Eugen Systems is a French

video game developer A video game developer is a broad term for a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large ...

based in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It was founded in January 2000 by Alexis Le Dressay, a DPLG architect, and Cedric Le Dressay, a software engineer. The company currently focuses on developing

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a subgenre of strategy video games that do not progress incrementally in turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time". By contrast, in turn-based strategy (TBS) games, players take turns to p ...

games for the PC and

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platforms, but also has developed games for the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

and

Xbox 360 The Xbox 360 is a home video game console developed by Microsoft. As the successor to the original Xbox, it is the second console in the Xbox series. It competed with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generati ...

in the past.

List of video games

2018 Labour Strike

On February 14, 2018, a statement was released through Le Syndicat des Travailleurs et Travailleuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV, Union of Video Game Workers) in which 21 out of 44 workers claimed that Eugen Systems had denied overtime pay, delayed paychecks, reduced gross wages below French minimum wage requirements, and failed to honour contractual and collectively bargained obligations, and that they were going on strike until their demands were met. Eugen Systems released a statement denying the majority of these allegations, but admitting to two instances of delayed payrolls due to technical issues, rather than malicious intent. STJV set up a

crowdfunding Crowdfunding is the practice of funding a project or venture by raising money from a large number of people, typically via the internet. Crowdfunding is a form of crowdsourcing and alternative finance. In 2015, over was raised worldwide by cro ...

campaign to raise money to support the employees on strike. A statement from STJV a week later indicated that the strike was representative of a deeper lack of respect within the video game industry of programmers' experience and other abilities. Employees who were on strike met at each other's homes to support each other and plan meetings with the press, labour advocates, and politicians. Staff representative Félix Habert stated that it took two weeks for Eugen Systems leadership to approached him and others to resolve the issue and the first meeting did not take place until March 5. A statement from STJV about this meeting stated that Eugen Systems denied that the employees' contracts were accurate or enforceable, and that the following day they sent a proposal for ending the strike that was "incomplete" and "not serious." French Deputy Sébastien Leclerc spoke out against the strike in favour of Eugen Systems, saying that the strike was motivated by the "political positioning" of the strikers and calling it a "hostage taking".

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

later revealed that Leclerc and the wife of the CEO of Eugen Systems knew each other very well and that she was one of his supporters during his 2017 election campaign, creating a conflict of interest in dealing with the strike. On April 3, 2018, the strike was ended by employees saying: "We do not think we will gain any additional ground with this strike, despite the fact our grievances are simply about conforming to labour laws and collective labour agreements". Fifteen of the 21 employees sought to take their grievances to the French

Labour Court A labor court (or labour court or industrial tribunal) is a governmental judiciary body which rules on labor or employment-related matters and disputes. In a number of countries, labor cases are often taken to separate national labor high courts. O ...

. The website for collecting donations was shut down a few days after this announcement.

References

External links

Official websiteEugen Systems
profile at

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{{Authority control Companies based in Paris French companies established in 2000 Video game companies established in 2000 Video game companies of France Video game development companies