Bandai Namco Cuts Jobs, Culls Titles as Game Sector Woes Deepen
- Strict labor laws spur companies to incentivize resignations
- Japanese company is canceling console and smartphone games
Attendees play the Sword Art Online: Fractured Daydream online game on computers in the Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc. booth at the Tokyo Game Show in Chiba, Japan.
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/BloombergBandai Namco Holdings Inc. is cutting its workforce after canceling several titles in the latest sign that rising costs and plateauing demand are depressing the gaming’s industry’s bottom lines.
The Tokyo-based company is taking a traditionally Japanese approach to reducing staff by sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily, according to people familiar with the matter. Since April, affiliate Bandai Namco Studios Inc. has moved about 200 of its roughly 1,300 employees to such rooms and nearly 100 have resigned, said the people, asking not to be named discussing private information. More are expected to leave in coming months, they said.