Capcom Europe plans to shed over half of its developing workforce following a difficult financial year, MCV reports. This follows a similar restructuring process that the company implemented for its North American arm back in July, which also resulted in a series of layoffs. In a statement provided to MCV, a representative from the industry firm explained the details of the streamlining process.
“Following a restructure at its US operation, Capcom’s European organisation is currently evaluating its structure to ensure it is in the best position to take advantage of the changing market conditions the industry is facing.”
Last month, the company published its yearly financials, which in turn acted as a precursor for today’s redundancies. Specifically, Capcom revealed that several triple-A console titles performed below internal expectations, with the rebooted DMC shipping just over 1 million units as opposed to the targeted 2 million and Resident Evil 6 also underwhelming with 4.9 million sales.
Moreover, Lost Planet 3 was received poorly both critically and commercially – in fact, Spark Unlimited’s shooter failed to enter the UK’s top 25 upon launch – and the company will look to the forthcoming Dead Rising 3 as a means of mitigating financial losses. Generally speaking, the Eastern studio has always fared better in its domestic region of Japan; considering that the recently released Monster Hunter 4 sold 1.7 million retail copies in little over 48 hours.
With this in mind, it seems the company’s already small European presence will be diluted even further, as Capcom look to restrain the cost of development partnerships while also focusing on downloadable content to provide long-term support for popular titles. Ultimately, trimming the European arm of the studio will no doubt affect the business going forward. What’s more, Capcom recently laid out plans to become a more digitally-orientated studio by adding 100 members of staff to mobile, online and consumer teams by the end of fiscal 2014.
