- 0-20%: Unlikely – Lacks credible sources
- 21-40%: Questionable – Some concerns remain
- 41-60%: Plausible – Reasonable evidence
- 61-80%: Probable – Strong evidence
- 81-100%: Highly Likely – Multiple reliable sources
A new report from VGC alleges that Square Enix is laying off staff in “nearly all areas” of its Western offices, with staff in its Europe and US offices hit. There’s currently no word from Square Enix on how many have been impacted by this layoff, but sources told VGC that just from Square’s London office, 140 employees are at risk of redundancy.
The news was delivered to staff through an internal video call as part of a restructuring that Square had mentioned in the progress report it published today, the same report where it boldly claimed that it wanted 70% of its QA work to be done by AI by 2027.
In the progress report, Square writes, “a fundamental restructuring of the overseas publishing organization is being implemented with the aim of further strengthening global publishing capabilities and improving operational efficiency.”
This aligns with VGC’s report, which includes the same wording from Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu, who also added that this layoff is intended to make Square more “lean” and “agile.” The cuts will save Square 3 billion yen annually, according to the company’s projections.
Along with the cost savings, the cuts are meant to bring work that developers are doing at Square Enix closer to home, so to speak. In the progress report, Square says the decision came by intending “To strengthen development capabilities from a Group-wide perspective and to optimize resource allocation for maximizing the value generated by IPs, a further review of the development pipeline was conducted. As a result, a decision was made to close overseas development studios and shift toward consolidating development functions in Japan.“
Square is not the only Asia-based developer moving away from branching studios in other parts of the world. Shortly after a successful launch for Marvel Rivals, NetEase cut its California-based team as part a restructuring to keep work on the game closer to its home studio. NetEase also shut down two of its subsidiaries, one yesterday, and one today, as part of its continuing restructuring to limit the number of branching studios it has in the Western world.
Yesterday, Fantastic Pixel Castle shut down with the loss of NetEase’s support, and today, NetEase closed Toronto-based studio, Bad Brain Game Studios.
Follow Wccftech on Google or add us as a preferred source, to get our news coverage and reviews in your feeds.
