Get the latest tech news
How Japan has avoided the gaming industry’s persistent layoffs
It comes down to employment law.
Typically, layoff season arrives around Christmas: a flurry of pink slips, empty desks, the anxieties of the newly unemployed, all so companies can cut costs and fatten up bottom lines just before the calendar year ends. Serkan Toto, a veteran analyst of the Japanese games industry based in Tokyo, points to the country’s long-term shrinking population (down in 2024) as an additional factor that could theoretically benefit workers by pushing up demand for their services. The actions of Embracer’s C-suite and those at video game companies couldn’t stand in sharper relief to the famous words of Nintendo’s Iwata who, just over a decade ago, said, “I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.” These are the words Miyazaki was referencing when he spoke about avoiding layoffs at FromSoftware: it is not just the angst, nervousness, and worries of an endemic layoff culture that affects work but also the practicalities of securing alternative employment, drawing focus away from the task at hand.
Or read this on The Verge
