The entire team of video game publisher Annapurna Interactive has walked out and quit, after a dispute between the company's owner and executives. Known for being the publishing label behind tons of indie games such as What Remains of Edith Finch, Florence, Stray, Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, and more, a massive shake up has taken place within the company, a week after Annapurna's president, Nathan Gary stepped down.

An initial report, broken by The Hollywood Reporter stated that Gary, along with senior members Deborah Mars and Nathan Vella all resigned last week. Today, a statement was released, announcing that on top of that, all 25 members of Annapurna Interactive have resigned. Bloomberg confirmed that the reason behind the mass employee walkout was due to failed negotiations between Nathan Gary and Annapurna Interactive's owner, Megan Ellison, as Gary had wanted to spin off the video game part of the brand into an independent company.

The new president of the company, Hector Sanchez, has taken over duties, and will be honoring the existing publishing contracts for indie titles still due out. The following is an official statement made by Ellison to Bloomberg.

Our top priority is continuing to support our developer and publishing partners during this transition. 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 theater.

Source: Bloomberg

 

[Xzi]

They've had some pretty great releases, but also some pretty stupid decisions early on with the EGS exclusivity stuff. Never know what's going on behind the scenes until something like this happens, I suppose.

 

[Reploid]

Little kitty in big city is better

 

[PrincessLillie]

That's unfortunate, hopefully it doesn't affect merchandising because I pre-ordered the repress of the Donut County OST on vinyl just a few days ago :\
If this truly does spell the end of Annapurna, what would happen to the games they published? Would they stay up for sale under the developer's name or would they be delisted entirely?

 

[Nincompoopdo]

According to the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, in the future you will have a billion dollar company managed by 1 person - by using AI.

 

[wurstpistole]

According to the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, in the future you will have a billion dollar company managed by 1 person - by using AI.

That's exactly whan an AI corp CEO would say

 

[Snintendog]

All games i would list as BAD... Seems like the Company is BAD all around. Bad Games, bad employees, bad Business decisions.

 

[Veho]

Gary had wanted to spin off the video game part of the brand into an independent company.​

Do we know why he wanted to do that?

 

[ig81799]

According to the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, in the future you will have a billion dollar company managed by 1 person - by using AI.

This sounds like a risky wrong scenario

 

[SDA]

Serves it right.

 

[The Catboy]

According to the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, in the future you will have a billion dollar company managed by 1 person - by using AI.

That sounds like a terrible idea

 

[Taleweaver]

Wow...that's very unexpected. I've played quite some of their games, and they consistently pack a good emotional punch (Florence and Gorogoa come to mind). Hope things'll turn out okay.

According to the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, in the future you will have a billion dollar company managed by 1 person - by using AI.

Sounds like it'll be companies that game the stock market until it becomes clear they're all worthless because nobody can buy anything anymore because hardly anyone works.

 

[Sir Tortoise]

Do we know why he wanted to do that?

It's all speculation, but apparently there were plans to "integrate" their gaming division with the rest of the company. Sounds like the employees didn't like the sound of that, whatever it meant in practice. Hopefully this walkout means they have plans to make their own company or something.

 

[tech3475]

According to the CEO of OpenAI Sam Altman, in the future you will have a billion dollar company managed by 1 person - by using AI.

You mean this guy?

 

[Veho]

It's all speculation, but apparently there were plans to "integrate" their gaming division with the rest of the company. Sounds like the employees didn't like the sound of that, whatever it meant in practice. Hopefully this walkout means they have plans to make their own company or something.

Yeah there were plans to integrate the gaming division back into the main company, and on the other hand Gary (and presumably the rest of the staff) wanted to split off into an independent company, so I'm wondering which came first and, again, why. Something tells me they wanted to make licensing and merchandising deals with third parties but the company owner wanted to keep it all in house.

They will probably form their own publishing business with blackjack and hookers but let's see what they do without Annapurna's IPs.

 

[jumpman17]

The movie division had some financial troubles in 2019 and their movie output has gone from multiple a year to one a year since then and they have not been money makers. My guess is the game division wanted to be fully spun off into their own company to protect themselves if the parent company has to file bankruptcy.

 

[wurstpistole]

All games i would list as BAD... Seems like the Company is BAD all around. Bad Games, bad employees, bad Business decisions.

Well if you think those games are bad, go play EA FC or Need for Speed or whatever generic bullshit you strive for

 

[GengarsGhostlyGiggles]

Do we know why he wanted to do that?

Annapurna Interactive is run by Larry Ellison's (BIILIONAIRE) daughter, whose reportedly awful to work with.
She's basically a nepotism baby who mismanaged the company and is trying to use the videogame division to prop it up.
I wouldn't want to work with her either.

 

[MarkDarkness]

I've read tons of memoirs about game dev, and one thing that is consistent, is that whenever the big media parent company internalizes the game development studio, it always ends up with the studio having to slave away at titles they don't want to make, like mobile shovelware. This happened to the Dungeon Keeper devs word for word, for example. So yeah... the devs likely saw the writing on the wall and figured that with their slate of successes they can easily go somewhere else.

 

[Ericzander]

First it was the Annapurna staff and next it's the GBAtemp staff! I propose we officially call a strike until @shaunj66 buys us all Anbernic devices!