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Ubisoft's Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoët Resigns Following Sexual Misconduct Allegations - HYPEBEAST

Posted: 11 Jul 2020 09:32 PM PDT

Earlier this month, amid various sexual abuse and misconduct allegations, Ubisoft's CEO Yves Guillemot issued a written statement announcing that change will be coming to the video game developer and publisher regarding its work culture and environment. Just a few days later, a number of executives departed from the company, either through resignations or being terminated, but now it seems that wasn't the end of it.

According to new reports from video game journalist Jason Schrier, another handful of executives have now left Ubisoft as well, including the company's Chief Creative Officer Serge Hascoët, who was a massive force behind all of the company's games. Ubisoft has since issued a statement explaining the situation:

"Serge Hascoët has chosen to resign from his position as Chief Creative Officer, effective immediately. This role will be taken by Yves Guillemot, CEO and Co-Founder of Ubisoft, in the interim. During this time, Mr. Guillemot will personally oversee a complete overhaul of the way in which the creative teams collaborate.
Yannis Mallat, Managing Director of Ubisoft's Canadian studios, will be stepping down from his role and will leave the Company, effective immediately. The recent allegations that have come to light in Canada against multiple employees make it impossible for him to continue in this position.
Additionally, Ubisoft will be appointing a new Global Head of HR to replace Cécile Cornet, who has decided to step down from this role, as she believes it is in the best interest of the Company's unity. A search for her replacement will begin immediately, led by an industry-leading recruiting firm. In parallel, the Company is restructuring and strengthening its HR function in order to adapt it to the new challenges of the video game industry."

Stay tuned as the story develops.

In other gaming-related news, a rare Super Mario Bros. game sold for $114,000 USD.

Whoaaaa Ubisoft just announced that Serge Hascoet, the most powerful creative force at their company and the man at the center of multiple recent allegations involving abuse and abating abusers, is resigning.
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) July 11, 2020

This is a *huge* deal for Ubisoft. Serge Hascoet was the man in charge of ALL of their games. With one word he could greenlight or cancel a project. Many Ubisoft employees believed he was too powerful and close to the CEO to ever be ousted, no matter how many allegations emerged
— Jason Schreier (@jasonschreier) July 11, 2020

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How To Get Your Free Copy Of ‘Watch Dogs 2’ By Watching Ubisoft Forward: Where To Watch And What Time - Forbes

Posted: 12 Jul 2020 05:37 AM PDT

Today is Ubisoft's big "Ubisoft Forward" event, replacing the standard E3 with previews of all of its upcoming big games: Assassin's Creed Valhalla, Far Cry 6, Watch Dogs Legion and, likely, some surprises in the mix. The company has decided to throw something in the mix to sweeten the pot, too: if you watch, or at least if you watch in the correct way, you can snag a free copy of Watch Dogs 2 on PC.

There are two different ways to get your copy of Watch Dogs 2:

1) Sign into Uplay and watch the stream on the official Ubisoft website.

2) Link your Uplay and Twitch accounts so that you can receive drops. Then, watch the event on one of the channels listed here.

The event officially starts at 3:00 PM eastern on July 12, but according to the support page you can get the game between 2:30 and 4:30 PM Eastern.

I suppose, on a technical level, you don't even need to watch the event, just to do one of these two things. In both instances, you won't get the free game until July 13, the day after the event. The support page doesn't specify, but I assume you will also need the Uplay launcher to play it, because it will presumably be delivered there.

Watch Dogs might have been a strange, confused game that didn't wind up delivering much more than a Ubisoft version of GTA with some magic thrown in (or hacking, whatever), but Watch Dogs 2 was a much more interesting take on the hacking-based open world game, with a broad, effective look at power, race and technology in the bay area. I do still wish that the game had been able to fully commit to this open world hacking game and remove guns entirely, but I suppose, at the end of the day, you've still got to have some guns in there.

Ubisoft is clearly giving away Watch Dogs 2 to build hype for Watch Dogs: Legion, which we're bound to see more of today. It takes place in a near-future fascistic London, and it doesn't have a primary protagonist: instead, you assemble your band of revolutionaries from skilled members of the general populace. Both the setting and the multiple character idea make it easier to reconcile the whole guns thing, but the developer has also said that it's trying to build out significant nonlethal options as well.

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