(Updated 2026/01/26 at 18:27 JST: Corrections made to translations, further context added)
Former Ubisoft Osaka employee Kensuke Shimoda, who was a game designer at the company between April 2021 and November 2024, has dismissed claims that Ubisoft’s declining stock prices are the result of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives within the company’s organization and its games. Instead, Shimoda considers the company to be a victim of so-called “Big Business Syndrome.”
In a post from January 25, he wrote:
I won’t bother quoting it, but I’m appalled that people are still spreading false rumors about how “Ubisoft’s share price is falling because they were too focused on DEI.” As a former employee, I can unequivocally state that:
・DEI advocates didn’t wield that much influence
・In fact, DEI initiatives were actually beneficial (improvements to the workplace environment, market expansion into South America and the Middle East, etc.)
・The decline in marketing/creative departments stemmed from Big Business Syndrome – something that can happen to any large company
・One example of this was the excessively low turnover rate, leading to a clear lack of senior/lead-level staff with experience developing online/mobile/F2P games
・Additionally, as a French-first company establishing branches outside French-speaking regions to build a global development structure, they faced management issues unique to “non-English global corporations”
If Ubisoft were to abandon this analysis, succumb to online conspiracy theories, and scapegoat the DEI advocates, it would surely spell the end for them.
According to Shimoda, DEI advocates within Ubisoft had very little pull on how the company operated during his time there. While DEI-related efforts like worldwide expansion and improvements to the workplace environment were actually going well, management issues resulting from Ubisoft being a France-based multinational enterprise led to issues. More specifically, (as Shimoda has kindly expanded on) psychological distance between French and non-French studios prevented developers from accessing the knowledge of the French/Canadian studios, which has been the core of the creative culture of the corporation for a long time.
As for the games themselves, he attributes the recent lack of hits to a “decline in marketing/creative departments” stemming from the pitfalls of Big Business Syndrome. It seems that several leadership positions within Ubisoft were filled by those who didn’t have enough online/mobile/F2P game development experience. What’s more, these positions had a low turnover rate, making it difficult for more experienced employees to take the reins.
Shimoda’s recent statement echoes one of his older posts, which responds to a KuraTech article linking Ubisoft’s then drop in stock price to Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ inclusion of Yasuke, the black samurai. Posted a few months after Ubisoft Osaka’s closure, Shimoda said that there was no coercive implementation of DEI-specific values within the company.
Related: Bandai Namco Online shares views on DEI and its implementation in Western releases of Japanese games
