The entire staff of Annapurna Interactive, the video game division of Megan Ellison's Annapurna, has resigned, according to a Bloomberg report, citing multiple sources. A company representative declined to comment on the story.
On Sept. 6, Annapurna said its president, Nathan Gary, who also oversaw the company’s video game operations, was leaving, along with the co-heads of Annapurna’s indie game division, Deborah Mars and Nathan Vell. This week, Bloomberg reported that Gary and the company’s gaming division employees, more than two dozen in total, have resigned after talks to spin off the video game division from the larger company fell through.
Hector Sanchez, who helped found Annapurna Interactive, joined the company from Epic Games as president of new media and interactivity, and will now oversee the company’s gaming efforts. Today’s report noted that the departures have caused concern among Annapurna’s game-making partners.
Since launching its gaming business in 2016, Annapurna has grown in the indie gaming industry, producing award-winning indie games such as What Remains of Edith Finch AND Straythe latter of which sold millions of units in its first month of release and won the video game world's equivalent of an Oscar in 2022. Annapurna faced well-known financial difficulties in 2019 and 2020 and scaled back its film production efforts, but has continued to produce award-winning indie games. Other lauded titles include Cocoon AND Outer Wildlands.
But Annapurna will soon return to theaters with the highly anticipated horror comedy by Marielle Heller Night Troystarring Amy Adams, which recently debuted at the Toronto International Film Festival. The company distributed the Netflix animated film Nimona and the animated TV series Sausage Festival: Foodtopia with Amazon.