Star Metro - French game developers mark first industry-wide strike

Several fat years fed by higher sales during coronavirus lockdowns have given way to belt-tightening in the industry, with waves of layoffs and studio closures.

The STJV union called for demonstrations in a clutch of cities around France including Paris, Bordeaux in the southwest and Rennes in the northwest.

Drawing in other worker groups, the movement has even spread abroad with a walkout at a studio belonging to French giant Ubisoft in Barcelona, Spain.

"We're expecting a pretty significant turnout," said Vincent Cambedouzou, STJV delegate at Ubisoft's Paris offices.

Several thousand demonstrators were expected nationwide, out of a games workforce of between 12,000 and 15,000 in France.

Organisers are calling for a halt to layoffs, better working conditions and more transparency on business structures and finances.

"There's people taking terrible decisions and getting our industry into the state it's in now," Cambedouzou said.

"Then they ask us to pick up the tab."

Previously rare, labour conflicts have hit several major games industry players in recent months.

Around 1,000 Ubisoft staff protested in October over changes to work-from-home rules.

The "Assassin's Creed" maker employs almost 18,000 people worldwide, 4,000 of them in France.

With its stock struggling after a string of underwhelming releases and delays, Ubisoft will on Thursday announce financial results for the third quarter of its financial year, for which it has already issued a profit warning.

Struggling developer Don't Nod has also seen several days of strikes over a plan to lay off 69 of its 250 Paris employees.

Managers told AFP that they had reached a deal to "prioritise voluntary departures and limit compulsory ones".

After walkouts at other small studios, "the logical next step was for everyone to mobilise at once," Cambedouzou said.

The global video game sector has emerged from a long "creative, craft" period to become "an industry like any other," said Julien Pillot, an economist specialising in cultural industries.

Workers are "waking up with a hangover... realising that they've become labourers just like anyone else," he added.

Beyond the sector's economic woes, unions want to shine a spotlight on sometimes toxic workplaces.

The STJV has over recent weeks published anonymous testimony from many employees documenting harsh treatment and sexism in different companies.

F.Davis--SMC