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Entire staff of game publisher Annapurna Interactive has reportedly resigned
- oglop 2y agoThe stranger thing in this thread is how many people are breathlessly defending nepo babies. They really don’t need your help guys. They are fine.
- darby_nine 2y agoThis is hilarious and rather sad. How did Annapurna fumble such famous talent so bad?
- NotGMan 2y agoProbably through "line must always go up" mentality. Creative business, especially games, should really not be publicly traded or thought of as having major returns on investments. It might work on start, but sooner or later the "current hit game" will fade out of popularity and then people will get fired and crunch will become the norm etc... in order to satisfy the "line must go up" mentality, but since game dev is a hit driven business that clashes with the "Line must go up" concept at its core since, being a hit driven business, means that it's totaly unpredictable.
- thih9 2y agoDo we have any source or other data indicating that this happened here?
- darby_nine 2y agoIs this not the legally obligated line of thinking for american companies? You have some leeway to argue with only providing value to shareholders in some specific manner, but not much.
- shakiXBT 2y agoMost companies try to operate at a profit and actually increase those profits over time. That said, reasoning that Annapurna failed only because of that requires some impressive mental gymnastics
- jfengel 2y ago"Value" is whatever shareholders want it to be. In the case of a public company that is assumed to be profit, because the shareholders are a vast and ever changing group. Annapurna isn't public, so it serves whatever the private owners want. Even in a publicly traded stock, the company charter can specify something other than profit. The shareholders know that when they buy stock. In other words there is more leeway than we commonly give credit. The notion of a fiduciary duty to be greedy is pushed by psychopathic CEOs but isn't really what the law says.
- Beretta_Vexee 2y agoThe video game business is very similar to the film or literary publishing business. You need to publish ten novels for one to do well enough financially to pay off the others. Nobody really knows why that one worked. It's possible to do a few sequels, but the formula quickly becomes boring. No one can guarantee the commercial success of a novel, film or video game.
- ethbr1 2y agoThat's why equity investment in creative endeavors is an entire class of business. Possible to risk-balance adjustment, similar to anything else.
- flohofwoe 2y agoIt sounds like a good decision by the team tbh. Blurring the lines by 'integrating' functioning teams into a bigger entity which does completely unrelated things (TV, film and theater) never goes well. The team will most likely found their independent 'spin-off' company as they had planned already, no talent or knowledge is lost, only risk is financing for new projects.
- darby_nine 2y agoIt seems like all their other IP is derived from the game IPs, so I'm a little confused how this leaves Annapurna in a better position.
- crooked-v 2y agoIt doesn't. It's the people who actually did all the work who are benefiting, not the corporate entity. The coordinated mass resignations make it obvious that the former management is ready to immediately start up their own company in the office next door and hire on everyone who just quit Annapurna.
- tako 2y agoDr Dr
- darby_nine 2y agoAh yes you're correct, I misread the above comment.
- schlauerfox 2y agoAnd that's why you don't sign non-competes and they should be illegal to protect those with no leverage.
- wooger 2y agoClearly not accurate, they've produced quite a few famous and acclaimed films based on original ideas, Philip K Dick novels & real life events.
- a1371 2y agoI don't mean to diminish their work and I don't know much about the matter but the company founder is some billionaire's daughter. I fear ever having a boss like that just because of the fundamental difference in perspective and life experiences. I'm sure I won't be able to communicate with them.
- airtonix 2y ago[dead]
- Aeolun 2y agoHmm, I think you have more in common than you differ. It’s hard to escape the human condition using money.
- xkbarkar 2y agoA bit myopic to disqualify someone from the credibility pool because they had a headstart in life imho.
- jgowdy 2y ago"but the company founder is some billionaire's daughter. I fear ever having a boss like that just because of the fundamental difference in perspective and life experiences. I'm sure I won't be able to communicate with them." Imagine invalidating a person as a potential colleague and declaring your incompatibility with that person remotely based on a quarter inch deep evaluation of their background. I think this kind of take is in really bad taste.
- Chris2048 2y agoIt's "boss", not "colleague"; and they're your boss based purely on having a lot of money from their parent, hardly a "quarter inch deep" evaluation.
- edm0nd 2y agoFor the curious, the daughter of multibillionaire Larry Ellison, the cofounder of Oracle.
- sonofhans 2y ago> “The report, which IGN can confirm based on conversations with our own sources, states that Annapurna Interactive president Nathan Gary had recently been in negotiations with Annapurna founder and billionaire Megan Ellison to spin the gaming segment off as its own company. However, Ellison eventually pulled out of negotiations, at which point Gary resigned. Almost 30 other individuals, including division co-heads Deborah Mars and Nathan Vella, as well as the entire remaining staff of Annapurna Interactive, joined him.” From IGN — https://www.ign.com/articles/annapurnas-entire-gaming-team-has-resigned https://www.ign.com/articles/annapurnas-entire-gaming-team-h... I don’t blame them. I’d rather negotiate my arm out of a shark’s mouth than the cost of a hot dog with Larry Ellison, or his daughter. You don’t get that awful rich by ever believing you’re awful rich enough.
