Michel Ancel announced that he was leaving the video game industry to dedicate himself to an animal sanctuary, but is under investigation by Ubisoft.
By surprise. This is how Michel Ancel, creator of Rayman and Beyond Good & Evil, from Ubisoft, was leaving. After 30 years working in the French company, the creative revealed that he was leaving the industry to dedicate himself to an animal sanctuary. However, the newspaper Libération pointed directly to Ancel as one of those responsible for creating, allegedly, a toxic work environment within Ubisoft Montpellier. Through Instagram, the veteran developer has defended himself and said that the content of this information is “fake news.” All this at a delicate time for Ubisoft, a company in which numerous cases of workplace and sexual harassment have been uncovered.
“Take a few people in anger and jealousy and let them speak for hundreds. Post quick information to be combined with sexual harassment news on Ubisoft. Is that serious? Is this what is expected of a national newspaper? ”Asks Ancel. “I will fight for the truth to come out because the accusations are a shame. I have worked hard on all my projects and have always had the respect of my teams. The accusations are false ”. Ancel asserts that he did not manage the studios, since that is a job for producers and managers. “Why don’t journalists talk about them?”
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Fake News Take few people with rage and jealousy and let them speak in the name of hundreds. Publish the news fast so that it combines with sexual harassment from other news at Ubi soft. I this serious? Is this what you expect from a national newspaper. I will fight for the truth because such accusations are a shame. I worked hard on every of my projects and always had respect for the teams. The accusations are wrong. 1- Toxic management: I am not managing the team. I bring a vision and producers and managers decide what to do, when and how. They are powerful people in the making of such a big projects. Why don’t the journalist speaks about them? 2- I always change my mind: false. E.g. I’ve spent years explaining why the city should not be re done from scratch. Hours explaining that characters were good enough and did not need to be redone. Same for planets and all. But sometimes some people in the team changed things despite my advices. Managers are here to solve this. 3- the 2017 demo was fake and was a video: false. The 2017 demo was solid and made possible the 2018 demo. As opposed to what is in the news, the 2018 demo had the right details, was using real streaming, procedural generation and was playable online. This was a masterpiece of technology. The news from liberation contains fake Informations revealed by few people who want to destroy me and the projects. This can’t be done without me fighting every single lines of that news. I’ve offered the journalist the opportunity to take enough time to look at all the mistakes. Let’s see what he will do.
Refuse other accusations
He also rejects the idea that he continually changed his mind. “I have spent years explaining why the city should not be redesigned from scratch. Hours of explaining that the characters were good enough and didn’t need to be remade. Same with planets. But sometimes people on the team change things despite my advice. The managers are there to solve it ”.
Third, he flatly denies that the 2017 demo was a fake. “The 2017 demo was solid and made the 2018 one possible. According to Ancel, it is” a technological masterpiece. ” For the creative, the Libération journalists have included “false information revealed by people” who want to destroy him and his projects.
Ubisoft, meanwhile, has confirmed to Kotaku that there is an ongoing internal investigation. “Yves Guillemot pledged in July to investigate any complaint and no one will be outside the process, which includes Michel Ancel,” they explain in the statement. “As Michel has confirmed to the Liberátion newspaper, he is under investigation. The investigation is still ongoing, so we have nothing to share about it, we respect confidentiality.
