The Ubisoft Union That Almost Was: The Untold Story of Longtail Studios

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.”

Rocksmith 2014 Screens

“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.

Across the board, pay at Longtail Studios was rather dismal. While everyone I spoke to agreed that programmers were paid roughly an acceptable living wage for Quebec at the time (one programmer told me they were paid about $40,000 CAD), all other roles were drastically underpaid, and raises were hard to come by – especially for QA, who made close to minimum wage (in 2008, roughly $17,680 CAD a year). One person told me their first role after leaving the games industry doubled their pay, with no expectation of overtime. Another reported being promoted out of QA into a designer role and not getting a raise, and thereafter receiving annual raises much lower than the rest of the designers even when their performance evaluation was positive. And another source recalled being offered $30,000 CAD a year to move to Quebec from another city, only to find when they had arrived that their offer had mysteriously dropped to only $19,000 CAD a year. Since they had already moved, they had no way of fighting the change. That said, several agreed that the health benefits at Longtail were quite good.

Whatever was going on behind the scenes, there was a pervasive belief among my sources that Ubisoft had founded Longtail not because they were interested in making good games or building a sustainable studio, but first and foremost as a way to receive additional funding from the Quebec government and ultimately funnel money back to Ubisoft. They felt strongly that the relationship between Longtail and Ubisoft was questionable at best, and that the studio conditions were neither healthy nor sustainable – especially when compared to the wider games industry.

A Longtail Union

With poor working conditions, insufficient pay, a stressful environment, little transparency, and seemingly no change in sight, a handful of Longtail employees sought other solutions. In 2008, a pair of individuals began reaching out individually to their coworkers in an effort to convince them to start a union under Quebec’s Alliance de la Fonction Publique du Canada (AFPC). One of them, Mathieu Lemire, was initially hired as a young, green QA tester and was later invited to join the game design team. The other, Boris Perron, was a programmer, and one of the older and more experienced employees at Longtail. The two quickly became the leaders of the movement within Longtail, and became known around the studio for being vocal about working conditions and issues at the company. IGN spoke to them both, and both agreed to be named in this piece.

“I knew I would have to fight in order to get any respect and fair work conditions,” Lemire says. “Unionization was the only way I could successfully gain something, for me and for others who were like me. In order to fight in equal terms against a company far stronger than any individual, you have to organize and do this together. With a union, you can negotiate and even organize a strike without being completely obliterated. If you try anything by yourself, any company exploiting you can just say, ‘No,’ and ‘You’re fired.’ I knew I could not do this by myself, so I seized the opportunity.”

Lemire and Perron connected with then AFPC-representative Jean-julien Mercier, who also spoke to IGN and agreed to be named in this story. The three split the task between them, with Perron focusing on the programmers, and Lemire trying to bring in the designers, artists, and QA. Mercier, hoping to avoid rousing suspicion that either was involved, visited a number of Longtail employees at home to get them to sign union cards. The group made good progress for a while, seeing a lot of interest from the programmers and artists especially, but Lemire describes the response from QA and game design as “anemic.”

“They were scared like crazy and nobody wanted to sign a card,” he says. “In 2008, technology businesses were vastly hostile to unionization. In the video game business, it was even worse than that. Everybody was afraid of losing their job.”

As the two continued their efforts to speak to their colleagues one by one, problems began to arise. Lemire expressed that he grew frustrated with Mercier, who he didn’t perceive as providing clear guidance or direction. Mercier, however, tells me that at the time he was still very new to the job, with a young child at home, and was doing the best he could. And at some point amid this struggle, Longtail management got wind of what was going on. Lemire and Mercier both suspect that a specific individual they approached to sign a card ultimately outed them to management — a suspicion that would later be confirmed at least in part at Lemire’s trial in 2010 when one of the leads from Longtail New York testified he was tipped off to the union attempt by an employee.

Lemire and Perron’s involvement would only be further confirmed to Longtail management when, in late 2008, they appeared on a public television program in Quebec discussing unionization in the games industry (above). Lemire recalls that those in charge of the program listed on their website that he worked for Ubisoft, despite him asking them not to include that information, but the damage was done. Someone at either Ubisoft or Longtail noticed, and Lemire recalls being called into the director’s office and being scolded severely – initially for inaccurately claiming he worked at Ubisoft, and then as the conversation went on, for discussing industry working conditions without their consent.

Perron was a bit luckier, as roughly around the time the segment aired, he found a job elsewhere and left Longtail, leaving Lemire to spearhead the movement alone. But not long after, the worst happened: Lemire was fired.

Longtail, Folded

Officially, Lemire was fired for poor work performance, but its occurrence so soon after the television appearance and Longtail catching wind of his efforts was regarded as suspicious by everyone I spoke to. Initially, Lemire accepted his defeat quietly, but what happened the following month spurred him into further action.

All throughout 2008, Longtail Studios had been restless – new projects had dried up, and employees were worried about the studio potentially closing. One lead I spoke to recalls being told after Lemire was fired that his dismissal was an isolated event and all other jobs were safe. But in December of 2008, roughly a month after Lemire was fired, Longtail underwent layoffs. From its peak of roughly 80-100 employees, Longtail eliminated 38 positions, approximately half of its then-current staff, including a large number of those who had been involved in the union efforts, and almost its entire art team.

At the time, Longtail claimed it was due to the economic crisis and a lack of game sales. Employees who were there recall the announcement being short, with no chance to ask questions, and a list of names hung up on the wall to indicate to employees who had lost their jobs. One lead told me they were given no input on who was let go, and were only told five minutes beforehand that the layoffs were happening. Those who were being laid off were given eight weeks, per Quebec laws on collective dismissals, and stayed with the studio wrapping up one last project through the start of February. Then they were gone.

“The Christmas party that year was…something,” recalls one employee who survived the layoffs. “The layoffs were announced in December and the people that were losing their jobs were still invited. It wasn’t an open bar, but there were plenty of booze tickets and they had rented those carnival games where you punch a target and it measures your strength. People got extremely drunk and at least one guy broke his hand.”

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