Bandai Namco has laid off over 100 employees!
Even with a new year at hand, the crisis in the gaming industry continues, and Japanese companies do not seem to be immune to it, which brought some complicated news for those who expected to see fewer layoffs happen.
The Bandai Namco Entertainment, quietly, laid off over 100 employees from their company. Although the company has not officially announced anything, some investigations revealed that the number of employees has been greatly reduced.
According to the online database of the Japan Pension Service (via Automaton), which contains information on the number of people enrolled in each company in the social security of their employees, the number of people working at Bandai Namco Entertainment decreased by 117 between April 2024 and February 2025.
The company overview of Bandai Namco Entertainment states that, on April 1, 2024, the publisher had a headcount of 1,294 employees. In comparison, the Japan Pension Service database, last updated on February 4, 2025, mentioned that the number of Bandai Namco Entertainment employees has now dropped to 1,177.
In a report published last October, the company was accused of a tactic called "Oidashi Beya" or "expulsion rooms". This was allegedly the company's way of getting employees to resign without directly firing them.
If Bandai Namco Entertainment really did lay off a significant number of people, this happened at a strange time, as the company announced this week that Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero sold five million copies (not shipped).
This comes after several reports of studio closures and layoffs that have affected the industry since last year up to 2025. Just in the first month of the year, one of Ubisoft's major studios in the UK closed. Microsoft was also affected, although it is unknown how many people were cut from the company.
Recently, BioWare was also hit by layoffs due to the poor sales performance of Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Yesterday, we reported how the developer of Killer Instinct and Rumbleverse, Iron Galaxy, laid off 66 employees in an attempt to save the company from bankruptcy.
The sad part is that we will probably hear more news about studio closures in the coming weeks and months.
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