"Layoffs” at Bandai Namco. That’s the Result of Deleting Several Games, Including Titles With Characters From Naruto and One Piece
According to Bloomberg agency, nearly 100 employees have „left” Bandai Namco since April, and there will be even more in the near future. The reason is cost-cutting.
It might seem that Bandai Namco is currently doing excellently. The Japanese publisher just released the best-selling Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO, and just a few months ago the company made a huge amount of money thanks to Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. However, it turns out that even this did not protect the company from layoffs.
According to Bloomberg, nearly 100 of the 1,300 employees of the Bandai Namco Studios subsidiary have left since April, with even more expected in the coming months. The key word here is "left", because as we read, the company is supposed to adopt an approach of sending employees to so-called "layoff rooms".
"Layoff rooms" in Bandai Namco
Such places are where people not assigned to any projects end up, in order to put pressure on them to voluntarily resign. Many of them are going to devote this time to looking for a new job. Apparently, 200 people have been placed in such rooms since April, Bloomberg learned from anonymous sources. Significantly, a representative of Bandai Namco commented on the matter.
Our decisions to cease game development are based on a comprehensive assessment of the situation. Some employees may have to wait sometime before they are assigned to the next project, but we carry out tasks as new ones appear. There is no organization such as "oidashi beya" [the Japanese word for the place - ed. note] in Bandai Namco Studios, whose aim would be to put pressure on people to voluntarily leave.
The agency cited the need to cut costs as the reason for the layoffs, which also involved the cancellation of several projects, such as the big-budget Blue Protocol and the mobile Tales of the Rays. Unannounced games based on the anime Naruto and One Piece, as well as a production commissioned by Nintendo, have reportedly also been shelved.
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