LogInThe company is said to take a "traditional Japanese approach" to pressure employees to quit voluntarily.
Japanese entertainment company Bandai Namco is reportedly reducing its workforce and canceling titles amid gaming industry downtime.
As reported by Bloomberg, instead of letting go of employees directly, the publisher of Elden Ring, several Tekken games, and the recent hit DRAGON BALL: Sparking! ZERO is said to have adopted a "traditional Japanese approach" to send employees to oidashi beya, translated as “expulsion rooms,” and give them no tasks — a method that's used by some companies under strict labor-protection laws — pressuring staff to quit voluntarily. The sources said that around 200 out of the 1,300 employees sent there since April, and 100 of them have already quit, with more of the rest expected to follow in the near future.
Bandai Namco Entertainment
A representative of Bandai Namco has denied the existence of "oidashi beya" at Bandai Namco Studios, saying that there is no such organization while admitting that "some employees may need to wait a certain amount of time before they are assigned their next project."
Other than job cuts, several games were either canceled or suspended development, including "ones that feature characters from animes Naruto and One Piece, as well as a project commissioned by Nintendo Co." Earlier this year, Bandai Namco decided to shut down MMORPG Blue Protocol in January 2025, probably due to disappointing performance.
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