According to Hollywood Reporter AND BloombergProlific video game publisher Annapurna Interactive has all but collapsed, with its senior management team and all 20-plus staff resigning. The shocking move leaves the future of Annapurna’s dynamic development deals in question.
Annapurna Interactive is a subsidiary of Annapurna Pictures, the prolific production company owned and founded by Megan Ellison, the daughter of billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison. The games division opened in 2016 under the auspices of several industry veterans and immediately hit the ground running, publishing influential indie games like Kentucky Route Zero, Outer Wilds, Neon White, and Stray.
The Hollywood Reporter was first to report the departure of senior executives at Annapurna, including company president Nathan Gary. Gary was one of the founding veterans of the interactive division and, as of 2021, has been the chairman of Annapurna Pictures overall. Gary is being replaced as chairman by Hector Sanchez, another founding member of Annapurna Interactive who recently returned from Epic.
Jason Schreier’s report for Bloomberg is where things get intriguing: According to Schreier’s anonymous sources, Gary was in negotiations with Megan Ellison to spin off Annapurna Interactive as its own company, separate from Annapurna Pictures. The mass resignation of Gary, his management team, and the entire Annapurna Interactive staff was a reaction to Ellison’s withdrawal from those negotiations.
A spokesperson for Annapurna confirmed to Bloomberg that negotiations had failed, and Megan Ellison provided the following statement:
“Our highest priority is to continue to support our development and publishing partners through this transformation. We are committed not only to our current games offering, but also to expanding our presence in the interactive space as we continue to explore opportunities for more integrated approaches to linear and interactive storytelling across film and television, games and theater.”
This situation naturally seems to be wreaking havoc on the development teams published by Annapurna. Bloomberg reports that these developers are frantically trying to determine whether their publishing partnerships are still valid and viable. Aura Triolo, lead animator of the game published by Annapurna A hiking stophe summed it up this way Blue Sky: “*currently published by Annapurna Voice* haha.”
It is worth noting that Alan Wake 2 developer Remedy’s recently announced partnership with Annapurna regarding the future of the Control franchise is not affected by this change, as the deal was with parent company Annapurna Pictures and not its interactive subsidiary.
While details are still limited, the employee exodus is an absolutely shocking detail, and likely unprecedented in the history of the industry. At a time of mass layoffs and recession in the gaming industry, Annapurna employees willingly walked away, seemingly without notice, at the prospect of the publisher remaining a subsidiary of Annapurna Pictures.
