The entire workforce of publisher Annapurna Interactive has resigned following a dispute with owner Megan Ellison.
As reported by Bloomberg, the publisher had been in negotiations with its owner to spin the gaming arm into an independent entity. Ellison reportedly walked out of these talks, leading to Annapurna Interactive President Nathan Gary, other company executives and around two dozen staff members resigning.
In a joint statement, Gary confirmed that "All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned," calling the move "one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly.”
In a statement released to Bloomberg News, Ellison claimed that the company's "top priority is continuing to support our developer and publishing partners during this transition". The statement then goes on to look at the company's future: "We’re committed to not only our existing slate of games but also expanding our presence in the interactive space as we continue to look for opportunities to take a more integrated approach to linear and interactive storytelling across film and TV, gaming, and theatre."
As you might expect, the staff resignations will have a huge impact on the games currently in development under the Annapurna publishing label. On Switch, the company currently has both the Stray port and top-down roguelike Morsels (which made an appearance at the recent Indie World showcase) in the pipeline. A spokesperson has told Bloomberg that all existing games and projects will remain under Annapurna.
Now taking on the role of President of New and Interactive Media, Annapurna Interactive co-founder Hector Sanchez has reportedly told developers that the company will honour all existing contracts as he works to replace the staff members who have departed.
The resignations come after a stellar couple of years for the company on Switch. In recent memory alone, Annapurna Interactive has brought the likes of Outer Wilds, COCOON, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and Neon White to the Nintendo hybrid among many more critically-acclaimed titles.
What do you make of this news? Let us know in the comments.
[source bloomberg.com]
Comments 56
Can a developer recover from losing its entire workforce and management? Surely it won't recover.
I missed the original video game crash of 1983, on account of not having been born yet.
But it seems I'm just in time to see the sequel 🥲
@OorWullie Annapurna is a publisher, not a developer.
Neon White on Switch is absolutely amazing. Fast and smooth. This will be interesting to see how these pieces fall and what companies develop from this.
Not something done lightly in the current climate. That they wanted to spin out likely means they wanted some autonomy from constantly meddling and being beholden to people who have no idea what they're talking about. Hope everyone lands on their feet and the effected still getting published by them will be okay.
@LadyCharlie I must remember to always drink my first coffee before commenting.
Oooh, you all know what that means...
Regroup into a new studio!
Hope the Stray port and especially Morsels will be able to be published despite this, but it's difficult to see a future for Annapurna Interactive when its team collectively resigned, not to mention that it's wild that such a thing has happened in the first place and even more so considering the current state of the gaming industry - the silver lining being that such state is almost exclusively Western (the comparisons with the 1983 crash apply in that sense) so gaming in general will most likely be fine.
Good for them leaving a job they hate, though honestly as long as there's not straight up discrimination or harassment going on, I tend to side with the driven creative talent.
Please dont say this will stop the Stray port.
But fair play to them for standing up for their beliefs.
I'm betting Megan Ellison is feeling pretty stupid at the moment. I had a really good image of Annapurna, owning Sayonara ... and Cocoon. Clearly this image is now vastly stained. Was looking forward to Stray and Morsels ... unfortunately much less now that I've read this.
😢
Here’s hoping the upcoming games are still able to come out. Stray especially for me.
Some kind of disagreement with the "Pictures" half apparently. Remedy has some sort of deal with that Pictures division as a publishing partner still remaining, which as someone who thinks Remedy's FMV based game design is over-rated (Ie. Geoff likes it) I find emblimatic of everything wrong but also deeply hilarious.
Wow what a loss... this looks like a really good developer for Switch games. I just wishlished 4 of their titles!
Gaming is crashing ....faaast.
Annapurna was one of those rare publishers that I could reliably trust whatever games they were releasing to be enjoyable and meaningful in some way. So this is actually a huge bummer to hear. My only hope is that the team regroups under a new banner and can have full control of their creative endeavors. I'll be keeping my ear to the ground, and hope to see if they can make it happen.
Annapurna has published more than a handful of gems from smaller studios the past few years. I had come to associate their brand as a seal of trust that "this indie game is sure to be great". This definitely hurts that image I had.
I hope the people who resigned get to keep working with what they love to do
Wow so sad. I had recently just recognised that I like 3 of their games! Even considered getting the “studio collection” (or whatever) bundle on Switch.
Damn. Annapurna have consistently published absolute winners. Their games always catch my attention, like Devolver Digital, so this is a real blow.
Fair play to the staff for staying true to their values and the leadership who resigned, there is obviously a lot of trust there. I hope they bounce back from this.
@Bunkerneath Obviously it won't stop the Stray port. The developers will just find a new publisher if this doesn't work out.
