In 2008, a handful of frustrated developers at a tiny, Quebec-based Ubisoft subsidiary (of sorts) called Longtail Studios led a valiant, if doomed, unionization attempt that was well ahead of its time.
In recent years, unionization in the games industry has become a hot topic. Multiple games companies have unionized, either in part or as a whole, and the overall attitude toward unions industry-wide (as measured by the annual Game Developers Conference survey, at least), has slowly become more positive. This wave of interest in unions comes as a possible solution to growing concern about games industry working conditions, amid reports that multiple major AAA companies foster toxic work environments, crunch lasting weeks or even months, and hostile conditions for women and minorities. And while some major companies like Activision-Blizzard have been openly hostile toward such efforts, others, such as Microsoft, have been surprisingly permissive.
But it wasn’t always this way. IGN spoke to seven sources familiar with the story of Longtail Studios, six of whom were involved in some way with a unionization drive at the studio in 2008-2009. Despite their movement’s ultimate failure at the time, those we spoke to feel that Longtail’s story is worth telling, both as a clear example of why worker protections might be desirable in the games industry to begin with, as well as a testament to how far unionization in the space has come in a short amount of time.
Ubisoft declined to comment on this story.
Ubisoft, But Not Quite
Longtail Studios was founded in 2003 by Ubisoft co-founder Gérard Guillemot. It was initially based in New York City, but soon after spun up two satellite studios: one in Quebec, and later, another one in Prince Edward Island, which eventually moved to Halifax. For the first five years of its existence, Longtail was a tiny studio of less than 100 employees focused on early mobile and DS games such as Sprung, Heartbreakers, My Bridezilla, Hollywood Hustle, and TNA Wrestling. Later, it expanded into console games, beginning with Grey’s Anatomy: The Video Game in 2009 for the Nintendo Wii, and later still moving into Wii U development with ESPN Sports Connection and Rocksmith 2014.
Though not officially affiliated with Ubisoft, Guillemot’s Ubisoft funding and familial ties to Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot kept it close at hand to the much larger French studio. In many ways, Longtail was like a second Gameloft: founded by a Guillemot brother, largely funded and run by Ubisoft’s friends and business partners, and focused on the mobile market that Ubisoft proper had not yet gained a strong foothold in. Ubisoft officially published a number of Longtail-developed games, but the day-to-day ties went much further than that. Longtail’s Quebec production studio shared a building with Ubisoft Quebec, and sources tell me Ubisoft leads would often come and go from the Longtail office. The two companies even shared a Christmas party at least once. One source who worked there at the time described it as “Ubisoft with a different name.” Multiple sources recalled early pay stubs stemming from Ubisoft, not Longtail, before it eventually switched, and one source shared their original job offer letter with IGN, signed off on by “Estelle Jacquemard, Ubisoft Entertainment Inc. Quebec, Projet Longtail.”
“Between us, we would describe [the relationship between Ubisoft and Longtail] as ‘incestuous,’” one source recalls. “We were often reminded by management that Longtail and Ubisoft were two different companies. They would get angry if we referred to Longtail as Ubisoft and we were forbidden from saying we worked for Ubisoft. But, we were paid through Ubisoft in the beginning (I don't remember when it stopped), we worked in the same building (different floors), shared some equipment, and the owner was one of the Guillemot brothers (Gérard). We also developed some games for them (Grey's Anatomy and a few titles in the Imagine series).”
Sources who worked at Longtail during these early years recall an often-frustrating work environment. Decisions, they say, were largely made by creatives at Longtail’s New York office, who then expected Longtail Quebec – where most of the programmers, artists, and designers were based – to execute. They described little to no opportunity for upward mobility within the company, and very little training or guidance from more senior individuals – something that proved stressful for a studio largely composed of young, inexperienced developers just getting their start in the industry.
Many of the workers, multiple sources told me, weren’t trained to make the kinds of things New York was asking for, and these large, challenging, or even impossible asks often came on tight turnarounds, resulting in crunch and delays. Two sources recalled that as time went on, this relationship resulted in Longtail becoming fraught with infighting, with one programmer describing the environment as follows:
“Game designers were told that programmers were lazy and incompetent, so they shouldn't listen to us when we said that what they asked was costly, time consuming, or sometimes even impossible on the hardware we were targeting,” they recall. “They were expected to push for what they wanted (or what their boss wanted) using every argument they could to make it happen, including twisting our own technical arguments around and questioning our competence. When the result was (predictably) a barely playable mess, we would get blamed for it.”
Others in different departments, such as QA, said their workload was more variable, with periods of crunch closer to deadlines interspersed with long stretches of little to no work. One recalled groups of QA testers playing Warcraft, StarCraft, and Unreal Tournament in the office, saying, “This was the weirdest job I ever had.”
Since the ‘90s, Quebec has offered significant tax credits for multimedia businesses set up in the province. It’s a financial plan that Ubisoft had a major hand in forcing through, and has been a significant factor in Quebec becoming a major game development center globally. It’s been a historically controversial program in the province, and at Longtail it sparked a lot of speculation. Among those involved in Longtail’s unionization, there was a widespread suspicion that Ubisoft had largely set up Longtail to take advantage of these government grants and tax credits rather than because it needed a new studio to make games, all while failing to invest that money back in the studio. Multiple former employees recalled signing papers for a government organization called Emploi Québec – which offers grants to companies in exchange for providing specialized training to workers. The paperwork, they remembered, was effectively a statement that the workers had received training on the job to improve their skills, but none of those we spoke to recalled receiving any such training.