Ubisoft has responded to a video report from YouTube channel People Make Games that claims mental and physical abuse has taken place at an Assassin's Creed Shadows support studio in Indonesia, named Brandoville. In the video, it's reported Brandoville commissioner Kwan Cherry Lai abused employee Christa Sydney through both physical and mental means while she worked at the company.
It's claimed that Cherry Lai initially took Syndey under her wing following a dispute, but this working relationship then led to abuse. The mental abuse reportedly began with daily Christian worship, being forced to write lines, daily check-ins of her outfits, and being humiliated in front of her colleagues. When Sydney attended the External Development Summit (XDS) in 2022, it's claimed Cherry Lai only allowed her to sleep for a handful of minutes across the four days before the event.
People Make Games then claims the abuse became physical, with Sydney forced into filming herself slapping herself across the face 100 times and concussing herself by hitting her head against a door frame.
Reports of abuse from other employees at Brandoville have also come to light, all alleging Cherry Lai as the problem. One worker says they had part of their salary taken away to help with spending habits, and another accused Cherry Lai of forcing her to work through the premature birth of their baby.
In response to the allegations, Ubisoft issued the following statement to Eurogamer: "We are deeply disturbed by the recent reports surrounding Brandoville Studios. We strongly condemn all forms of abuse, and our thoughts are with the affected employees." Brandoville has also worked on other projects such as The Last of Us: Part I for Sony and Age of Empires 4 for Microsoft.
[source youtube.com, via eurogamer.net]
Comments 32
If this is true, then it is absolutely despicable and I hope the commissioner is fired and tried to the fullest extent of the law.
Cherry Lai sounds like the perfect person to use as a motion capturing dummy for trying out stealth executions and hand-to-hand combat styles for all future franchise entries
Removed - unconstructive
Strange that gaming companies push agendas on its audiences to love all people and so many in the past and present do the opposite to their own workers none the less. Maybe this is some of the backlash and lack of sales for movies and games “creative” agendas i mean ideas. Just food for thought, don’t be mad at the ones asking questions others should ask themselves. Really sorry to hear this and i hope it get’s resolved quickly.
This has Blizzard working enviroment vibes.
Another Tuesday at Ubisoft. They make the BBC look good.
If you've ever wondered why so many people are cheering the possibility of them collapsing, here you go.
@HonestHick No corporation is an ally of any social cause. All they care about is cold hard cash. See for example how Disney treats LBGT issues when it releases something in Saudi Arabia.
@LifeGirl
In fairness this doesn't sound like a Ubisoft problem (and I'm not one to jump to that company's defense). It has ties to the studio, but so do Sony, MS and I'm guessing others.
I mean this is the same studio that's covered up for sex pests in the past I have no doubt this is true and this vile studio should be brought to task for it
@LifeGirl you are spot on! I don’t need a corporate business to tell me how to treat others. I was raised by loving parents for that. Disney has hurt their company so much recently and it’s all their fault. Great point LifeGirl 😊
Games industry is a nutcase breeding ground. What happened to geeks?
@LifeGirl yes, because we know that the people cheering the possibility of them collapsing are just wonderful.
Is everyone forgetting the years that Ubisoft spent covering up this type of behavior in their own company and the reason they ever did anything about it was because they got outed by the main stream press? And, by doing something, I mean they fired some low hanging fruit while rhe CEO denied any knowledge.
Ubisoft can't stop taking L's, it seems. Is the latest batch of Ass Creed slop really worth all of this?
I watched the video by People Make Games on it (a channel I clearly need to keep an eye on) and it makes my blood boil. The way people are taken advantage of and their mental health is being destroyed, all against a backdrop of record profits in the largest entertainment industry on the planet, is sickening.
Let's be clear though, Ubisoft have had/still have their own demons to exorcise, but this is not a Ubisoft story. This is about a studio that has done outsourced work for many of the biggest players in the industry, including Sony, Microsoft, EA, Sega and more. And it's probably safe to assume there are plenty of other studios like it.
The last half decade or so, we've seen increased focus on working conditions at high profile developers, which is obviously a good thing, but the issues across the industry clearly go way beyond that. We can only hope we'll start seeing a similar amount of attention for the conditions at outsourcing studios in the future.
This is a bit of old news from last year. So i gave you guys some update:
Anyone interested to read more, i'll give the link
Is anyone excited about Ass Creed Shadows? I've lost interest in the franchise. While I completed Odyssey, I gave up on Valhalla and Mirage. They feel the same game with a different skin and I don't expect that to change.
@R_Ryder No, I have literally zero interest in AC Shadows. I've enjoyed AC games in the past but I won't be buying this game for a number of reasons.
Funny how companies are only disturbed by these things when they become public knowledge, can guarantee that staff would have been complaining about this before but the higher ups just hush hush it.
@PuppetMaster While true, PMG were working on this video since September last year, and also covered the issue of how outsourcing in SE Asia studios (including Brandoville, and another studio called lemonsky) treat their employees back in 2021 (a video called "How Game Publishers Buy Crunch Overseas"). Also, it's old news but as the video states, it's not being reported in the west that studios working with a lot of AAA games (Brandoville worked on The Last of Us remember and others) is treating it's employees like this has gone shamefully under reported by western gaming media such as, you know, this very website (and every other western gaming media type magazine and website).
I thought nobody would be surprised the sites really did their best to act like its something new its Ubisoft their trademark.
@R_Ryder I don't think many are truthfully. I think this game could truly be what causes Ubisoft to go private, as they're sending it out to die in February against games people actually care about.
@Ambassador_Kong It is funny how quickly people forget, isn't it?
Be funny if this game is a sales success, just to see all the angry confused heads explode
Ubisoft stock prices about to somehow go into the negatives in value.
This is absolutely horrible. This company also isn’t owned by Ubisoft and using it to score points against them to suit your own bigoted agenda is stupid. The article literally says they’ve also worked on The Last of Us: Part I and Age of Empires 4. They’re a support studio. This is rife in these sorts of companies because they rely on contract work and the stress and time constraints bring out the worst in people, especially management.
@PorkChopExpress Growing up is realising that geeks are the absolute worst people on the planet and jocks are largely normal. Try going to uni with a bunch of the weirdest incels imaginable, and then realising that’s the next generation of tech workers. It’s not a coincidence that tech gurus are all sociopaths who’ve made the world a worse place.
“We strongly condemn all forms of abuse, we just refuse to do anything about it”
Quite a disturbing read and I'm not easily disturbed. What a truly awful person. I feel sorry for people that suffer this kind of abuse and I wish there was somebody strong enough to take the cretin to one side and have a "word" with her.
@nessisonett I never got the opportunity and left at 16 having to go straight into work to survive. But regardless, point taken.
Seems a bit unfair to put this on Ubisoft when this studio supported many different companies including Sony. More engagement bait.
@Wiceheid Western gaming media always very late when comes to reporting news about gaming from Asia that doesn't have anything to do with Japan.
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