[Update] Igor Manceau is Ubisoft's new creative director (and not everyone likes it)

Vacant since the ousting of Serge Hascoët last summer, the seat of Ubisoft's creative director has had time to cool down. At least until now, since the company announces that Igor Manceau will be set up there, currently chief creative officer on the game Riders republic.

The "structural change" promised by Ubisoft in response to accusations of harassment and sexual discrimination dated last summer seems to be a long-term project, to put it mildly. And not sure that the profile of the new “CCO” will delight the employees who are demanding a more diverse management team.

Update 09/09/2021 at 12:06: Contacted by Ubisoft, the group confirmed to us that Tommy François was no longer in charge of recruitment and had not worked for the publisher for almost a year. The sentence concerning him has therefore been removed from our article.

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A veteran “with an exemplary leadership style”

Igor Manceau has been evolving in the circles of the Guillemot family for 22 years. First busy with marketing, before working for a few years in the Montreal studios, this EDHEC graduate has worked since January 2014 at Ubisoft Annecy, where he notably provided creative direction on Steep and, we wrote above, the future Riders Republic (to be released on October 28).

In the press release published by the company, Igor Manceau says his “great honor to be able to guide and support all the committed and incredibly talented teams at Ubisoft, who embody the creative soul of our games”.

“We have some of the most brilliant creatives in the industry at Ubisoft and I look forward to partnering with them to work on even more innovative, qualitative and differentiating games, in order to offer memorable and enriching experiences to all. our players. » 

For his part, Yves Guillemot, CEO of Ubisoft, praises the experience and sense of innovation of its new creative director. "Igor has a deep understanding of players' motivations, a strong intuition for creating new markets and an exemplary leadership style," added the business leader.

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A monolithic post

Very responsive to the slightest evolution of the gigantic Ubisoft chessboard, the collective of employees A Better Ubisoft published a press release taking note of the appointment of Igor Manceau to the post of creative director, while recalling that the initial will of Yves Guillemot was to no longer entrust this position of major importance to a single person.

“We look forward to collaborating with the new CCO, Igor Manceau, to create A Better Ubisoft and hope that he is willing to work closely with employees, write the members of the collective. We also hope to finally receive a concrete response to the requests made by more than 1 of his colleagues. We refer him to La Lettre – signed by more than 000 current and former colleagues – as well as to our response to Yves' reaction [Guillemot, ndlr], which explicitly mentions our desire to talk to him. »

A rather cold reception therefore, especially since the collective claiming "A Better Ubisoft" is sorry for the "serious lack of diversity within the management team", still essentially composed "of white people who are of uniform cultural origin". .

Sources : Ubisoft (PDF), A Better Ubisoft