According to sources, all 36 employees of the Humble Games publishing house have been laid off. According to business developer Nicola Kwan, employees were contacted at 9am and told the “business was closing down”. Humble disputes this in a statement to Game creatorclaiming that the publishing company was “undergoing a restructuring” and not a complete closure.
Humble’s statement – which you can read in full Here – attributes these events to “difficult economic times for independent game publishing,” stating that “Humble Games has made the difficult but necessary decision to restructure our operations.”
Humble Games is operated by Ziff Davis, who also owns Gamer Network websites including Rock Paper Shotgun.
Chris Radley, who was Humble’s innovative lead until 2022, is among those publicly questioning that take. “I want to make that absolutely clear” Radley wrote. “this is NOT a business restructuring. This is a complete closure of HumbleGames. The business has been turned over to an outside consulting firm. There are NO more staff.”
Aftermath also obtained a recording of a morning meeting in which Ziff Davis’ president of technology and acquisitions, Steve Horowitz, said the company had tried to sell Humble Games twice before, but “neither attempt generated significant demand, and unfortunately neither attempt created a viable offer or outcome.” Horowitz also said that Humble’s remaining publishing projects were being handed off to outside consulting firm Powell Group.
Humble Games, a publishing brand operating under The Humble Bundle, has released games such as Signalis, Forager, Slay The Spire, and most recently Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus.
As the game’s creator notes, this is the second wave of layoffs at Humble Games in recent months, after release “an unspecified number of publishing department employees” in November last year.
“Another year, another break! Today is my and my team’s last day at Humble Games” he wrote Senior QA Emilee Kieffer: “The gaming industry is in shambles, flooded with people who only want exponential growth at the expense of making great games with great teams. Billionaire CEOs are making record profits at the expense of the employees who actually make the products. But I believe we have the power to create studios that benefit us as game creators, not people who see us as money machines.”
