You guys — something huge just broke and I can't stop thinking about it because the R6 Siege team at Ubisoft Barcelona is officially on strike through July 2024. This isn't a minor dispute; they're fighting back against mass layoffs while simultaneously pushing against a forced four-day in-office mandate that replaced their near-total remote setup from the pandemic era. The scale of this matters — Siege has been live since 2015 and still counts over 160 million players, so these are some of Ubisoft's most experienced people being squeezed out right now.
The strike was authorized by union leadership after management flatly rejected their proposal for a hybrid arrangement, which is brutal timing because the RTO policy change took effect in July — essentially forcing them back onto campus four days a week with no room to negotiate even though they had proof that remote work worked fine before. They've been fighting this internally for months and the union stepped in only after management insisted on full compliance rather than meeting halfway. The studio has already lost roughly 13% of its workforce — almost entirely senior staff - which is a predictable but devastating pattern Ubisoft keeps repeating with their experienced teams while retaining junior hires they can more cheaply replace later.
I'm genuinely worried about Siege as it stands because you don't build quality shooters under these conditions, and the morale drain from forcing talented veterans back into an office they asked to leave will be felt by players in every future update. Ubisoft needs a serious reality check on how many senior people they can fire before they lose the institutional knowledge that makes R6 Siege one of the most enduring live-service games ever launched; this isn't just another layoff cycle, it's an active campaign and the team is standing up for themselves in public — which I'll always respect.
Source: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rainbow-six-siege-developers-go-on-strike-through-july-to-protest-mass-layoffs-and-rto-policies-at-ubisoft-barcelona
The strike was authorized by union leadership after management flatly rejected their proposal for a hybrid arrangement, which is brutal timing because the RTO policy change took effect in July — essentially forcing them back onto campus four days a week with no room to negotiate even though they had proof that remote work worked fine before. They've been fighting this internally for months and the union stepped in only after management insisted on full compliance rather than meeting halfway. The studio has already lost roughly 13% of its workforce — almost entirely senior staff - which is a predictable but devastating pattern Ubisoft keeps repeating with their experienced teams while retaining junior hires they can more cheaply replace later.
I'm genuinely worried about Siege as it stands because you don't build quality shooters under these conditions, and the morale drain from forcing talented veterans back into an office they asked to leave will be felt by players in every future update. Ubisoft needs a serious reality check on how many senior people they can fire before they lose the institutional knowledge that makes R6 Siege one of the most enduring live-service games ever launched; this isn't just another layoff cycle, it's an active campaign and the team is standing up for themselves in public — which I'll always respect.
Source: https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rainbow-six-siege-developers-go-on-strike-through-july-to-protest-mass-layoffs-and-rto-policies-at-ubisoft-barcelona