Ishtar Games told to pay damages for illegally terminating staff

French indie studio Ishtar Games has been forced to compensate three workers who were illegally dismissed. 

As noted by French union Le Syndicat des Travailleureuses du Jeu Vidéo (STJV), the studio has been told to pay €7,000 in damages to each employee and refund a month of unemployment benefits to the state. 

STJV explained it helped all three impacted employees fight the dismissal in a French labor court. It said the trio were initially offered redundancy—alongside other colleagues—but ultimately refused due to being offered sub-standard severance packages.

A few weeks later, all three were fired by Ishtar for “professional incompetence”—but chose to successfully fight back with assistance from STJV. 

“With the STJV’s help, they took their case to the labor court, which gave its verdict last January. The court found that the three dismissals were without real cause, and therefore illegal,” said STJV in a statement. 

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“Seeing this result, the STJV considers that the workers were right to stand up to the pressure of voluntary termination, as they now benefit from three months of advance notice pay (instead of five weeks), dismissal compensation, unemployment benefits due from the employer being paid back and damages for the harm they suffered.”

Ishtar Games did not appeal the labor court’s verdict, meaning the decision is final. STJV, whose union members recently participated in a strike against Ubisoft, said the victory is evidence that “company authoritarianism is over.” 

“A union and union dues allow us to defend ourselves, to defend others, and to win,” added the union. 

The anonymized verdicts are available (in French) on the STJV website.