Ate kebab for lunch, it was okay, but their fries were super good, a lot better than your usual kebab place

Merci ! Tu peux toujours proposer, on fera le tri après, là je fourre un peu le max que je trouve

Thank you !! Will add later in the evening ❤️

Merci ! 🥰

Notes: This is a work in progress that I just started. Right now, I'm gradually adding visual arts-related communities and will soon move on to music-related ones, expanding into other fields afterward.

Feel free to participate in the comments if the list is missing a community, if a community is no longer active, if a link is broken, if you think a community is miscategorized, etc. I'm especially looking for feedback on how to organize and categorize the megathread.

I've intentionally been flexible in listing the communities, including some that are inactive, in the hopes that you might discover some that you may want to bring back to life. On the other hand, I'm trying to be careful about not including communities that have federated, but whose instances are no longer available.

The debate around AI generated images as an art form is abrasive among artists, and I do not wish to partake in it for this thread, I have still included artificially generated "art" for the sake of information. I feel like informing users about the existence of such communities is better than leaving them out because the current debate around artists careers being threatened by this tech.

Posting it as a separate comment because I feel like the most important info is in there:

Q:

What are the reasons for your call for a strike?

A:

On September 17, management announced that it wanted to impose 3 days of face-to-face work per week. Many of us have organized our lives around work from home, allowing us to reconcile our professional and personal lives, reduce our travel, manage a disability or be a caregiver. This method has also compensated for the overload due to the non-replacement of colleagues.

Despite this, no guarantee has been given regarding future negotiations, especially after the failure on profit-sharing, revealing a purely formal social dialogue and management focused on stock market indicators rather than employee commitment.

We are therefore calling on Ubisoft employees to strike on Tuesday, October 15 in the afternoon to defend the following:

• ⁠Work from home: preserving work-life balance and employment.
• ⁠Salary: catching up with inflation and salary scale.
• ⁠Social dialogue: real negotiations.
• ⁠Profit-sharing: a 13th month as compensation.

Q:

Hello, we often talk about "union in video games" without comparing them to "union in software publishers" for example, is there a reason to separate video games unions from "classic" IT unions? (knowing that there are also very few unions overall in the IT industry)

A:

Indeed, this is one of the particularities of the CGT, we are an interprofessional union, we unionize all employees, whatever their category or job or sector of activity. We work in favor of workers whatever their field.

Q:

Hello CGT. Is there any difficulty in approaching the topic of unionization with executives in your company?

A:

Not so difficult, employees are very open on the issue. Even more so when it comes to defending their rights. Working conditions can sometimes be very difficult for some. We have a large population to represent, the jobs are very diverse at Ubisoft.

But overall we are very well perceived by employees. There are more and more unionized employees.

Q:

If I understand correctly, you are calling for a strike because the company is asking for a return to 3 days of face-to-face work in the offices. Do you see a link between this potential disguised layoff plan and the possible acquisition of Ubisoft by Tencent?

A:

We are calling for a strike because management has unilaterally decided to call into question the conditions of work from home.

Employees have had to adapt to the international organization of the company, they then bowed to the constraints of the COVID period.

A good number of employees have therefore built their lives around this way of working. By calling it into question, management is disrupting their work-life balance.

This could de facto deprive these employees of employment who could not return to the office.

What we fear is that in this context of exacerbated financial pressure, this negotiation is not really about work from home but employment itself.

Q:

But work from home had been contractually agreed? Because well... living your life 200km from the office without TT being in the employment contract is completely stupid, the guys deserve what's coming, sorry...

Incidentally, my thoughts for the locals who can no longer find accommodation because guys with salaries from big cities come to settle in the area.

A:

Yes, it had been contractually agreed in annexes & amendments. There are a lot of employees who have been hired in "full remote".

Strategically, this has allowed Ubisoft to acquire a lot of talent. During job interviews, it was clear that they would not have to come to the office.

They have organized their entire lives around this factor. Many have constraints that prevent them from coming on site.

Q:

Hello!

A somewhat broad question but one that nags at me when I see the current state of the studio: what happened?

I can't understand how a seemingly flourishing company could have fallen so low, how such management problems could have appeared and led to such union actions.

Thank you in advance :)

A:

The stock market pressure, which expects investments to be as profitable as possible without risks, tends to squeeze the same licenses endlessly.

As for the union fact, it must be seen rather positively, because it allows employees to limit subordination to financial interests and strengthens their collective expression.

Q:

Without revealing company secrets, do you see your recommendations being translated into concrete decisions? Or do you feel that you are consulted but rarely or never listened to?

A:

The aim of union action is to reduce the relationship of subordination to which employees are subject. This is done in particular through what are called employee representative institutions (union delegates/CSE).

We want employees to fully embrace the constitutional principle of participation (sixth paragraph of the preamble to the 1946 constitution):

"Every worker participates, through his delegates, in the collective determination of working conditions as well as in the management of companies."

This is what we mean by social dialogue.

Our management is currently very little used to the presence of unions. It is important to remember that we are just celebrating our first anniversary as a union at Ubisoft.

Social dialogue at Ubisoft is very degraded and management is more concerned with stock market indicators than with the commitment and daily efforts of employees.

This is why the strike of October 15 is taking place, and why employees are responding massively to the call for mobilization.

Q:

For the past few years, we've often seen the same criticisms of Ubisoft productions, namely that the games that come out are completely disconnected from what players expect or are in a lamentable state at best (we can think of Sea of ​​Bones or XDefiant).

At the same time, some of the studio's other more niche productions are real critical successes (Anno 1800, the latest Prince of Persia, Unknown Soldiers) and are real gems.

How can we explain this drastic gap in quality between these perhaps less ambitious games and the studio's big productions? Is creative freedom greater when projects require a smaller budget? To what extent is it possible to deal with a management that seems increasingly disconnected from reality on a day-to-day basis?

I feel like it's been 4 years since Ubisoft had any major critical success (since AC Valhalla), is there a start of questioning about the new productions planned for 2027/2028 or are we staying on the same logic?

Oh and last question, when is Rayman 4? (20 years already...)

A:

Indeed, this is a mechanism that is not specific to Ubisoft, the more financial stakes there are, the more pressure there is on the teams, and the more freedom is restricted.

This is particularly why it is essential for us to have representation (particularly union representation) of the staff so that employees can work in the most fulfilling way possible.

As a staff representative, we are for example consulted on the strategic orientations of the company, and have the possibility of formulating alternative proposals.

We have no information to communicate on the upcoming releases of Ubisoft games.