Bandai Namco is reportedly laying off staff and canceling multiple projects
According to reports, Bandai Namco is reducing its workforce and canceling several ongoing projects, including games involving Naruto and One Piece, as well as a title commissioned by Nintendo.
The details:
As reported by Bloomberg, sources claim that the developer 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." According to the report, about 200 employees have been relocated to the rooms, resulting in around 100 resignations.
A Bandai Namco spokesperson has responded to the claims, stating that “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,” the representative said. “There is no organization like an ‘oidashi beya’ at Bandai Namco Studios designed to pressure people to leave voluntarily.”
Oidashi baya (expulsion rooms) is a practice used by Japanese companies to circumvent the country's strict labor laws. Employees are given no work and are isolated in rooms with nothing to do in an attempt to pressure them into quitting their jobs. This allows employers to avoid paying severance to staff, as required by law if they were legally laid off.
A Japanese website was discovered last month making similar claims about Bandai's treatment of employees. While the company has acknowledged its existence, it has only stated that the information is incorrect.
The publisher has also decided to cancel or pause several projects, some of which involve One Piece and Naruto characters, as well as one contracted by Nintendo. This comes after Bandai announced that it would shut down its anime MMO Blue Protocol and cancel its Western release.
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