Japanese company Sega Sammy announced today via press release that it plans to restructure the company in a way that will see roughly 300 jobs (or more) cut and Sega of America’s San Francisco office shuttered.
The stated goal of the shake-up is to pare down the company’s deflating Amusement Businesses and shore up the PC and mobile game wings of its Digital Games division, which is responsible for games like Alien: Isolation and the F2P mobile game Chain Chronicles (which reaped $72M in sales in less than a year.)
This in line with Sega Sammy’s recent financial performance; in October it reported that profits had swung to losses over the prior six months due to “sluggish consumer spending”, despite the fact that sales of its digital games remained solid and packaged games actually went up a bit.
At the time the losses were blamed on its Pachinko and Amusement Center Operations divisions; now Sega Sammy expects to ask 120 people take voluntary retirement before the end of the fiscal year in March, predominantly from its Amusement Businesses division.
The other 180 (or more) retirement requests are likely aimed at the West; Sega Sammy plans to “streamline” its Western packaged software division by closing the Sega of America office in San Francisco this summer and relocating its responsibilities to Southern California, where Sega subsidiary Atlus already maintains offices for its Western operations.
It’s yet unclear what those “streamlined” responsibilities will entail, though the company did make a point of saying it would “reinforce” its Sonic and merchandising businesses going forward.
In a separate press release, Sega of America president John Cheng confirmed plans to relocate or lay off SOA employees and predicted that the move would not affect the release of any Sega games.
“We are confident that by relocating to Southern California we will be able to thrive, grow and become a stronger company because of it,” stated Cheng. “We are sad to say goodbye to some of the best people in the business.”
Gamasutra has reached out to Sega representatives for further comment on what this means for the company and developers associated with it.