https://www.theverge.com/games/2024/9/12/24243317/annapurna-interactive-staff-reportedly-resigns

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The entire staff of beloved game publisher Annapurna Interactive has
reportedly resigned

The entire staff of beloved game publisher Annapurna Interactive has
reportedly resigned

/

The staff reportedly tried to spin out the company into an
independent entity, but negotiations broke down.

By Jay Peters and Sean Hollister

Sep 12, 2024, 10:48 PM UTC

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A ginger cat sits atop a crate in a dark neon robot street
Stray, a game where you play a cat. Image: Annapurna

Annapurna Interactive, the game company famous for publishing indie
hits like Stray, Outer Wilds, Gorogoa, Neon White, What Remains of
Edith Finch, and many more, may not be the same company anymore.

Bloomberg reports that the entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the
gaming division of Megan Ellison's Annapurna, has resigned after
failing to convince Ellison to let them spin off its games division
into a new company. IGN is corroborating the report.

"All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively
resigned,'' former president Nathan Gary and staffers told Bloomberg.
"This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and
we did not take this action lightly."

An Annapurna spokesperson told Bloomberg that existing games and
projects will remain under the company. Annapurna didn't immediately
reply to a request for comment from The Verge.

Last week, The Hollywood Reporter said that Gary and the coheads of
Annapurna Interactive, Deborah Mars and Nathan Vella, would be
leaving. THR also reported that Annapurna planned to "integrate its
in-house gaming operations with the rest of Annapurna's divisions,
which include film, TV and theater." Hector Sanchez, who most
recently headed up the Unreal Engine games business at Epic Games and
is an Annapurna Interactive cofounder, announced last month that he
would be president of interactive and new media at Annapurna.

Annapurna Pictures, the company's film arm, has won countless awards
for a variety of films, including Her, American Hustle, and Zero Dark
Thirty, and the company had only been expanding its ambitions
alongside its video game publishing hot streak.

In 2020, Annapurna announced that it would begin developing its own
games, too; it launched an in-house animation division in 2022, one
that soon announced a movie based on Stray. Annapurna Pictures
produced the excellent animated film Nimona for Netflix, and it just
last month partnered with Remedy Entertainment to begin exploring
film and TV adaptations of Control and Alan Wake.

This year, Annapurna Interactive published Lorelei and the Laser Eyes
and Open Roads; upcoming games include its own developed Blade Runner
2033: Labyrinth as well as Ghost Bike and Wanderstop.

Update, September 12th: Added Gary's statement to Bloomberg about how
all 25 staffers have resigned.

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