I was looking forward to Stray and Morsels... Hopefully the studios will find a new publisher...
Lorelei and the Laser Eyes was soo good earlier this year - good that was released before this fiasco!
Best case scenario I can see from this point:
Maybe optimistic to hope for two ongoing indie publishing houses after this (alongside the likes of Devolver) as could easily and sadly be the case that neither happens.
Annapurna was a strong seal of quality for indie games. Sad to hear this news and I hope whatever comes after is as good as it was for the resigning team and for the new Annapurna.
Keep publishing indie gems.
@LadyCharlie I was there for the first one, and I'm sure this is the second coming.
I'm not sure which is more surprising, that one of the most prominent indie publishers just collapsed overnight, or that their whole team only consisted of 25 people. It doesn't sound like much considering all the different developers they worked with. I guess they're all off to start a new company now. Assuming the split was just due to diverging interests rather anything horribly wrong with either group, I hope that both the rebranded team and the rebuilt Annapurna Interactive flourish.
Darn. I was looking forward to stray. But I support their move. ❤️
Looking forward to know the name of the new publisher that has the great batting average Annapurna Interactive had. You don’t leave en masse like this unless there is a leader you believe in saying there’ll be new work for you. Take care of them well Nathan.
It's telling when the entire staff - less than I'd expected, but still not an insignificant amount of personnel - walks out. Clearly all is not well at Annapurna Studio. Like other commenters, I associate Annapurna Interactive with the quality indie titles they publish. This will definitely affect the games they have in the pipeline, but that's nothing compared to the amazing staff members Annapurna has lost.
I do hope the staff who walked out found a new publishing studio or at least are able to find meaningful work elsewhere. The gaming industry needs their talent.
The indie scene has lost two of their biggest names in 2024. First Humble Games and now Annapurna.
They don't seem to be related in any way, so hopefully it's not a sign of larger problems
@LadyCharlie
I feel like Embracer Group brought about half of the build up.
Hope this leads to a new studio!
@LadyCharlie
The video game industry is projected to bring in $208 billion in 2024, a 5% increase from 2023. This this is significantly above the average year to year increase of 3.5% it's seen for the last decade or it's record low of 0.6% in 2023
While it's hard to get reliable worldwide numbers, in the US at the start of 2023, the video game industry employed around 270,000 people when you remove support (retail and supply chain). The Entertainment Software Associations 2024 impact report suggests that number should increase to around 290,000 by year end.
When you read articles or see headlines about how everything is awful and how this is the ends times and how everything was better in the past, hit pause for a second. Ask yourself how often you've seen a headline saying something like "New start up hires 150 people" or "Company increases workforce". Stuff like that obviously is happening, but if your only source of information about the gaming industry is news outlets you're going to be exposed to a lot more bad news then good. When you read about 2000 people losing their jobs, ask yourself if you understand what that number means in context. When you realize that's 0.007% of the total US jobs in game development, it seems a lot less scary.
This article isn't even about job loss. It's about 25 people who wanted to form a new entity as a spin off to an existing publisher who left the publisher when they said no. Obviously their plain is to still form that new entity, and Annapurna need to replace that workforce. This article is about a net job INCREASE. But the headline is still focusing on the doom and gloom, because that's how you get the clicks.
While every job lost is important, the video game industry is as healthy as ever, and is already seeing a huge bounce back from it's slump in 2022 and 2023.
@Pillowpants @BTB20 Quote from the article: “A spokesperson has told Bloomberg that all existing games and projects will remain under Annapurna.”
@mereel a company with zero employees? Good luck publishing games with that.
@Pillowpants I’m assuming you’re just kidding, because again to quote the article:
“Annapurna Interactive co-founder Hector Sanchez has reportedly told developers that the company will honour all existing contracts as he works to replace the staff members who have departed.”
It may not seem fair to those that just resigned, but we can be certain that these vacancies at Annapurna publishing will be coveted and filled very quickly.
@HeadPirate The video game industry is projected to bring in $208 billion in 2024, a 5% increase from 2023.
Now how much of those billions are going to dev team paychecks and income for other boots-on-the-ground workers?
And how much of those billions are going to CEOs and "investors"?
@LadyCharlie
Irrelevant to our current discussion. I'm simply pointing out things are not as bad as your comment made them out to be. In fact they aren't even bad at all. Was hoping it might brighten your day a bit, because everyone should have a happy Splatfest!
@LadyCharlie
It is not an "original video grame crash", since this was only in USofA. The market in Japan, Europe, South America were fine at the time.
@HeadPirate Happy Splatfest to you too! Enjoy the weekend!
@Erigen Except without any IP.
