Ubisoft's Game Developer 'Limbo'
One morning late last year, not long after Guillaume, a developer at Ubisoft Montreal, had finished working on his newest game, he was told he'd be moving offices. This was not particularly unusual for Ubisoft Montreal, a company that employs close to 3,000 people and works on upwards of ten new video games at a time, moving developers around constantly. What
was unusual was where he was going.
Guillaume—who asked that I not use his real name for this story—soon found himself on the third floor of one of Ubisoft's buildings in downtown Montreal. Today he describes athe building—called "160," after its address—as a dark, grey office, with dim lighting and a low ceiling. As Guillaume started settling in, he found other Ubisoft employees playing Facebook games and watching movies, essentially doing nothing as they waited for the company to give them new assignments. For the days, weeks, or maybe even months to come, they were in "limbo," as Guillaume put it.
This is "interproject," a little-known department at Ubisoft Montreal that houses developers who are between games. When a Ubisoft game is shipped, or cancelled, the company will sometimes send employees to interproject, where they wind up applying for new positions within the company, occasionally helping out other teams, and watching movies all day until they're reassigned… or laid off. Anywhere from 50 to 100 employees might work in interproject at a time, according to people who have worked there, and though they'll sometimes be dragooned for game teams that need extra help, they spend most of their days doing whatever they want.
Sound strange? Call it Video Game Developer Purgatory. Ubisoft described it to us as a place that allows them to retain employees between projects. Although perspectives on the role and function of interproject are varied, people I've talked to who have worked there don't have a ton of great things to say about the experience.
"It's the most depressing building I have ever been in in my life," Guillaume said. "The lighting is so old and rundown… It looks like something you'd find yourself in while running from hordes of zombies."