Bandai Namco Silently Laid Off Over 100 Personnel

Summary

• Bandai Namco Entertainment’s employee count decreased by 117 between April 2024 and Feb 2025.
• Reports of layoffs at Bandai Namco come amid the success of Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero.
• The gaming industry sees a trend of layoffs and studio closures continuing into 2025.

It seems even Japanese gaming companies aren’t immune to the wave of layoffs and studio closures plaguing the industry. This time, Bandai Namco Entertainment seems to have reduced its workforce by a sizable number.

While the company has not officially announced anything, some sleuthing has revealed that its employee numbers saw a major reduction.

Japan Pension Service Lists Reduced Number of Employees For Bandai Namco

According to the online database of Japan’s Pension Service (via Automaton), which houses info on the number of people each business has enrolled under their employee social security, the people working at Bandai Namco Entertainment has decreased by 117 people between April 2024 and February 2025.

The company overview of Bandai Namco Entertainment states that as of April 1, 2024, the publishing outfit had an employee count of 1,294. In comparison, the Japan Pension Service database, last updated on February 4, 2025, mentioned that the number of Bandai Namco employees is now down to 1,177.

In a report published in October last year, the company was accused of a tactic called “Oidashi Beya” or “expulsion rooms.” This was the company’s way of purportedly making employees quit without firing them directly.

If Bandai Namco has indeed laid off a significant number of people, it comes at an odd time since the company announced this week that Dragon Ball: Sparking Zero had sold five million copies (not shipped).

This follows the numerous reports of studio closures and layoffs affecting the industry from last year, and continuing into 2025. Just in the first month of the year, one of Ubisoft’s big UK studios have closed down, Microsoft has also been affected, though it’s unknown how many people were trimmed from the company.

Just recently, BioWare has also been said to have been hit with layoffs due to Dragon Age: The Veilguard’s poor sales performance. Yesterday, we reported on how Killer Instinct and Rumbleverse developer Iron Galaxy has laid off 66 employees to try to save the company from going under.

The sad part is that we’ll likely hear more news about studio closures in the coming weeks and months.