The gaming division wanted to become independent, but the parent company rejected this.
Late Thursday night, he had a surprise announcement for the gaming world. Bloomberg’s Jason Schreier exclusively reported that publisher Annapurna Interactive had suddenly lost its entire staff. It’s a respected company behind games like What Remains of Edith Finch, Outer Wilds, and Stray. It focuses primarily on smaller, often artistic titles.
So how did the sudden exodus of employees happen? Behind it all is the unsuccessful negotiations between Annapurna Interactive president Nathan Gary and his team with Megan Ellison, the owner of Annapurna Pictures’ parent company. According to Bloomberg, Gary demanded independence for the games division, but Ellison stopped negotiations. In response, all 25 Annapurna Interactive employees, including Gary, quit. “This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take it lightly,” Gary commented on the situation.
Meanwhile, Annapurna’s chaos comes just weeks after the company announced a partnership with Finnish studio Remedy, specifically to fund the development of the Control 2 game and oversee adaptations of Control and Alan Wake. But as Schreier points out, that deal is with parent company Annapurna Pictures, which hasn’t changed anything, so nothing should change for Remedy.
In any case, the situation is worrying a number of other teams, either those that have released a game under the Annapurna banner or, in the worst case, those still in development. For example, the company was supposed to release the upcoming Silent Hill: Townfall, and Annapurna’s internal development team was also working on Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth.
According to a representative of Annapurna, all existing games and projects will remain unaffected and will remain under the management of the company. Annapurna Interactive will not disappear, and its new president will be Hector Sanchez, who co-founded it in 2016. Sanchez also promised to honor existing contracts and wants to replace employees who left the company.
Source :Indian TV
