Nintendo, One Piece, and Naruto games cancelled as Bandai Namco cuts staff-GameCentral-Entertainment – Metro

Bandai Namco has cut games and staff (Bandai Namco)

Bandai Namco has become the first Japanese publisher to lay off developers this year, although their approach is very different to Western companies.

We’re still not at the end of the year and already over 13,000 people have lost their jobs in the video games industry in 2024. The reasons for this are many and complicated but the simplest explanation is that companies hired too many people during the pandemic and recklessly convinced investors that the increased sales during lockdown would continue.

The problem is not that publishers are suddenly losing money but merely that their business is not showing enough growth, and the simplest short term solution for that is to lay off staff and see an increase in profits as a result.

That’s exactly as short-sighted as it seems but, because Japanese companies don’t put the same emphasis on infinite growth, they’ve been immune from the same problems… until now.

Bandai Namco has become the first Japanese publisher to cut staff, although they’ve done so in a typically Japanese fashion – not by instituting layoffs but by putting a reported 200 staff in ‘expulsion rooms’ and giving them no work to do.

As strange as the practice seems, it’s relatively normal in Japan, as leaving of your own accord looks better to a future employee. It may sound like paradise to some, but it apparently gets old very quickly, with a Bloomberg report suggesting 100 staff have quit so far. However, Bandai denies using the rooms.

Bloomberg suggests execs are trying to cut the staff at Bandai Namco Studios from 1,300 to 1,100 and while that’s not confirmed the publisher has admitted that some recent projects have been ‘discontinued’ based on ‘comprehensive assessments of the situation.’

The news comes despite the recent unexpected success of Elden Ring and this month’s Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero selling 3 million copies in just 24 hours. That’s perfectly in keeping with the actions of Western publishers, such as GTA publisher Take-Two, who laid off more than 500 staff despite making over $2.2 billion in profit.

Interestingly, it is mobile and online titles which are described as being the biggest problems, with Bandai Namco closing titles such as Blue Protocol and Tales Of The Ray, resulting in a ¥21 billion (£108 million) write-down.

Square Enix, which, despite no mass layoffs, has previously been the only Japanese publisher suffering in a similar manner to Western companies has also closed down a number of mobile titles recently.

Even more so than in the West, smartphones are the predominate format in Japan but recently there’s been signs that the mobile market has peaked worldwide, coinciding with a string of failures with live service games – most obviously Sony’s Concord.

This is believed to be a result of oversaturation and the fact that people simply don’t have time to play dozens of live service style games, that constantly demand your attention.

Nevertheless, it seems as if the cancelled projects at Namco Bandai are primarily for console video games, although the report is vague in its description of games that would’ve featured characters from Naruto and One Piece.

However, another reportedly cancelled project is one that was commissioned by Nintendo, which will certainly have been a console title. It’s unclear what the game was but Bandai Namco has collaborated with Nintendo many times over the years, on projects ranging from Star Fox Assault to Super Smash Bros.

Whether these de facto layoffs are the start of a new trend in Japan, or just a one-off, is unknown but it seems clear that this year’s tally of industry job losses is still not complete.

Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero – 3 million sales and 200 layoffs (Bandai Namco)

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