Sq. Enix is about to change into the most recent recreation firm to place staff out of labor, as the corporate has confirmed it’ll quickly be imposing layoffs at its US and EU places of work.
Hints of bother first got here to mild in Sq. Enix’s new “medium time period marketing strategy” revealed earlier at present, by which it laid out a method to “aggressively pursue” multiplatform recreation improvement, in addition to “initiative designed to win over PC customers, which characterize a development market.”
That each one sounds nicely and good, however the dangerous information was buried deeper within the doc, below the header “rebuild abroad enterprise divisions from the bottom up,” which says Sq. Enix has begun “optimizing prices at its European and American places of work by way of structural reforms.”
If there’s one factor we have discovered over the previous year-and-a-half of video games business carnage, it is that “optimization” and “restructuring” are code phrases for eliminating jobs, and that’s certainly the case right here as nicely. Whereas the brand new technique doc makes no express reference to layoffs, a VGC report stated attendees of an inner assembly held earlier at present had been instructed that cuts at Sq. Enix’s US and EU areas will likely be made inside the subsequent month. The variety of staff being terminated was not specified however the report says layoffs are anticipated to land in June and can primarily impression Sq. Enix’s publishing, IT, and the indie-styled Sq. Enix Collective divisions.
Sq. Enix later confirmed the approaching cuts in a press release despatched to PC Gamer, saying that “after a number of months of research and dialogue amongst our management staff, we have now made the troublesome determination to restructure our Western group.”
“This restructuring will sadly embrace a discount within the general quantity [of] roles throughout America and Europe,” an organization consultant stated. “We’re grateful to the gifted Sq. Enix staff members who will likely be leaving us and can help them throughout this transition.”
2023-24 has been completely brutal for the vidoegame business, which has seen deep layoffs and outright closures at studios of all sizes—greater than 16,000 layoffs over the course of a single yr, with no signal of a slowdown as 2024 progresses. Simply final week, only some months after shedding greater than 1,900 staff throughout its gaming division—which itself occurred only a few months after it spend $68.7 billion to accumulate Activision-Blizzard—Microsoft shuttered 4 studios together with Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, and hinted that additional cuts are coming.
