The Entire Humble Games Team Has Reportedly Been Laid Off

The entire team from publisher Humble Games has reportedly been laid off, according to now former employees posts on Twitter and LinkedIn. 36 developers are reportedly impacted by the cuts.

To be clear, this layoff only impacts the Humble Games publisher, not the Humble Bundle store where games are sold in bundled discounts to raise funds for charity.

2D artists and senior QA developer Emilee Kieffer said in a post on LinkedIn (which they also shared to Twitter) that “Today is mine and the entire team’s last day at Humble Games.”

While Humble Bundle has been around since 2010, Humble Games as a publisher has only been around since 2017. In that short time, it published some stellar indie titles such as Unpacking, Signalis, A Hat In Time, #Blud, and just this month it launched Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus.

In a post on LinkedIn, Humble Games cited “these challenging economic times” as the reason for the layoffs, saying “In these challenging economic times for indie game publishing, Humble Games has made the difficult but necessary decision to restructure our operations.”

“This decision was not made lightly; it involved much deliberation and careful thought, with the goal of ensuring the stability and support of our developers and ongoing projects. Additionally, the restructuring of operations at Humble Games will have no impact on operations at Humble Bundle.

We are acutely aware of the profound impact this decision has on our team members at Humble Games and deeply empathize with everyone affected. Our team’s contributions have been world-class and invaluable, supporting the launch of our games since we started publishing in 2017. We are committed to navigating this transition with as much empathy and understanding as possible.

Supporting our development partners and assisting former team members remains our top priority. We are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for everyone involved. Thank you for your support and compassion during this challenging period. It is deeply appreciated.”

Humble Games parent company, Ziff Davis, the same company which owns IGN Entertainment and recently acquired the Gamer Network family of websites has yet to release a statement on the layoff.

It’s also worth noting that just after the Gamer Network acquisition, some of the top writers at websites under the Gamer Network umbrella were laid off.

The statement doesn’t declare that Humble Games is going away, but it is curious as to why the whole team was let go, especially when the now former employees only have glowing things to say about the people they worked with. Even more than that, the strong lineup of games published under Humble Games proves the team had an eye for quality.

Another layoff that seems like a baffling decision from top-to-bottom.

Source – [Humble Games, Emilee Kieffer on Twitter, LinkedIn]