Report: Bandai Namco Cancels Several Games and Cutting Workforce - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 03 November 2024 / 2,124 Views
Publisher Bandai Namco is laying off employees following the cancellation of several games, according to Bloomberg who spoke with people familiar with the matter.
The sources claim Bandai Namco is taking a traditionally Japanese approach to reduce its numbers of employees by sending them to empty rooms with nothing to do, which puts pressure on them to leave voluntarily. This this known as oidashi beya, or "expulsion rooms," in Japan.
Bandai Namco Studios has reportedly moved 200 of about 1,300 staff to such empty rooms and nearly 100 have resigned with more expected to leave in the coming months.
Bloomberg states "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. Many employees use their time in such rooms to look for other jobs."
A Bandai Namco representative 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."
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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"The sources claim Bandai Namco is taking a traditionally Japanese approach to reduce its numbers of employees by sending them to empty rooms with nothing to do, which puts pressure on them to leave voluntarily. This is known as oidashi beya, or "expulsion rooms," in Japan."
WTF!?!? I'd rather just get laid off! I've always heard how hard it is to get laid off in Japan, which you figure would be a good thing compared to the US, but this just seems worse!
idk if you'd be allowed to bring anything in the room though? In any case, if I'm getting paid to do nothing, I see no reason to leave lol.
Trust me, working with nothing to do only last for so long. Days will last twice as long and the years you waste not gaining experience or being part of anything special can mentality drain you. It's not healthy, it's a form of torture on the mind.
I use to convince staff to take leave when the days were quiet and trust me, many took the leave.
i believe this is the first post of yours I agree 100%. You can take 2 or 3 days doing nothing. Then it becomes Hell. I work on a cruiseship, so basically i live in the job for as long as my contract lasts. I got covid 2 times on board, and I had to be isolated in my cabin for 7 days those 2 times. I had a ps4 and a switch at the time with more than 200 games combined... after the 3rd day, I was going crazy.
if I could bring my iPad and just work away on my math readings, then...that's literally just me living my normal life but w/ less distractions. Spent my whole summer reading Dummit and Foote's Algebra, Hatcher's Algebraic Topology, some fundamental reading over Munkrie's Introductory Topology textbook. Used my final four weeks of summer living in complete isolation b/c I didn't want to be distracted from my studies. (i do not have much of a life lol.)
I would much rather continue to get paid while I look for another job...
Most companies aren't generous with severance packs... if you get one at all
If they don't provide severance, you can sue them for them that. This would just be humiliating as human being because you're basically in a sort of mini prison until you finally break and just quit. I can't imagine being asked to go with some HR representative or whoever it is and be escorted to an empty room and you're just in there the entire day. While other colleagues see you just in there. That's just humiliating and shouldn't be how human beings are treated. Because there's only one way out of that room.
I mean, hats off to whoever is willing to take that kind of embarrassment. Looks like a lot of them aren't willing to put up with it though if that 100+ figure is accurate.
Severance is country and company dependent. I don't know anything about Japanese law so I can't say for sure but much of the west doesn't require severance nor would they respect a lawsuit. Even when they do... its usually a pathetic amount.
"Not willing to put up with it" meaning they are doing exactly what I said... continuing to get paid while they look for a job. When they get said job, they leave.
I wouldn't assume what these people would be doing during that time as some may be worrying how they're going to support their family, or worried if they'll even be able to find another job quickly, or just suffering embarrassment from having their colleagues look at them, etc. Either way, it's psychological embarrassment, and you'll either give in and quit (hopefully found another job by then) or you'll eventually be fired. Pretty terrible way to be treated. It's one thing to be viewed as simply a number to a company, but it's another thing for the company to go out of its way to humiliate you into quitting.
So what exactly are they doing there? How does the company justify leaving employees on an empty room doing nothin? I mean, I imagine they must justify that somehow, otherwise they are just paying people to stand around. What exactly do the employees do there? Are they just passing time, or are they literally on an empty room not allowed to do anything but see time pass? Why not allow them to just start searching for other jobs during work hours? That would alleviate the pressure instead of whatever this is.
I mean, it depends of what you are allowed to do. If you are ordered to watch wall paint dry non stop for 8 hours every day, you are going to crack, no matter how comfortable it is.
I’d just bring my Switch in and play games, and dare them to fire me.
Same here, but its only bad when America does it.
So getting paid to do absolutely nothing? Why would anyone quit, just bring a book or a handheld gaming system and enjoy the free money! They can't make you do nothing in there, just chill and enjoy still getting paid.
It's largely a psychological thing. You're being shamed in front of all of your coworkers, you know that they want to get rid of you, and that they will fire you as soon as you become slightly inconvenient anyways. You also have to consider the benefits of being fired versus quitting, since each have their advantages.
I would think it would embarrass the company more than the people. Everyone sees what the company is doing to you and how they treat you, which is extremely poor, so it should make the rest of the employees look elsewhere as well and think, this company obviously has no respect for its workers, so a very large portion of workers would quit after finding something better.
I guess that gets you through a month or so. But could become very boring and unfulfilling if going on for a year. You can't 'work' from home remember.
The microtransactions in Tekken 8 isn't paying it's way? Like 3 mil in sales of the main game and probably about 30% of players still playing have Heihachi.
Honestly they do have a lot of filler projects, but I would much prefer them putting more people on a few key projects than cutting down their size. Also needless to say a pretty messed up firing process.
I thought Bandai published games have been doing very well though?
One of the axed titles is a colab Nintendo title which seems....odd seeing as Nintendo titles aren't exactly risks in Japan these days, let alone the world. We do live in an age of a near 5 million Pikmin title after all.
...Perhaps it was early in development.
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