Bandai Namco has canceled and paused development of several games, including those related to the Naruto and One Piece anime franchises, according to a new report from Bloomberg. The company is also reducing its staff.
According to the report, Bandai Namco is taking a “traditionally Japanese approach to reducing staff and sending workers to rooms where they are given nothing to do, putting pressure on them to leave voluntarily.” This practice is known as an “oidashi beya” in Japanese work culture. Thus far, its reported that 200 workers have been moved to such rooms, leading to nearly 100 resignations.
A Bandai Namco representative told Bloomberg the following, “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.”
Alongside the Naruto and One Piece games, a contracted project from Nintendo was also affected by the Bandai Namco’s recent measures. The status of this project remains unclear, however.
The news comes right after Bandai Namco reported its own major success with Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO, which surpassed three million copies sold worldwide. Dragon Ball Sparking! ZERO reached this sales milestone in just 24 hours, so the total number of sales is likely much higher. Lastly, Dragon Ball Sparking ZERO is available now for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam.
