Humble Games is reportedly surviving in name only, in spite of its parent company’s claims.
Yesterday, we reported that Humble Games’ staff was being laid off. Humble Games came out with a statement on Twitter, claiming that they were doing a restructuring of operations, and denying that Humble Games itself was closing down.
Humble Games’ statement seems to be intended to allay any fears that the company would cancel any games in development. It seems that at least those projects will continue, although it’s unclear if Humble Games will continue to publish games. But a new report in Aftermath claims that they are still misrepresenting the situation.
Aftermath talked to several Humble Games employees, who were brought into a meeting with Ziff Davis president Steve Horowitz. Ziff Davis is the parent company behind Humble Games, and Humble Bundle, and their president came to give them the bad news.
Horowitz explained that Ziff Davis tried to sell Humble Games two times, but could not find a taker. As a result, they are laying off all of Humble Games’ employees, and carrying over their remaining games to be managed by The Powell Group, a video game consultancy firm.
This was what Horowitz said to employees:
“We continue to see the cost rise, delays continue, and during the sale process or our attempt to sell over the past couple of months, we’ve seen an additional millions increase in development expenses coupled with even longer delays in bringing titles to market.
Given all this, we’ve made a very tough but necessary decision to restructure all of Humble Games with the goal of providing the best cost-effective way to make sure that the games see the market, our existing slate sees market, and supporting the developers that are associated with it.
As such, we’re gonna be using a third-party to help us manage the slate moving forward, as well as the back catalog. As a result, all roles within Humble Games are gonna be impacted.”
Aftermath’s sources refer to Humble Games’ statements as an attempt to save face, and even an attempt to gaslight their own employees. But it does not seem to be in dispute that Humble Games itself was not profitable. Their sources also said that they were expecting to be told that the company was going to be sold instead.
This move comes a few months after another Ziff Davis property, IGN Entertainment, acquired the Gamer Network, which comprises several video game news and media outlets. While Aftermath speculates that this could be related to Humble Games’ closure, it’s hard to substantiate this when Ziff Davis did not disclose the relevant data.
In Q1 2024, Ziff Davis saw an increase of 2.4 % in revenue year on year, from $ 307.1 million to $ 314.5 million. You can view their Q1 presentation here. In their earnings call Q&A, Ziff Davis CFO Bret Richter referred to Humble Games as one of the ‘challenges’ in their portfolio, saying :
“The challenges we’re seeing are concentrated, and we have to sort of manage through that. When we look to the back half of the year, it’s continued growth in our businesses that are performing. It’s narrowing declines in a business like Cyber Martech that’s been on that trend through 2023 and in the beginning of 2024.
There’s a little bit of calendarization in some of our businesses, in particular, in Humble Games. Vivek did note that we’re looking towards some improvements in the areas that we’ve seen pressure in the near term.”
So, Ziff Davis did tell investors that Humble Games was one of the few parts of their business that was unprofitable, whereas Gamer Network and their other investments had been performing well so far.
Humble Games’ employees also shared a sentiment that Ziff Davis did not understand the game publishing business when they entered it. While the conglomerate was used in getting a quicker return on investment on their publications, they didn’t have the patience to see through the process of making games, for the return to come later.
It seems what will really decide this in the end is if Humble Games will announce new games in the future. We wish the employees of Humble Games the best in their future endeavors, and hope that they can find placement back in the video game industry.
