Don’t Nod, best known for the Life is Strange series, is currently struggling internally. Per STJV, many of Don’t Nod’s employees are staging a walkout today (October 28) in protest of a “layoff plan.” According to the outlet, the company’s top management, including CEO Oskar Guilbert and Julie Chalmette, drew up the plan on October 16.
Reportedly, the plan is a necessity meant to “save the company.” As STJV reports, “The aim is in fact to cut 69 jobs in order to make their employees pay for their own crass ineptitude.” Further, the outlet/union encouraged the walkout. “We are calling on Don’t Nod workers to mobilize on Monday October 28 with a walkout from 4 to 6 pm. Which will be an opportunity for Oskar Guilbert and company management to reflect on their personal responsibilities in the present situation, during the general ‘bi-monthly exchange space’ meeting which we will not be attending.”
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One of the strikers spoke to Libération about the tense situation. “Because video games are considered a passion, people have accepted quite a few things. Today, there is a general fed-up feeling. Anger is brewing because we have been letting people walk all over us for too long. Representative unions have only recently been formed, and things are starting to get organized. Video game workers are starting to realize that they can be defended, and no longer accept everything.”
don’t nod is in conflict as its employees prepare to strike
Admittedly, the language in the article via STJV, a French union representing those in the games industry, is amazing. It wholeheartedly deserves to be read without any editorial input as they speak out against the company’s management. I won’t post the entire thing here because it deserves the engagement, but here’s a sample!
“Time limits have been reduced to the bare legal minimum. So as not to allow the STJV, the CSE and the mandated experts to do their work properly. The timetable is so slapdash that the experts are expected to deliver their opinion even before the agreement with the STJV has been concluded. i.e. an opinion that is incomplete and constrained by time. The deadline set by management falling on the day after the Christmas holidays, which is unrealistic and irresponsible.”
