Square Enix president Takashi Kiryu has held a video call with staff outside Japan and announced a “fundamental restructuring of the overseas publishing organization”. Jobs will be cut and those left will be expected to spend more time working in the office. The move is part of a cost-cutting exercise to save 3 billion yen ($19.6 million), although the last attempt at restructuring the company ended up costing the company 9.8 billion yen.
Square Enix has not announced how many people will be let go and said that affected staff will be notified today. VGC are reporting that over 140 people are at risk in the London office, including those working in marketing, QA, and sales.
Alongside this, the company also released a financial statement along with a commentary that stated that they are working with the Matsuo-Iwasawa Laboratory at the University of Tokyo on a project “aimed at improving the efficiency of game development processes through AI technologies”. Their goal is to “automate 70% of QA and debugging tasks in game development by the end of 2027”.
The financial report shows that game sales for the company are down 15% year-on-year but despite this, operating income has increased by 28.8% due to reduced marketing and development costs.
