Japanese mobile game developer KLab, known for Bleach: Brave Souls and Captain Tsubasa: Dream Team, announced on May 15 that it will be asking around 100 employees to accept voluntary redundancy to urgently increase cash flow and “improve its cost structure” (as reported by GameBiz). The company has been running at a loss for the past three fiscal years.
According to its company overview, KLab currently has a total of 389 employees, meaning that it’s looking to let go of 1/4 of its workforce. In the fiscal year ended March 2025, KLab actually saw revenue from its games grow by 3.4% (with Bleach: Brave Souls recently celebrating over 100 million downloads), but continued to see losses across all profit metrics. A big contributor to this was EA Sports FC Tactical, KLab’s collaboration with Electronic Arts, which has been delayed way past its original global release window.
Before deciding to let go of employees, KLab attempted to cushion losses by reducing outsourcing costs and cutting executive payrolls, but has now resorted to “shifting to a smaller organization of elite players in order to drastically improve cost structure.”
KLab hopes to cut around 100 jobs by as early as June 30, 2025. Employees who step up to accept voluntary redundancy will receive severance packages, with their resignations treated as “initiated by the employer.”
While mass or on-the-spot layoffs are rare in Japan due to strict labor laws, there has been an increasing tendency of companies downsizing through employee buyouts – particularly among mobile game developers. Last year, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius developer Gumi let go off 80 employees in this way, and web3 game developer Enish asked an undisclosed number of staff to resign.
