Julius Posted September 12 Posted September 12 (edited) On first read: oh no, not more layo–OH MY GOD WAIT WHAT?! From Schreier: Quote The entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the video-game publishing division of Megan Ellison's Annapurna studio, resigned this month following a dispute with its owner, according to people familiar with the situation. Annapurna Interactive President Nathan Gary and his team had been negotiating with Ellison, the daughter of billionaire Larry Ellison, to spin off the video-game division as an independent entity, said the people, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to share the information with the press. When Ellison pulled out of the negotiations, Gary and other executives resigned and were followed by around two dozen other staffers. Quote A spokesperson for Annapurna confirmed that it had explored a spinoff and said the parties failed to reach an agreement, which led to the resignations. "Our top priority is continuing to support our developer and publishing partners during this transition," Ellison said in a statement to Bloomberg News. "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." Quote The exodus has led to chaos as game developers partnered with Annapurna try to figure out what this means for their upcoming projects. As a publisher, Annapurna is responsible not only for funding the games but for handling services such as quality-assurance, adapting the products for local markets and marketing. Over the past few days, game makers working with Annapurna have scrambled to find new points of contact and figure out whether the company will continue to honor its agreements. The spokesperson said that all existing games and projects will remain under Annapurna. Absolutely insane. That's probably one of the biggest - and perhaps, more importantly, one of the few very consistently critically acclaimed - indie dev publishers just completely changing shape overnight. Didn't feel right to put this in the layoffs thread. Fair play to them, but what is going on in this industry right now?! Edited September 12 by Julius 1
CrowingJoe79 Posted September 13 Posted September 13 Thanks. I had been going to post a thread, but I made sure to look first to see if one was already submitted on the forum. Consider Silent Hill: Townfall axed, and a minor footnote in gaming history at this point. When devs go silent for way too long with no update in sight, that's usually not a good sign that things are running as they ought to be. I'm sure loads of Silent Hill fans are beside themselves on GameFAQs right about now, saying "I told you so" and the like.
Dcubed Posted September 13 Posted September 13 (edited) Damn, that‘s nutso. Awful news, they’ve been a huge bright spot in a darkened industry over the last few years Current most popular speculative theory doing the rounds is that this happened because the CEO wants to push Annapurna Interactive into becoming a AAA publisher; and the staff want to stay indie. Given that AI was mostly made up of former Sony Santa Monica staff who left because they wanted to focus on the same kinds of high-brow indie titles they published back in the late PS3 era (Journey, The Unfinished Swan etc), rather than AAA games? It would make a lot of sense that they’ve just done the same thing again here. If so, good on ‘em; and hopefully they manage to start up as a new independent publisher soon. Edited September 13 by Dcubed 2
CrowingJoe79 Posted September 13 Posted September 13 It may be the case that any games they have in development will be honoured. But they haven't really confirmed if Silent Hill: Townfall is still happening. https://gamingbolt.com/control-2-agreement-is-with-annapurna-pictures-says-remedy
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