Bandai Namco has reportedly been working to cut down its staff size after cancelling several game projects.

This is according to a report from Bloomberg (Via VGC), which claims that Bandai Namco cancelled several games they had in development. These games reportedly included adaptations of major franchises such as Naruto and One Piece, as well as an unknown project commissioned by Nintendo.

The report elaborates that Bandai Namco was using “Oidashi Beya” to trim its staff, referring to a common practice by Japanese firms to assign employees to empty rooms with no assigned tasks. The idea is that the isolation and boredom will pressure the targeted employees to resign voluntarily, since firing them will force the company to pay the laid off staff severance packages. The report claims over 200 staff were moved to such rooms, resulting in over a 100 resignations.

Speaking to Bloomberg, a Bandai Namco representative had this to say in response to the allegations:

“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.”

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