Humble Games, a publishing arm of Humble Bundle, has been hit with mass layoffs. The company went on to deny reports of its full closure, calling the process a “restructuring of operations.”
Humble Games’ portfolio: Moonscars, Forager, Signalis
What happened?
- On July 23, several former Humble Games employees took to LinkedIn to report job cuts at the company.
- According to business development manager Nicola Kwan, “all 36 employees of Humble Games were told that we were being let go and that the company is shutting down.”
- Senior QA manager Emilee Kieffer added that July 23 was “mine and my entire team’s last day at Humble Games.”
- The publisher’s spokesperson insisted that Humble Games is “not shutting down.” It didn’t specify the number of employees laid off, but added that the move wouldn’t affect its upcoming releases like Wizard of Legend 2 and Lost Skies.
- “In these challenging economic times for indie game publishing, Humble Games has made the difficult but necessary decision to restructure our operations,” the company said in a statement on social media. “This decision was not made lightly; it involved much deliberation and careful thought, with the goal of ensuring the stability and support of our developers and ongoing projects.”
- The company added that it is “committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for everyone involved,” but it is unclear what exactly it meant by this “transition” and what will happen after it.
- This is the second round of job cuts for Humble Games in the past 12 months. In November 2023, the publisher laid off an unspecified number of employees.
Humble Games: closure or restructuring?
- Despite Humble Games’ statement, former creative lead Chris Radley urged not to believe the publisher’s words. He called it a “total shutdown” rather than a restructuring of operations.
- “This was once again a failure of leadership across the board, and once again hard working talented staff are paying the cost for their poor decisions,” Radley, who left the company in November 2022, wrote on LinkedIn. “Every ex-employee is being gaslit by this narrative and its so disrespectful.”
- According to Radley, all operations “have been handed off to a third party consultancy. No staff are left.”
- Humble Bundle started working with third-party developers in 2017, rebranding its publishing division as Humble Games in 2020. In October 2017, the entire company was acquired by Ziff Davis through its IGN Entertainment subsidiary.
- Several former Humble Games employees told Aftermath that the recent job cuts are “the end result of a media company failing to understand how to run a video game publisher.”
- It appears that Ziff Davis decided to shut down the publisher in the wake of rising costs and game delays.
- Aftermath noted that the remaining projects will be handled by a third-party company, The Powell Group. The publication cited the words of Steve Horowitz, president of Ziff Davis’ technology & shopping division, who told employees that “we’re gonna be using a third-party to help us manage the slate moving forward, as well as the back catalog. As a result, all roles within Humble Games are gonna be impacted.”
- Humble Games has published dozens of games since its inception, with its portfolio including titles like Signalis, console versions of Slay the Spire, Stray Gods, Forager, and Moonscars.