FromSoftware boss addresses gaming industry layoffs: 'As long as this company's my responsibility, I would not let that happen'

pcgamer.com:

Between Embracer laying off thousands of employees and Microsoft shuttering studios like Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks, the recent wave of high profile multibillion-dollar acquisitions have proven to be terrible for the games industry. It's hard to look at any game studio that's been gobbled up by a new parent company and not be worried that it may soon be gutted just to promise shareholders 11% higher profits for the next fiscal year. This vile trend was on my mind when I visited FromSoftware in May for PC Gamer's cover story on Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree—despite seeming quite independent, the studio does have a parent company, Kadokawa Corporation. 

Kadokawa isn't Microsoft big, but it is still big, with revenue of about $1.65 billion in its last fiscal year. FromSoftware is one of Kadokawa's major earners, but the company also makes significant money in the manga publishing and anime markets (Delicious in Dungeon is one of its recent hits).

With games like Elden Ring selling more than 25 million copies, you'd think FromSoftware would be free of any meddling—why mess with the golden goose? But that logic hasn't saved other game studios from short-sided across-the-board layoffs at mega publishers like EA, 2K, Sony… the list goes on. So I asked FromSoftware president Hidetaka Miyazaki what he could say about FromSoftware's business relationship with its parent company, and whether From was at risk of the same fate that's befallen studios under the Embracer umbrella in the last year. 

«Speaking to myself and this company, I want to say that this is not something I would wish on the staff at FromSoftware in a million years,» Miyazaki said. «I'm pretty sure our parent company Kadokawa understands that and shares that view.»

So far FromSoftware hasn't just been immune to the layoff waves that have struck western game companies, but it's been expanding—the studio has grown significantly since it started Elden Ring, and is now big enough to develop at least two