Elden Ring: Shadow Of The Erdtree – no one is being laid off once it’s finished (Bandai Namco)
FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki has quoted former Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata while assuring fans there will be no layoffs at his company.
We’re halfway through the year and the constant stories about publisher layoffs still show no sign of ending. Just this week we’ve seen the closure of Alone In The Dark developer Pieces Interactive and the revelation that EA paid its executives £47.3 million, despite laying off 670 people earlier in the year.
This has all being going on for over a year now and yet no Japanese company has been affected. The only exceptions have been the Microsoft-owned Tango Gameworks and Sony’s Japan Studio, where the PlayStation division is run like an American business and is headquartered in California.
Most Japanese companies have avoided commenting on the issue, since it doesn’t affect them, but Dark Souls and Elden Ring creator Hidetaka Miyazaki, who is also president of FromSoftware, has stated that: ‘This is not something I would wish on the staff at FromSoftware in a million years. I’m pretty sure our parent company Kadokawa understands that and shares that view.’
Although a number of outside companies, including Sony and Tencent, have minor stakes in From, the majority shareholder is Japanese media company Kadokawa Corporation, whose main business is manga and anime.
They’ve never seemed to be a malign influence and have ensured that From do not become a console exclusive company owned by Sony or Microsoft, but there’s always a worry of what might happen if times get tough.
However, like most Japanese developers recently, FromSoftware has not only been hiring but has also instituted significant pay rises.
It’s not that Japanese companies are charities and American companies are not but the pay rises, which have also occurred at publishers such as Square Enix and Capcom, were a response to historically low wages at many Japanese studios.
Japanese employment laws are also much stricter than those in the US, and while it’s possible to shut down whole studios it’s all but impossible to layoff large percentages of them and still leave the company in operation, which is what’s been happening in the US.
In comparing the attitudes of the two countries many have referenced former Nintendo president Satoru Iwata, who twice took a pay cut – as did the whole executive board, to a lesser extent – when things were looking bad during the Wii U era.
‘I think it was the old ex-president of Nintendo, Iwata-san, who said that ‘People who are afraid of losing their jobs are afraid of making good things.’ I’m paraphrasing that, but I totally share this view,’ Miyazaki told PC Gamer.
‘I think it’s true. And I think the people at Kadokawa, our parent company, understand that I hold this view very strongly. While we can’t say 100% – we can’t say with complete certainty what the future’s going to hold for From and Kadokawa – at least as long as this company is my responsibility, that’s something I would not let happen. So hopefully our players and our fans can take a little bit of assurance from that.’
That’s certainly not something you’d hear Xbox boss Phil Spencer or the head of EA saying, despite neither of their companies having anything close to financial problems.
The long-awaited Elden Ring DLC expansion Shadow Of The Erdtree is due to be released this month but after that it’s unclear what FromSoftware is working on, especially as they’re now big enough to work on two major projects at once.
Fans have long been hoping for a remaster or remake of PlayStation 4 exclusive classic Bloodborne – or a PC release – but despite Miyazaki stating that it and the first Dark Souls are his personal favourites, of the games he’s worked on, there’s still no evidence that it will return.
Hidetaka Miyazaki doesn’t want to sack anyone (FromSoftware)
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