Something happened at Sekai Project?

[Formlose Gestalt]

I don't want so spread any false rumors or misinformation, but there is a discussion on twitter that Sekai Project has laid off employees?

Here are some relevant tweets:

Apparently she worked for Sekai Project. I can't confirm this, since I don't really know anything about the people working for either of the translation companies but I don't doubt her. I am sure other people that a more connected in the industry can say confirm this.

I am also unsure how many offices Sekai Project has running. I seen pictures of one of their office and I kind of doubt that they have many more.

I am a worried about these developments and hope someone can share some insight here. To those that are laid off I want to express my sympathy and hope that everyone finds new work as soon as possible.

[Nier]

Lay offs and restructuring are not a rare occurence in the american workplace.

[Yuuko]

Nothing happened and people are being big brain meme again about the whole case.

[1P1A]

South Cali offices can't be cheap to rent. Looks like they are doing a little downgrading.

[Plk_Lesiak]

3 hours ago, 1P1A said:

South Cali offices can't be cheap to rent. Looks like they are doing a little downgrading.

After all, they clearly had excess permanent staff and their projects were all going so smoothly...

Edited August 14, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[Formlose Gestalt]

Some more information:

At statement from Sekai Project on the Tokyo Chronos Kickstarter

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sekaiproject/tokyo-chronos-a-new-vr-mystery-visual-novel-game/posts/2262566

And in this thread Audi from Sekai Project noted that no titles has been dropped

https://www.resetera.com/threads/sekai-project-visual-novel-publisher-allegedly-laid-off-their-entire-staff-today.61780/

 

So I guess they are restructuring their business, but this is still concerning.

[Infernoplex]

Financial troubles.

[Formlose Gestalt]

Official statement:

https://sekaiproject.com/2018/08/13/official-statement/

Edited August 13, 2018 by Formlose Gestalt

[SaintOfVoid]

49 minutes ago, Formlose Gestalt said:

So I guess they are restructuring their business, but this is still concerning.

some people getting hired, others dismissed, such is the way of anyone trying to do buiseness. nothing unusual, nothing concerning.
but what´s concerning is how they seemingly got disposed of without much proper notice beforehand, feels abit inhuman to me, like sure it´s called human ressources, but...
 

[Silvz]

Quote

・Rewrite is currently 35% translated and still in progress.

Great news people

[Plk_Lesiak]

37 minutes ago, SaintOfVoid said:

some people getting hired, others dismissed, such is the way of anyone trying to do buiseness. nothing unusual, nothing concerning.
but what´s concerning is how they seemingly got disposed of without much proper notice beforehand, feels abit inhuman to me, like sure it´s called human ressources, but...

I'm slightly more disturbed by the fact, if we believe the annoucement, that they got rid of pretty much all their marketing staff, with claims they're not touching the actual translation/development crew (and no indication they're actually moving resources there/expanding the localization team). Marketing was, pretty much, the only thing that worked as intended in Sekai. This plus the fact that people got fired out of the blue, it doesn't look too pretty. Hopefully it's not some kind of disaster in the making, I actually would prefer for Sekai to stay considering their involvement as an EVN publisher.

Edited August 13, 2018 by Plk_Lesiak

[Suzu Fanatic]

They bit off more than they could chew - so it's not really a surprise. Though, nuking their marketing people will hurt more than help long-term. (unless they luck out and find new hires with industry experience already under their belts)

[Nandemonai]

Well, there goes the neighborhood.  I wouldn't be surprised if they respond to this by launching more Kickstarters, it brings in a chunk of money up front in exchange for a lot more hassle down the road.  And obviously they're hurting for money.  Companies that aren't hurting for money don't do this.  And wiping out the ENTIRE marketing team is a very questionable long term move.

Look on the bright side: If worst does come to worst, Jast USA has a long history of license rescuing titles from bankrupt localization companies.  There's a decent chance they could clear Sekai's backlog by 2030.  Perhaps the early 2030's.

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, Nandemonai said:

Look on the bright side: If worst does come to worst, Jast USA has a long history of license rescuing titles from bankrupt localization companies.  There's a decent chance they could clear Sekai's backlog by 2030.  Perhaps the early 2030's.

