TGO Daily | October 6, 2020 | Ubisoft Share Misconduct Stats
In The News
Ubisoft Misconduct Survey
This story is a few days old now, but it’s an important one if you haven’t seen it yet.
In a letter from Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot acquired by GameSpot, it was revealed that “roughly 25% of employees experienced or witnessed some form of workplace misconduct over the last two years.” They collected the data through an anonymous survey which had close to 14,000 staff submissions.
“Minority groups were disproportionately affected; women experience harassment 30% more than men, and non-binary employees experienced it 43% more than men. Finally, only 66% of respondents who reported an incident felt they received support from management.”
Of course, Ubisoft has been going through the ringer on this for a while now. They’ve fired a number of employees who were accused during the most recent #MeToo movement, including CCO Serge Hascoët, who was thought to be untouchable.
Guillemot has outlined four key areas of improvement that the company will be working on:
1. Guarantee a working environment where everyone feels respected and safe.
2. Putting diversity and inclusion at the heart of everything we do.
3. Refocus and strengthen our HR function.
4. Make the managers of the group accountable and empower them.
The letter contains much more detail about how they will make that happen. For what it’s worth, its appears to be much more substantial than what we’ve seen from companies before (like Riot Games). Time will tell if they follow through, and if it succeeds.
PlayStation Buttons in Japan
If you’ve ever played games on multiple different consoles, you’ve inevitably run into the issue of remembering which buttons to press. Is it “A” to confirm or “B”? Is “X” on the left or bottom?
Not only that, but the configuration can change depending on where in the world you live. PlayStation users who live in the West use “X” (bottom) to confirm, and “O” (right) to cancel. In Japan, it’s the opposite, with “O” meaning “Good, OK, Correct.” It’s been this way for decades.
Well, turns out Sony is about to switch things up for Japanese users, and will be making the UI align with the rest of the world.
To make it even more confusing, it’s only going to apply to the PlayStation menus/hardware. Video games themselves will still conform to the muscle memory that they’re used to.
While button configuration isn’t particularly important all things considered, I thought this was a funny story. Let’s send some love to our Japanese friends.
Ghost of Tsushima Update
Next Friday, October 16th, a major update is heading to Ghost of Tsushima. They’re calling it Version 1.1, and it will be free to all players.
The biggest thing is the addition of an online co-op mode called “Legends.” There are story missions designed for two players, and a four-player horde mode. Apparently they also have some kind of “Raid” mode on the way, some time after the update is out. In all situations, players can choose from 1 of 4 new character classes being brought to the game.
It’s also getting a New Game+, for people who want to play the game again. According to Eurogamer:
“It'll bump up the difficulty while providing complete access to all Techniques, Gear, and Vanity items obtained the first time around. Additionally, it introduces new charms, new sword, bow, and armour unlocks, new Trophies, and even a fancy new horse for Jin to gallop about on.”
If you want the full details of everything that’s coming, they’ve got a great breakdown on the PlayStation blog.
Also In The News
Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit is getting a remaster, and it arrives everywhere on November 13th
A review of Super Mario Bros. 35, the free battle royale on the Switch
More From TGO
Today I put out a 5-page PDF brain-dump about my thoughts on The Gaming Observer. With the craziness of school going on, I wanted an opportunity to get my thoughts on the page. And in case anyone else was interested in reading it, I released it!
If you want a peek behind the curtain, feel free to give it a read :) You can view it here on Google Drive. Here’s what the first page looks like:
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