Bandai Namco is reportedly reducing its workforce and has cancelled several titles, including games featuring the One Piece and Naruto licenses, as well as a contract project with Nintendo.
According to Bloomberg, citing sources familiar with the matter, the company is “taking a traditionally Japanese approach to reducing staff and sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily.”
Bandai Namco Studios has reportedly moved 200 workers to such rooms, leading to almost 100 resignations.
A representative of Bandai Namco told Bloomberg: “Our decisions to discontinue games are based on comprehensive assessments of the situation.
“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.”
Oidashi Beya is a practice used by Japanese corporations to isolate employees by giving them no tasks, in an effort to get them to leave of their own volition, rather than be let go and receive severance.
Bandai Namcon’s latest release, Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero has seen strong initial sales. The game, developed by Spike Chunsoft surpassed a total of 3 million units sold worldwide in 24 hours after its launch, according to the publisher.
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