Struggling gaming giant DeNA to lay off staff in Singapore

A vacant workplace. Photo credit: Michael Pereckas

Japanese mobile gaming giant DeNA will be restructuring its operations in Southeast Asia, Tech in Asia has learned. An undisclosed number of its approximately 50 staff in Singapore will be laid off or transferred to the company’s Vietnam office in Hanoi.

The announcement comes less than one month after DeNA reported troubling financials for its second quarter. DeNA’s stock price also took a major hit in late October after the announcement of its first “game” in collaboration with Nintendo failed to deliver Mario or any other notable characters from the beloved console maker.

Tomoyuki Akiyama, DeNA’s global public relations representative, confirmed the upcoming layoffs in the following statement to Tech in Asia:

DeNA Group is continually evaluating its business operations to ensure that it’s structured in the best possible way to deliver high-quality mobile games to consumers worldwide. As a part of this process, we have decided to reshape the structure of our Southeast Asian operations and integrate part of our Singapore office’s capabilities into our Hanoi office, along with a reduction in workforce in Singapore. The office will be reorganized in a phased manner but we plan to continue our operations in Singapore next year.

Akiyama didn’t specify which departments would be affected, but moving employees to Vietnam likely signals a consolidation of engineering talent there. He stressed that the Singapore office would remain open, albeit with reduced staff. DeNA’s Hanoi branch currently employs about 100 people.

DeNA’s restructuring in Southeast Asia follows layoffs at its US and Canada offices. The news also follows the closure of rival Gree’s Canada operations and Gumi layoffs in South Korea.

This story is developing and will be updated as we hear more details from DeNA.

UPDATE: This story previously listed declining Mobacoin (DeNA’s virtual currency) sales and increased operating losses for the company’s “China and other” operations. It has been brought to our attention that the Singapore office’s performance doesn’t directly correlate with those figures.