It looks like Bandai Namco staff could be the latest victims of the games industry job cut apocalypse
The publisher has also reportedly "decided to either cancel or pause" projects involving Naruto and One Piece, as well as one commissioned by Nintendo.
Bandai Namco - publisher of games including Elden Ring, Tekken 8, and the recently released Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO - is repordely seeking to reduce its staff headcount, having decided to "either cancel or pause development" of several titles.
This is according to a report from Bloomberg, which alleges that the company is "sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily."
The report claims that Bandai Namco has moved "about 200" of its around 1,300 employees to such rooms - known in Japan as "oidashi beya, or 'expulsion rooms'" - so far, with "nearly 100" having resigned.
The purpose of such rooms, in a country with strict employment laws that make laying folks off en-masse in the manner we've sadly become accustomed to seeing to the Western games industry difficult for companies to do, is to push staff to leave in a fashion that can reduce the severance they'll be paid.
This reportedly comes as the publisher has "decided to either cancel or pause development of several games, including ones that feature characters from animes Naruto and One Piece, as well as a project commissioned by Nintendo". That looks to be the extent of the details on offer right now, so sorry anime lovers and Ninty stans. Bandai Namco previously opted to shut down MMO Blue Protocol back in January, before a worldwide release developed by Amazon Games could even happen.
"Our decisions to discontinue games are based on comprehensive assessments of the situation," a Bandai Namco spokesperson told Bloomberg, "Some employees may need to wait a certain amount of time before they are assigned their next project, but we do move forward with assignments as new projects emerge. "There is no organization like an ‘oidashi beya’ at Bandai Namco Studios designed to pressure people to leave voluntarily."
Following its release last week, Dragon Ball: Sparking! ZERO - developed by Spike Chunsoft and published by Bandai - earned pretty positive reviews when it came out last week, you can read ours here.