues that may pop up and finding the fastest fixes possible as to not damage the games reputation (Assassins creed unity). Hyper scape being a game that needs constant support as it is.

I think someone at the studio deprived of sleep and time at home, combined with Ubisoft's recently alleged terrible practices when it comes to employee relations and crunch towards the end of the cycle of these games may have contributed to this event.

The takeaway here is everyone is safe and it came from inside the building and I don't know if we'll ever find out who or why this happened I'm sure it will be handled internally.

Ubisoft has enough fires to put out after all the recent allegations as it stands.

Even without the details of who or what actually happened. Crunch in the industry is a huge problem human beings can only handle working at a computer programming and solving issues for so long before it becomes mind breaking. As someone with a minor programming background even two hours of straight coding can leave you with a headache.

Often times in the industry a lot of these employees are on contracts and won't necessarily be threatened to be fired but is usually heavily implied that the people that show the most "initiative" on the current projects are more likely to be chosen for the next. Not just at Ubisoft this is common practice in the industry.

Sleeping under desks is something most developers have become used to over the years. Every now and again we here some details of a company exploiting their employees and there's outrage across the internet then it is forgotten that this is common.

Most of this crunch is due to meeting publisher deadlines to ensure the next round of funding for the company so it's not just on the companies, It's on the industry.

This is why Early access models and crowdfunding models have become prevalent in recent years. Young developers not willing to get under the thumb of a large corporation have been finding alternate routes to make their games and retain their vision.

Any thoughts on the incident? or crunch as a whole ?