Ubisoft is continuing to be rocked deeply after allegations of sexual misconduct from the top brass became public just one month ago. Business Insider reports that Tommy Francois, VP of Editorial and Creative Services has left the company on July 31st.
EXCL: Video game giant Ubisoft confirms that exec Tommy Francois has left the company. He had been accused of sexual harassment and was on administrative leaving, pending an investigation. He is the latest in a series of senior employees to step down. https://t.co/ty6lhLOcBj
— Samuel Horti (@SamuelHorti) August 3, 2020
The parting of Tommy Francois is the next step in a line of high-profile employees that left giant French gaming company Ubisoft. And the reasons for those are very hard to stomach. Early last month, news and reports broke about massive sexual allegations that were going on at Ubisoft for a long time. The real kicker, people at the very top of the company were accused of enabling or partaking in these.
Francois was put on administrative leave in late June, pending an investigation. In Guillemot’s July 31 email, the CEO told editorial staff that Francois had left the company with immediate effect, but did not say anything more about the departure. – Business Insider
Very soon after the news broke out, several high-profile people at Ubisoft resigned. Serge Hascoët, long-time Chief Creative Officer, left the company last month and Tommy Francois was his right-hand man. Francois had great influence over many of Ubisoft’s biggest franchises such as The Division, Assassin’s Creed, Watch Dogs, and more. As such, his departure alongside Hascoët possibly means the start of a massive change for Ubisoft’s future games.
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot was very clear that he does not intend to keep things as is in his company and declared large structural shifts are on its way to never allow sexual harassment of any kind to be possible.
