Annapurna Interactive’s Entire Staff Has Reportedly Quit

UPDATE 12/09/2024: Bloomberg updated its report to include a statement from former president of Annapurna Interactive Nathan Gary and the rest of the team, who says “All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned. This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly.”

Gary does not provide any further details on why the team resigned, or why negotiations broke down.

Original Story:

A report from Bloomberg claims that the entire staff of games publisher Annapurna Interactive has resigned as a result of a dispute with the company’s owners.

Sources that spoke to Bloomberg anonymously say that the publisher was trying to spin itself off from its owner, Annapurna Pictures, which is led by Megan Ellison, daughter to one of the world’s richest men, Larry Ellison.

Annapurna Interactive president Nathan Gary along with his staff had been negotiating the departure with Ellison, though the report identifies that Ellison pulled out of the negotiations as the two sides failed to reach an agreement.

This led to Gary’s resignation, along with the rest of the publishers executive team, and then 24 staff members. A spokesperson also confirmed the resignations to Bloomberg.

In a statement to Bloomberg Ellison says that “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.”

All of the games currently underway within Annapurna will stay under the publisher according to a spokesperson, and the publisher will honour all current contracts while replacing staff who’ve left.

In the meantime though, game developers are unsurprisingly concerned as to what the future of Annapurna Interactive will look like, and what will happen in the interim until the publisher has hired a new team.

Annapurna Interactive has helped bring about some of the best and most intriguing indie titles in recent years. Games like Neon White, Cocoon, Stray, Solar Ash, Sayonara Wild Hearts, Ashen, Twelve Minutes, Outer Wilds, The Pathless – all of these games were Annapurna published.

It was a team that very clearly focused on publishing games that perhaps might not have found a home elsewhere. The games industry needs as many entities willing to publish games that aren’t just going off popular trends, but trying something new, whether they succeed in that or not.

Hopefully a way forward for the publisher can be found, and that it can continue to publish the more off-the-beaten-path games.

Source – [Bloomberg]