In a California WARN notice, Sega of America stated that it will layoff 61 employees on March 8, 2024. Some Sega employees in the quote retweets on social media already announced their impending departure. [Thanks, What Layoff!]
This news comes after two major releases for Sega and Atlus. Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth came out on January 26, 2024. Meanwhile, Persona 3 Reload will come out on February 2, 2024. These games had worldwide releases. That means that the localization teams in Sega of America worked alongside the Japanese development team’s schedule to put out the products.
Many replies to the tweet express disappointment, though also noting that it’s bad how about 60 layoffs does not seem so bad. This is likely a reference to the recent layoffs from Activision Blizzard, Xbox, and Zenimax. On January 25, 2024, Microsoft laid off almost 2,000 employees from the three subsidiaries. Other Twitter (X) users wondered if the union that Sega of America employees formed in July 2023 didn’t work. Some even speculated that this is Sega of America’s response to said union.
As a reminder, this news did not come from an official Sega account. Sega has not yet made a statement about these layoffs, nor how it may affect current projects. Aside from the aforementioned Like a Dragon: Infinite and Persona 3 Reload, there has been rumors of a potential Sonic Generations reveal at State of Play, which will broadcast on January 31, 2024.
Sega of America will layoff 61 employees on March 8, 2024.
