It is reported that all employees of publisher Annapurna Interactive (representative works: "Lost", "Neon White Walker", "The Memory of Edith Finch", etc.) have resigned. According to reports, Annapurna Interactive president Nathan Gary and his team had sought to spin off the gaming division from its parent company and become an independent entity. However, at some point, the owner of the parent company, Megan Ellison, withdrew from negotiations, and Gary resigned along with other senior executives at the company, followed by approximately 24 other staff members.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, the publisher’s president, Nathan Gary, and his team have been in talks with Annapurna owner Megan Ellison to spin off the video game unit into an independent entity. Negotiations ended when Ellison withdrew, resulting in the resignation of Gary and another executive. Soon after, other employees resigned.
In a statement provided to Bloomberg, Ellison confirmed that Annapurna's top priority is continuing to support its developers and publishing partners during the transition. The company will also continue to look for new opportunities and strive to expand its influence in the interactive field.
Development teams working with Annapurna Interactive are clearly scrambling to understand what this all means for future projects. New president Hector Sanchez, one of the publisher's co-founders who was brought back last month, reportedly told developers that all contracts would be honored and employees would be replaced.
Annapurna Interactive provides a variety of services to its partners, including funding, quality assurance, localization, and marketing, so developers are understandably confused, and if the publisher goes out of business, their projects may never see the light of day.