Some of you may know the name Annapurna Interactive more than others. Sometimes they name comes up when you see an interesting indie or AA game. Some of you are probably ardent fans of their biggest titles, which includes the likes of What Remains of Edith Finch, The Outer Wilds, Stray, and Kentucky Route Zero.
This company is actually a division of Annapurna Pictures, owned by one Megan Ellison. Megan is the daughter of Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and her brother David Ellison, is himself the co-founder of film and video game company Skydance Media.
Annapurna Pictures’ library is a who’s who of the biggest and most critically acclaimed films in the last decade, including Zero Dark Thirty, American Hustle, Her, Foxcatcher, and Nimona. They’re also a heavyweight in the film distribution business, making Annapurna and Megan as gigantic a figure in the video game industry as you can get.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, the 25 member staff at Annapurna Interactive have taken the bold step of challenging one of the most powerful people in this industry. After failed negotiations to spinoff as a separate company, everyone in the company just resigned.
Annapurna Interactive’s former president Nathan Gary shared this statement:
“All 25 members of the Annapurna Interactive team collectively resigned. This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly.”
Megan Ellison shared this message on her end:
“Our top priority is continuing to support our developer and publishing partners during this transition.
We’re committed to not only our existing slate of games but also expanding our presence in the interactive space as we continue to look for opportunities to take a more integrated approach to linear and interactive storytelling across film and TV, gaming, and theater.”
In a separate statement, Annapurna reassured the public that all existing projects will continue. That suggests that the company plans to build their video game division over from scratch.
It seems that there could be more behind this story. As for now, we have no indication that this had anything to do with plans to lay off workers or cut down their projects at all.
Perhaps the issue was the parent company’s plans to get the video game projects connected with their film and TV entertainment division. Last year, news did break out that Annapurna Animation, which had published Nimona, would be working on an adaptation for Stray.
Whatever the case, we applaud the former staff at Annapurna Interactive for their conviction, and we hope they will choose to stay in the video game industry.
