Bandai Namco Holdings is cutting its workforce after canceling several titles, in the latest sign that rising costs and stagnant demand are squeezing the gaming industry’s bottom line.
The Tokyo-based company is taking a traditional Japanese approach to workforce reductions by sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily, people familiar with the matter said. Since April, affiliate Bandai Namco Studios has moved about 200 of its roughly 1,300 employees into such rooms and nearly 100 have resigned, said the people, who asked not to be named discussing private information. More are expected to leave in the coming months, they said.
One like that oidashi beyaor “deportation chambers,” are sometimes used by Japanese companies in a country with some of the strictest labor protection laws in the world. Employees are typically not assigned job-related duties, but are left with the knowledge that their performance will give managers ammunition to reduce severance pay if they leave. Many workers use their time in such rooms to look for other jobs.