- Rinzler89 2y ago[flagged]
- pdimitar 2y agoI agree with your take but also let's not pretend that SW Outlaws and Concord are worth even 4/10. Worst games I've seen in a while. Concord seems to have a good-ish engine and it would be a shame if that's trashed but outside of that, yikes.
- kbelder 2y agoI agree with you about IGN's quality, but I think it's not necessarily your opinion that's generating the downvotes, but the tone. IGN being disconnected from the tastes and preferences of gamers? Almost inarguable. Letting political opinions of the journalists have huge sway over game reviews and scores? I'd say that is inarguable. But you'll get downvoted when you type a post on HN that seems like you're getting excited while typing.
- loupol 2y agoArticle is missing some context imo : * Annapurna Pictures (the parent company of Interactive) had some financial issues previously at least (see [0] from 2019) while Annapurna Interactive was doing well for itself. * Annapurna Pictures wanted to integrate the gaming division in-house (possibly to prop up the rest of the company) * Staff and exec at Annapurna Interactive wanted to be spin off (see [1]) * Negotiations fell through, so most exec and staff at Interactive left [0] https://variety.com/2019/film/news/annapurna-resolves-more-than-200-million-in-debt-pushes-ahead-without-banks-exclusive-1203314214/ https://variety.com/2019/film/news/annapurna-resolves-more-t... [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-12/annapurna-video-game-team-resigns-leaving-partners-scrambling?accessToken=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJzb3VyY2UiOiJTdWJzY3JpYmVyR2lmdGVkQXJ0aWNsZSIsImlhdCI6MTcyNjE3NzQyOSwiZXhwIjoxNzI2NzgyMjI5LCJhcnRpY2xlSWQiOiJTSlBZWklUMEFGQjQwMCIsImJjb25uZWN0SWQiOiJCMUVBQkI5NjQ2QUM0REZFQTJBRkI4MjI1MzgyQTJFQSJ9.BpoA_wBJDrNbDbgj_LjnVUJQg6SM_vsIzWUEM6v85xE https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-09-12/annapurna...
- threeseed 2y agoThere is another way to look at this. Annapurna Pictures in Dec 2022 produced Nimona for Netflix which debuted at #9 globally and was as high as #3 i.e. it was a massive hit. So they now have the Stray IP which could be extremely lucrative and are looking at how CD Project Red handled their successful Cyberpunk integration on Netflix as a model. Which is where you cross-promote a game add-on or sequel with the movie. Which means for the gaming side they really wouldn't have any control over their direction as it would be entirely driven by the movie side. Not exactly compelling for them hence why they want to leave. With the success of Fallout, The Last of Us, Cyberpunk Edgerunners etc there's definitely big money to be made from video game IP.
- delusional 2y agoThis seems like the same way to look at it. The only disagreement between these two comments is if the potential integration is motivated by a lack of success, or the outlook of even greater success. Those are is, at least economically, identical motivations.
- 2y ago
- gorbachev 2y agodupe: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526074
- hashtag-til 2y agoAny idea why the previous is flagged?
- mandmandam 2y ago[flagged]
- pvg 2y agoMost company personnel changes are not particularly interesting (in the sense of there's not much 'intellectually curious' conversation to be had about them) and are also extensively covered and discussed elsewhere.
- mandmandam 2y agoThis story is clearly interesting to the community, or the original wouldn't have gotten 40 points in an hour at night time. There was absolutely nothing toxic going on in the comments either. Calling it a "personnel change" is also reading as brazenly disingenuous.
- pvg 2y agothe original wouldn't have gotten 40 points Everything is interesting to someone and HN doesn't really work strictly by points, you can find explanations of this in lots of the moderator commentary and in the site faq under 'how are stories ranked'. Calling it a "personnel change" is also reading as brazenly disingenuous. That is certainly one exciting reading.
- mandmandam 2y ago> HN doesn't really work strictly by points People were interested nonetheless. 216 points on this post with 89 comments is pretty conclusive, strict point system or no. > That is certainly one exciting reading. Accurate too.
- PoignardAzur 2y agoI hope whatever entity these people reform has the same magic. Every single game they published had something unique. Outer Wilds, Telling Lies, Twelve Minutes, Edit Finch, Neon White, etc. They didn't develop these games, but they have an eye for talent.
