Square Enix to begin layoffs as part of ‘structural reforms’ this week

Square Enix, the developer-publisher behind this year’s Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, is set to lay off an unspecified number of employees this week at its US and European offices, headquartered in California and the UK respectively. According to those in attendance, Square Enix President Takashi Kiryu announced the news during a company-wide meeting, as first reported Chronicle of video games.

Such layoffs were suspected following Square Enix’s latest financial results report, which included a three-year plan to reboot the company with an “aggressive” multi-platform release strategy after a slide mentioning “structural reforms “. You can see the slide below:

As you can see above, as part of Square Enix’s plan to completely rebuild its overseas business divisions, the company “began cost optimization in its European and US offices through structural reforms.” After more than 10,000 layoffs at video game studios and publishers this year, it’s easy to read between the lines: structural reforms look a lot like “layoffs,” and now VGC confirmed it.

The publication reports that these layoffs will take place over the next month, and those affected should find out this week. The total number of expected layoffs is not known, but VGCThe sources say staff have been told this will primarily affect those who work in publishing, IT, and Square Enix’s collective indie games division.

Redundant UK employees will enter a “one-month consultation period” in accordance with local UK law, while affected US staff could lose their jobs before the end of the month.

These layoffs add to a series of other disheartening layoffs and closures in 2024, which now total more than 10,000 in the first five months of the year alone.

Earlier this month, Xbox closed four Bethesda studios, including Hi-Fi Rush developer Tango Gameworks and Redfall studio Arkane Austin. Take-Two Interactive has closed Rollerdrome studio Roll7 and Kerbal Space Program 2 studio Intercept Games alongside significant layoffs at its independent publishing label Private Division. The same week, we learned that Deliver Us Mars developer Keoken Interactive had laid off almost its entire staff.

Elsewhere in the year, EA laid off around 670 employees across all departments, leading to the cancellation of Respawn’s Star Wars FPS game. PlayStation has laid off 900 employees at Insomniac, Naughty Dog, Guerrilla and more, also shutting down London Studio in the process. The day before, Until Dawn developer Supermassive Games announced the layoffs of 90 employees.

At the end of January, we learned that Embracer Group had canceled a new Deus Ex game in development at Eidos-Montreal and laid off 97 employees in the process. Also in January, Destroy All Humans remake developer Black Forest Games reportedly laid off 50 employees and Microsoft announced it was also laying off 1,900 employees across its Xbox, Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax teams. Outriders studio People Can Fly laid off more than 30 employees in January and League of Legends company Riot Games laid off 530 employees.

Lords of the Fallen publisher CI Games has laid off 10% of its staff, Unity will lay off 1,800 people by the end of March and Twitch will lay off 500 employees.

We also learned that Discord laid off 170 employees, that layoffs took place at PTW, a support studio that has worked with companies like Blizzard and Capcom, and that SteamWorld Build company Thunderful Group laid off around 100 people. . Dead by Daylight developer Behavior Interactive also reportedly laid off 45 people.

[Source: VideoGamesChronicle]