Indie developers working with boutique publisher Humble Games - which helped bring Signalis, Void Bastards, Unpacking, and more absolute gems to store shelves - were apparently just as blindsided by the news of mass layoffs as the rest of us.
Humble Games staff began to spread news of layoffs just yesterday across social media, while parent company Ziff Davis later called it a "restructuring of operations" that was "difficult but necessary." The company reportedly let go of all in-house Humble Games staff, opting to have the publisher's upcoming slate of games managed by an unnamed third-company instead. It should be noted that Humble Bundle remains unaffected.
At least a handful of developers who have games signed under Humble Games (both released and upcoming) found out about the news via social media, too. "It sucks that even devs that published games with Humble are learning this right now, with no prior warning," tweeted Tiani Pixel, co-developer behind the fantastic Unsighted. "I'm afraid of what this will mean not only for the future of our game, Unsighted, but all games they've published. Who's gonna keep the store pages up? We don't know yet."
"This will have drastic consequences not only for Humble employees, but all studios that worked with them and need the income from the games," they continued, before assuring that her team is "in a comfortable position" with its upcoming stunner Abyss X Zero, which "is doing some great numbers."
We are devastated to hear today about the apparent closure of our publishing partner, Humble Games. We were lucky to work with really wonderful people who were laid off in November and today and hope they can all land on their feet and find amazing new jobs elsewhere quickly. pic.twitter.com/dqwopqmdHAJuly 23, 2024
"My sincerest best wishes to all the former Humble Games staff, several of whom helped make Unsighted what it was," Abyss X Zero co-developer Fernanda Dias also tweeted. "Thank you so much for working so hard on
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