Uh, this is a huge deal. Terrible news.
Terrible news…for Megan Ellison. Can’t wait to see what the inevitable independent studio they’ll form puts out.
Sounds like just the publishing side was affected. Lots of other independent developers are kind of in limbo in the short term, which does suck.
Hopefully they can get out of any contracts and go to a publisher not associated with that family.
I was extremely excited by the recent news that Control was going to be adapted into film and or TV. This could be a massive risk to that going ahead.
This is true! But I think the “good” (?) news there is Annapurna Studios is not going anywhere, and they retained all the IP their subsidiary holds. Sucks for the former Annapurna Interactive folks that they can’t bring the IP with them, but c’est la vie.
Every single time I have played an Annapurna published game, I had a fantastic time. I won’t say that everything they did was equal, but everything they did was entertaining, and thought-provoking.
I can’t quite follow the legalese required to parse EXACTLY what this means going forward, but I am sure it is not good, and that is disappointing.
Ahh fuck, stuff being published by them was usually a decent sign that it’d be interesting in some way. Best of luck to the actual team, I hope they can put something new together
Uhh, what kinda dispute causes an entire staff to quit??
Can’t see any reason mentioned in the article other than a disagreement with the owner.
Just seems crazy that they’ve let such a successful team walk away, when it sounds like the team were willing to find a way forward…
They likely had some outlandish request or policy that was anathema to the department’s mission, and just assumed that they would cave. Seems like good leadership stuck to their principles, and the good leaders were followed by teams who weren’t willing to lose that.
If the owner is smart, they’ll backtrack, make concessions when hiring everyone back, and learn from their fuckup. In reality, I hope the new company that forms from the exodus finds fast success.
LOL, they say they’ll replace the staff and honor existing contracts. It’s gonna be shit quality. All their partners will be better off severing ties, reclaiming paid funds, and going with the new company that inevitably forms from the department previously known as Annapurna Interactive.
