Humble Games owner reportedly tried to sell the publisher twice before turning to mass layoffs and a third party to help "manage the slate" (2024)

Humble Games' parent company, Ziff Davis, reportedly tried to sell the game publisher twice before rolling out mass layoffs and is now apparently turning to a third-party company to help "manage the slate" going forward.

Layoffs were first reported yesterday by Humble Games team members on social media, and the "restructuring of operations" was later confirmed in an official statement that called the decision "difficult but necessary." This apparently comes after those attempted sales of the publisher, according to a new report from Aftermath, which claims to have obtained a recording of a meeting in which the president of Ziff Davis' technology and shopping division, Steve Horowitz, spoke to the Humble Games team.

In the meeting, Horowitz allegedly pointed to rising costs and delays and said that an "additional millions increase in development expenses coupled with even longer delays in bringing titles to market" had been observed during "our attempt to sell over the past couple of months," which was clearly unsuccessful.

Elaborating further, Horowitz apparently said that the goal of restructuring Humble Games is to provide "the best cost-effective way to make sure that the games see the market, our existing slate sees market," as well as support "the developers that are associated with it." To do this, the company is reportedly turning to "a third party to help us manage the slate moving forward, as well as the back catalog," therefore impacting "all roles" at Humble Games itself. Aftermath claims this third party is The Powell Group – which has previously worked with studios including NetEase Games and Torn Banner Studios – but this is yet to be officially confirmed.

Speaking to GamesRadar+ previously, a PR representative could not comment on how many people at Humble Games had been affected but said, "operations will continue as normal," and all released games will continue to be supported while upcoming ones will still move forward. The representative also claimed that developers won't be affected, and they will be contacted by the Humble Games team.

These changes at Humble Games have been a huge shock. Just last week, the stunning hand-drawn Metroidvania game Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus – which was developed by Squid Shock Studios but published by Humble Games – was released to very positive reviews on Steam. Sadly though, layoffs in the games industry have been rampant lately, with thousands of jobs affected.

As catastrophic layoffs rattle the games industry, FPS legend John Romero says "I've never seen anything like we're seeing now."

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