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

ign.com:

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.

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