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GRTV News - Annapurna Interactive's entire team quits following sour negotiations
All 25 staffers have exited the entertainment company's video game publishing division.
Audio transcription
"Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of GRTV News, today we have a really really shocking thing to talk about, there's actually a couple of really really shocking things that took place yesterday, Microsoft laid off a further 650 people, which has become such a common thing for Microsoft to do that, that it no longer seems ridiculous to lay off 650 people, it means they've laid off like over 2,200 people since they acquired Activision Blizzard for 69 billion dollars, but that's not what we're going to be talking about today believe it or not, because instead we're going to be shifting focus to Annapurna Interactive, now you probably recognise the name of Annapurna, maybe not even just from video games, because it's a wider entertainment company that has its fingers everywhere, but the Annapurna Interactive side of things is the games publishing sector, and they generally do a lot of really good work and publish a lot of really exciting and well received games, but unfortunately every single member of the Annapurna Interactive staff has just resigned, it's following some bizarre contract dispute, which now because they've all resigned it's begging the question as to what the future will hold for Annapurna, so we're going to dive in and take a look at what's happened, so yeah Annapurna Interactive's entire staff resigned earlier this month, all following a dispute with the company's owner, in a really shocking turn of events it has been reported that the entire staff making up Annapurna Interactive has resigned following a dispute with the owner of the wider company, as per Bloomberg it's noted that the dispute revolved around Annapurna Interactive's president Nathan Garry looking to spin off and separate the games publishing division from the overall Annapurna company during a negotiation with the entertainment titans Megan Ellison, the daughter of billionaire owner Larry Ellison, the negotiations went very sour and Garry and the entire 25 person team making up Annapurna Interactive ended up resigning as a result, this has led to a massive uproar as to what the future holds for the company and the various developers and publishing contracts it holds, according to a spokesperson for Annapurna Interactive it's currently working to replace the resigned members and is searching for points of contact in order to maintain and uphold its ongoing agreements, Ellison confirmed this in a statement that adds, 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 theatre, as per the deal that was recently made with Remedy Entertainment in regard to the co-funding of Control 2 and efforts to bring the Alan Wake and Control franchise to new entertainment formats, this agreement was signed with Annapurna Pictures and therefore is not impacted by this move whatsoever, this was confirmed as you can see by Jason Schreier here from Bloomberg since a lot of people are asking, Remedy's deal for Control 2 and Alan Wake is with the broader company Annapurna Pictures and is not impacted by the departure of Annapurna Interactive staff, so while we're waiting to hear about the rest of the individual developers who are connected with Annapurna Interactive, some have already stepped up and shared information including Lushville Photography Sim's Matt Newell who states, can assume at this stage that Lushville Photography Sim will be unaffected given that the game itself is mostly complete, we'll keep you all updated, but this news is definitely a loss so the Annapurna Interactive team were great to work with and gave the project a lot of love."
"So yeah it's a really really unusual turn of events, I really wasn't expecting to wake up to hear this news that Annapurna Interactive has basically lost its entire staff, again Annapurna Interactive has been a really positive pillar of the game sector, they do some incredible work publishing games across the sort of AA and indie sectors right and yes they're starting to explore sort of bigger games as well and in regards to the things that are going to be happening with Remedy, yes that's with Annapurna Pictures and not Annapurna Interactive but when it's a game side of things you kind of assume that there's going to be some sort of bleed on effect there anyway, but with this being the case you have to wonder as what the future will hold, again Annapurna has said that they are doing what they can to replace staff members and uphold the various contracts and agreements that have been made with the developers around the world but you have to assume that there's going to be some sort of effect, some sort of knock on effect happening in regards to this massive decision by the Annapurna Interactive staff to all collectively resign, all 25 members resigned at once."
"So as we hear more about this and what effect this will have on Annapurna as a whole we'll be sure to keep you posted and updated but as of right now the key thing to take from it though is that Annapurna Interactive staff have resigned and there's a lot, a lot of question marks in regards to what's going to happen for the games publishing division of the Annapurna Entertainment Titan company."
"But yes this has been the last GRTV News of the week for me, I'll be back now on Monday so I hope you enjoy your Friday, enjoy your weekend and I'll see you all on the other side.
Take care everyone."
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