The entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the video-game publishing division of Megan Ellison’s Annapurna studio, resigned this month following a dispute with its owner, according to people familiar with the situation.
Annapurna Interactive President Nathan Gary and his team had been negotiating with Ellison, the daughter of billionaire Larry Ellison, to spin off the video-game division as an independent entity, said the people, who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to share the information with the press. When Ellison pulled out of the negotiations, Gary and other executives resigned and were followed by around two dozen other staffers.
One of my favorite game publishers, this is wild (and not the Outer kind of wild). I’m super curious if the entire staff will start their own publishing company (which I imagine is harder to do without the financial backing of a billionaire’s daughter) or if they’ll split off and go their separate ways.
I’m also very curious if this will start changing the kinds of games Annapurna publishes or if they’ll still take interest in odd and niche games that need a publisher. I wish I knew more about the dispute here but time will tell what happens next at some point.