- simonw 2y agoI adored Donut County, it had everything I could possible want from a game about trash pandas and LA county donut culture.
- personjerry 2y agoIn their nascent years I played two of their early games, both mobile games - Florence and Gorogoa. Both beautiful. I still play Florence once in a while and it really evokes emotions. Gorogoa is a great puzzle game that the HN crowd would love. Highly recommend both if you haven't tried them!
- eleveriven 2y agoI am a big fan of Stray! The atmosphere was both haunting and beautiful, and the emotional connection you feel as you guide the cat through puzzles, etc. Hearing about the uncertainty at Annapurna Interactive feels personal a little
- Torkel 2y agoI have feelings about Stray... What an awesome game it could have been! I played it with one of my daughers. Lovely father/daughter playing session. Guiding the cat through the maze/puzzles. Cat can't fall, it's just calm and nice. And then, out of nowhere - blinking screaming wildly stressful and awful rats come chase us. My daughter dropped the controller, I played it through. But after that the game lost its charm. The second time the rats came, she left. We never played it again. I checked if there was some "please don't ever give me rats" setting, but nope. I checked with a friend and they said the rats appear throughout the game. So I'm really sorry, but stray is a 1/10 game for me. Remove the rats and its 9/10. What is the purpose of the rats? It's an arcade moment in a game that was nice, calm, cute and relaxing. Totally breaks the contract that I felt was established with us as players.
- nicolaslem 2y agoIt seems you just wanted a different game than what Stray is.
- makeitdouble 2y agoNot OP, but surely yes. To expand a bit, there's not that many _good_ games where you can explore, follow the story, enjoy a beautiful world and don't need good reflexes or emergency reactions skills. In particular, gamers with decent skills will praise and give exposure to truly beautiful and well detailed games, and people with little to no action skills won't get past the tutorial. We can look at it as a fact of life, and expecting all games to be accessible at any skill level is just impossible, but there's a sad part to it when it's so close. I got my family to play Monument Valley and it was magical. Journey ? they got stuck on the more finicky paths and gave up the controller, while still enjoying the bit they could clear and watched the rest as I played. Stray was on the same path, where they could probably deal with everything except the few time limited sections. If there was a "no action sequences" switch, it would be truly wonderful. Also it probably would sting less if there was more games with a path for very low gaming skills.
- aavshr 2y agoSad to see, Outer Wilds is probably the best game I've ever played. But I'm sure the staff will continue doing great work in whatever they decide to do next.
- Maken 2y agoThis is the publisher, not the developer, of Outer Wilds imploding. The people who actually made the game are still working at the studio.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- nubinetwork 2y agoEvery time I hear thr name Annapurna, I think about the ARM SoC maker...
- School-Cotton 2y agoEvery time I hear it I think of the restaurant on Capitol Hill in Seattle.
- openthc 2y agoBong shop in Berkeley, CA
- thoroughburro 2y agoAnnapurna is a god of food and nourishment in Hinduism; a manifestation of Parvati.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoI bet the way people in the US say it is nothing like the (traditional) way it is said in India. I think it’s supposed to be “un-na-poorna” with a nasally rn sound.
- School-Cotton 2y agoAFAIK an r sound is always nasalized when followed by an n sound in American English.
- School-Cotton 2y agoIt is also the name of a mountain in the Himalayas which I believe is the most familiar meaning to Americans.
- coloniser 2y ago[flagged]
- Derelicts 2y agoAren't these the same guys who published Stray?
- poikroequ 2y agoIt's literally the first game mentioned in the article...
- debo_ 2y agoI was looking forward to Blade Runner 2033. It's nice to have moody adventure games in this era. I imagine that this will delay it at the very least, but likely worse.
- actinium226 2y agoMakes you wonder, did the last person to leave turn off the lights?
- ZOMBIEkiLLa 2y ago[flagged]
- ZOMBIEkiLLa 2y ago[flagged]
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2y agoGood for them! There's a lot to be said about certain large publishers but this publisher's list of games includes some very good titles. Just knowing they worked with the developers to release certain titles makes me very interested to see who they'll work with next. They seem like a group who will become a household name with a little luck in their marketing. I understand why Annapurna would not want to spin off such a successful division but it sounds like the only leverage they had was existing IP, which the employees probably understand as a sunk cost. I'm glad they were all able to realize they could just do what they do under a different name; I get the feeling the developers they've worked with will remember them and they know it.
- sss111 2y agoaw man these people made Sayonara: Wild Hearts, which is hands down the best iPhone game I have ever played.
- javier_e06 2y agoI hope the staff land on their feet... and move on. They produced the best games out there and that, remains patent. What happens next is corporate wrangling less to do with creativity and more to do with profits.
- ZOMBIEkiLLa 2y ago[flagged]