I'm sure Hobibox is also looking for any opportunity to bring more of their unique take on localisation to the West. They may also rescue some titles

[Dergonu]

3 hours ago, Darklord Rooke said:

I'm sure Hobibox is also looking for any opportunity to bring more of their unique take on localisation to the West. They may also rescue some titles

Over my dead body!

[Okarin]

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo they're leaving us to rot without our pron games!!! Such injustice!!!

Don't panic!

Okay, panic.

[ShinRaikdou]

I don't care anymore

[Nier]

9 minutes ago, ShinRaikdou said:

I don't care anymore

Dracu-Riot any days now too!

[ShinRaikdou]

2 hours ago, Nier said:

Dracu-Riot any days now too!

any years i would say

[tymmur]

15 hours ago, SaintOfVoid said:

but what´s concerning is how they seemingly got disposed of without much proper notice beforehand, feels abit inhuman to me, like sure it´s called human ressources, but...

That's actually way more common than we would like to think. Imagine the guys handling the nuclear missile launch facilities. Imagine telling 30% of them that they are fired, but they still have to work for another 3 months. What could possibly go wrong? There are cases of fired people deleting the customer database or similar, which is why it's not uncommon to close access and then fire people. It's not nice to be treated that way, but Sekai doesn't stand out in doing so.

 

As for what Sekai is doing now and why, all we can do is to guess. It could be anything. Maybe 20% of the people in marketing did 80% of the work. Alternatively it could be a leadership idea that marketing isn't producing anything to sell, hence have no value (not true, but company leaders have had stranger ideas than that). Approaching bankruptcy is possible, but not likely. If that was the case, they would likely cancel some titles, which they barely even started working on and that doesn't seem to be the case. Time will tell what happens, but my guess is that this won't have significant long term effect.

[Nandemonai]

1 hour ago, tymmur said:

That's actually way more common than we would like to think. Imagine the guys handling the nuclear missile launch facilities. Imagine telling 30% of them that they are fired, but they still have to work for another 3 months. What could possibly go wrong? There are cases of fired people deleting the customer database or similar, which is why it's not uncommon to close access and then fire people. It's not nice to be treated that way, but Sekai doesn't stand out in doing so.

Very true.  This guy was an admin for the city, got pissy when he was let go, and seized control of the network he was administrating.  He made the mayor come personally see him (in jail) before he would reveal the password.  This happened more than 20 years ago. And here's an article telling people "hey, you guys know this is illegal".

The standard practice now is that if an employee is getting fired or laid off, you have to make it a surprise in order to protect yourself.  Many times the employees will be escorted from the building by security immediately after they've been notified.  This isn't the nicest way to go about it, but it isn't anything unusual either.

I do, however, disagree that the layoffs won't have significant long term effect.  There's a good chance the layoffs either are a sign that long term prospects are already rocky, or will make the situation worse in the long run.

[Freestyle80]

Guess Leyline 2 and 3 isnt gonna come out till 2020 

[SaintOfVoid]

8 hours ago, ShinRaikdou said:

I don't care anymore

btw when ur trying to make fun of jast by introducing the soon meme to the community, but ultimately end up pretty much same 

[Nier]

29 minutes ago, SaintOfVoid said:

btw when ur trying to make fun of jast by introducing the soon meme to the community, but ultimately end up pretty much same 

Announcing the announcement of the release date, then 3 years later nothing was heard from it since.

Edited August 14, 2018 by Nier

[HataVNI]

I might have a little ahead of you here because people keep telling me inside stuff but rest assured that kicking their marketing staff made them resign vital key members that need to backup all these projects they assimilated. They might only have kicked the marketing staff but theres other people who left them including contractors like Ebihimes. Sekai is kind of on their last leg now and while they might not die out, they have a big problem now and have to rehire. Also the seperations makes them save if you calculate correctly at least 200000 bucks a year (8 employees at ~22000$/year). They could have some excess money for big project now but the last thing you want is dovac managing the twitter account. Just no.

Also, they have done very cool stuff in the last few days. Including giving us a meaningless block on twitter and likely backing their own kickstarters. w
https://twitter.com/BishoujoNEWS/status/1029765179767185409