As part of an internal staff meeting today, Square Enix confirmed that its latest company restructuring would include a number of layoffs for staff across the company’s US and EU branches. As reported by VGC, employees in attendance stated that Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu stated layoffs would be hitting both divisions of the company and would be spread out over the next month.
While we don’t have an exact number of employees impacted, Kiryu did confirm that staff working in publishing, IT, and Square Enix’s Collective indie games division would be bearing the brunt of these layoffs. Anyone affected will be informed this week. UK employees will enter a one-month consultancy phase while US staff will have the chance to leave their roles before June. As if that wasn’t enough, staff told VGC that Square Enix’s main Slack channels were locked following the meeting.
Interestingly, these layoffs came right after Square Enix published its quarterly financial results. Business doesn’t seem to be going well for the Japanese publisher as the company recommitted to being a multiplatform publisher following the somewhat tepid commercial success of Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth this year. To the surprise of no one who actually follows video games, making gigantic titles console exclusive does not pay off.
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Written by Peter Glagowski
Peter has been a freelance gaming and film critic for over seven years. His passion for Nintendo is only matched by the size of his collection.
