2024 will likely go down as the absolute worst year with regard to layoffs at major game studios. In a new report from Bloomberg this morning, it was revealed that Bandai Namco has begun cutting its workforce after the cancelation of “several titles due to lackluster demand.” Anonymous sources told the outlet that due to Japanese labor laws, Bandai Namco cannot outright lay off employees, but is reportedly using the Japanese approach of oidashibeya to indirectly force people out.
According to the report, this practice has been happening since April and Bandai Namco Studios Inc. has moved around 200 of its nearly 1,300 employees. Reportedly, 100 people have left the company, but the anonymous sources expect that more will leave in the coming months. For its part, Bandai Namco has issued a statement saying that it is not engaging in oidashibeya and that any downtime between projects is simply a result of employees not having work at the moment.
“Our decisions to discontinue games are based on comprehensive assessments of the situation,” a Bandai Namco representative 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 ‘oidashibeya’ at Bandai Namco Studios designed to pressure people to leave voluntarily.”
This news comes after a rough summer for Bandai Namco, which closed down the mobile title Tales of the Rays and is looking to shutter its free-to-play RPG Blue Protocol in January of 2025. As Bloomberg notes, this downsizing has also resulted in the cancellation of games featuring characters from Naruto and One Piece as well as an unannounced project commissioned by Nintendo (which could be literally anything).
For those unaware, oidashibeya translates to “expulsion rooms” and is a method used by many Japanese companies to reduce staff count while getting around labor laws. It preys on Japanese cultural standards by forcing employees into rooms with nothing to do, thus forcing the employees to eventually resign in shame. As Bloomberg puts it, “Employees are typically given no work-related tasks, but are left with the knowledge that their performance will give managers ammunition to cut severance when they do leave.”
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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.
