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Social media has lit up with reports of layoffs at Humble Games, the publishing arm of Humble Bundle, currently owned by Ziff Davis via its subsidiary IGN Entertainment. While the story is still developing, a representative from Humble Games has told GameIndustry.biz that the company is undergoing restructuring.
Nicola Kwan, business developer at Humble Games, posted on Linkedin that 36 employees lost their jobs. “All 36 employees of Humble Games were told that we were being let go and that the company is shutting down,” read Kwan’s post.
However, in a statement Humble Games provided to GamesIndustry.biz, the company says:
“In these challenging economic times for indie game publishing, Humble Games has made the difficult but necessary decision to restructure our operations. 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. Additionally, the restructuring of operations at Humble Games will have no impact on operations at Humble Bundle.”
“Restructuring” can sometimes just be another word for “substantial layoffs,” but it appears as though IGN Entertainment intends to keep the company going in some form. Humble Games stated that they plan on continuing to support the developers under their label, which seems to imply some continuation of the business.
However, developers behind games published by the company, such as Signalis and Unsighted, seem to have not been informed of the decision beforehand. There are some questions about the listings for their games, as many of those under the shuttered label, Adult Swim Games, faced delisting earlier this year. Via Twitter, Tiana Pixel of Studio Pixel Punk said, “Who’s gonna keep the store pages up? We don’t know yet.”
There are a lot of questions remaining that weren’t addressed in Humble Games’ statement. However, the layoffs at the company are among the thousands that have hit the industry with seemingly no end in sight.
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