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response once allegations were made public in
recent weeks. Hascoët was long seen as a perma-
nent fixture, they say, despite allegations that he
demeaned female subordinates and surrounded
himself with men accused of predatory behavior.
Many other employees expressed doubts that a
company run by the same men who presided over
a toxic environment could deliver the type of sys-
temic changes needed to protect the women at
Ubisoft, who are outnumbered about 4 to 1.
“The culture there is really hard as a woman,”
says Ellen Lee, who worked in marketing and pro-
motions at Ubisoft’s San Francisco office for seven
years. “If you weren’t part of the boys’ club, you
were just working hard on the outskirts.”
The Guillemot brothers got their first tutorial on
business from their parents. The elder Guillemots
operated an agriculture business in Carentoir,
France, which sold chemicals, equipment parts,
and, eventually, computers. Amid the economic
recession of the early 1980s, business was on the
decline. So, with their parents’ permission, the chil-
dren began selling computer games at the shop to
farmers looking to put their new machines to use.
In 1988, the year Yves Guillemot was named CEO
of Ubisoft, the company hired Hascoët. He started
as a video game tester, a job he got by applying to
a newspaper ad, according to a 2017 article in the
French publication Le Monde. Hascoët later helped
create Ubisoft’s editorial department, which super-
vises every game. As head of creative, he oversaw
the development of blockbuster franchises including
Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Watch Dogs.
Hascoët was treated almost like a member of the
family. He was given ultimate authority to cancel,
greenlight, or overhaul any game to his specifica-
tions. Project reviews would take place at a type
of meeting known within Ubisoft as “gates,” and
Hascoët was usually the gatekeeper.
Developers routinely swapped stories of inter-
actions with Hascoët, who they often portrayed as
eccentric or worse, according to seven current or
former employees. During presentations he would
bang his head against the table, a sign that he was
bored or unhappy. He was infamous for what col-
leagues described as growling, a sort of guttural
noise he would direct at people in meetings or
while passing in the hallway.
Three women who worked at Ubisoft say they’d
been warned not to go out drinking with Hascoët
and his crew. He sometimes held business meetings
at strip clubs, a habit his deputies mimicked, say the
employees, who asked not to be identified because
they are either still employed by Ubisoft or wor-
ried about retribution. The women elected not toattend thoseoutingsandsaidtheircareerssuffered
as a result. They were frustrated to watch Hascoët
promote many of his strip club buddies to creative
directors, a group composed almost entirely of men.
Allegations that Hascoët behaved inappropri-
ately around women extended to the office. In a
meeting at Ubisoft’s headquarters in Paris, one of
the top creative leads on a big game was present-
ing to Hascoët and other decision-makers. When
the lead, a woman, left the room to use the bath-
room, Hascoët pulled up a YouTube video, accord-
ing to two people present at the meeting. He played
a French song describing sexually explicit acts with
a woman who has the same name as the presenter.
He hit pause when the employee returned, say the
two people, who requested that the woman’s name
not be printed. As was common in high-level meet-
ings at Ubisoft, there were no other women present.
Hascoët’s reputation had been well-known
around the company for years, say 10 people
who worked there over a period spanning more
than a decade. On July 10 the French newspaper
Libération reported that Hascoët had allegedly
made sexually explicit comments to staff, pushed
subordinates to drink excessively, and given col-
leagues cakes containing marijuana without their
knowledge. Because Hascoët appeared to be
immune to HR complaints, employees say they
were forced to either find a way to work with him
or seek employment elsewhere.
Allegations of harassment and sexism extended
far beyond Hascoët and his subordinates. In 2015
a group of staff in Sofia, Bulgaria, were watching a
trailer for Star Wars: The Force Awakens featuring
the actor John Boyega, who’s Black. “People just
collectively went, ‘Hey, look, it’s a monkey,’” says
Fey Vercuiel, a former designer on the team. In San
Francisco, Dawn Le was instructed by her manager
to smile more and was later told she would be fired
from her job as a purchasing specialist if her atti-
tude didn’t improve, she says. Each woman reported
the incidents to HR, and their claims were dismissed
without action. “You complain about something, it
just gets swept under the rug,” Vercuiel says.DATA:UBISOFT,INTERNATIONALGAMEDEVELOPERSASSOCIATION,NEWZOO▼ Ubisoft’s top series
drip testosteroneAssassin’s Creed:
OdysseyFar Cry 5Watch Dogs 2AnIndustryOutofBalance
◼Male ◼Female ◼ Nonbinary or otherUbisoft workforce Games industry Video game players47%22% 24%