As we have already reported, the publisher Humble Games from IGN Entertainment has laid off its employees. According to the parent company, this is not a closure but only a “renovation“.
This choice seems to come after a series of Publisher’s sales attemptsaccording to a new report from Aftermath, which claims to have obtained a recording of a meeting in which President of Technology and Shopping Steve Horowitz spoke with the Humble Games team.
During the meeting, Horowitz reportedly stressed the increased costs and delays in publishing some gamesstating that during “our sales attempt over the last two months” (which clearly failed) we observed a “further increase in the millions of dollars in development expenses, coupled with even longer delays in bringing titles to market.”
Horowitz said the goal of the Humble Games Restructuring is to provide “the best and most cost-effective way to ensure that games get to market,” and to support “the developers associated with it.” To do so, the company is reportedly turning to “a third party to help us manage future publishing, as well as the catalog of games we already have,” thereby impacting “every role” at Humble Games itself. In other words, laying off everyone.
Aftermath claims that this third part is The Powell Group – who has previously worked with studios such as NetEase Games and Torn Banner Studios – but the news has not yet been officially confirmed.
Ex-Humble Games Opinion
In our previous news we have already reported a Humble Games member’s opinionbut now we can see a response to the company’s official statement written by Chris Radley, also ex-Humble Games and currently working at UVS Games.
“I want to make it very clear that this is NOT a restructuring of operations. This is a Humble Games Complete Shutdown. Operations were outsourced to a third-party consulting firm. No staff remained.”
“Don’t believe this message AI-style scripted by Humble Games parent company Ziff Davis, who are trying to temper the backlash. This was once again a failure of leadership across the board, and once again the talented, hard-working staff are paying the price for their bad decisions. They lied to every former employee with this disrespectful narrative.”
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