Can anyone clarify this a bit more? If Annapurna is just a publisher then who are these people who are resigning, exactly? Or were they like a publisher who actually employed game developers?
A real shame as I too have come to see Annapurna as a seal of indie quality.
Good for them.
@HeadPirate "Irrelevant to our current discussion."
In what way? Because money being funneled to CEOs and "investors" who aren't actively involved in game development, does not necessitate conflation with a successful business industry.
25 people quit their jobs and will likely form a new entity to run things the way they want. Cue the Is this the reboot of the video game crash? Meme. I get the want to be a part of a big event or historical time to trauma bond over or whatever, but the industry is well on its way to restabalizing after a bunch of really silly short sighted decisions during the pandemic and this is hardly a tragic gutting of a company.
Wow, this happened at Annapurna?! That sounds devastating. I have no idea if they will be able to recover from that.
@Rozetta so what would you call the massive downturn in sales of video games in America in that period?
@N64-ROX Game publishing isn't something that happens automatically. I'm not that familiar with the industry, but presumably the people working for Annapurna did things like discovering new game projects they could potentially publish, negotiating deals with the developers of said projects, allocating resources so the games could be finished, overseeing the overall quality of the games in production so that it meets the Annapurna standard (which, as others have said in these comments, was consistently high), etc. Considering that Annapurna has been publishing several games a year since 2017, most of which have been well liked by both critics and gamers, it's not that surprising that they needed 25 employees to do all that.
@LadyCharlie
You suggested the industry is heading towards a crash. The evidence says It isn't, it's creating jobs and experiencing growth.
You're welcome to an opinion that ignores the evidence, I can't stop you. But I have no interest in discussing that. I supplied some facts to help you inform your opinion, that's all.
Cheers.
@trcsf
Dude, for real.
My expectations are always sky high, but this weekend is BLOWING MY MIND. There have been full-on paid game expansions with less effort behind them.
I count at least 7 new recordings of songs, not even counting the remasters of some of the live tracks they are using or the voice work in the little things like the match win music. A completely new location with new assists. While 3rd parties struggle to get a visual novel running at 30 fps on the Switch, I'm on stage watching fireworks and pyrotechnics go off while a crowd of 100+ fully rendered 3D characters you can interact with are dancing away.
It's amazing. It's happiness in visual form.
@HeadPirate "it's creating jobs"
This is already proven false. In this very article even. x
@LadyCharlie
(sigh)
"In the US at the start of 2023, the video game industry employed around 270,000 people when you remove support (retail and supply chain). The Entertainment Software Associations 2024 impact report suggests that number should increase to around 290,000 by year end."
Also this article is not about anyone losing their jobs. It's about 25 people (including the president, CEO, and all executives) moving from a publisher to form an independent studio, and the publisher having to replace them to meet commitments. This article is about the creation of new jobs as Annapurna has already committed to replacing the staff who resigned to follow Nathan Gary to his next project... something I already mentioned.
Look, I don't know what you're getting out of this, but given you seem to be commenting without reading my comments OR the article, I'm not going to bother replying in the future.
Hope you're having a great Splatfest.
@Polvasti thanks for clarifying, and I fully agree. So it's bad news then, but still not quite the same as the Adult Swim Games situation, where the death of the publisher directly meant the death of development studios underneath them.
Man what a miserable time it must be to work in this industry.
I don't know if they will be able to recover from this, but I would hope that something good comes of it. Personally, I think it would be fun to see a video game adaptation of Oscar-nominated film Nimona, which Annapurna Pictures worked on, picking up the project from Blue Sky Studios after Disney shuttered the company after they bought it out.
@HeadPirate Thank you for the context you gave. My anxiety generally leads me to a knee-jerk reaction that is very "doom and gloom", and you genuinely helped put things in perspective for me and brightened my day!
Happy Splatfest!
@N64-ROX Hi! In GameDev, the two most precious resources are time and money. A developer can either put their time and money into both developing the game and managing the business side, or have a publisher support the business side so that the dev can focus more on making the game. This can save the developer some money and a considerable amount of time.
A publisher will most commonly support with distribution, business negotiations (including with platform holders like Nintendo and PlayStation), marketing, managing the press/public relations, quality assurance, etc.
The folks formerly of Annapurna seem to be very good at all of these, plus they seem to have a great eye for discovering new dev talent and interesting projects.
I hope this helps!
@BuddhaBabboo
And you just paid it forward by making my day!
Shout outs like this mean a lot to me, and I really appreciate it.
Stay Fresh!
@HeadPirate Yeah, it was pretty epic. I wish it lasted longer than just one weekend. And what a win for Team Past!!
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