Last week, Humble Games “restructured” and reportedly laid off its 36-person team. The publisher, part of IGN-owned Humble Bundle, has begun helping developers release games. In 2017 and published notable games such as Kill the needle and indicatedThe fallout from the layoffs has left developers working with the publisher uncertain about many plans for future games, putting their console ports in jeopardy.
Amir Fassihi, studio director of Dead Mage, the team behind the game in development Legendary Wizard 2, He is worried that the restructuring could affect his project. “We don’t want to make any changes,” says Fassihi. The edge“However, we are not sure what changes will be imposed on us because all the members of the publishing team we collaborated with over the past two and a half years have suddenly left.” Now, Dead Mage has to “wait and hope that the new team will offer the diverse publishing services we have come to expect from Humble Games.”
The “new team”, According to a report by Aftermath and three of the developers I spoke to are Powell Group, a video game consulting companyThe Powell Group and Humble Games did not respond to requests for comment. In a post x.com/PlayHumbleGames/status/1815851182977425772″>last weekHumble Games didn't mention Powell Group's involvement, saying only that “supporting our development partners and helping former team members remains our top priority” and that “we are committed to making this transition as seamless as possible for everyone involved.”
Developers are primarily concerned with console ports, with Humble Games appearing to have had a major hand in some of the projects it worked on.
“We are now in a difficult situation when it comes to updating console ports, as both porting and QA support were tied to our deal with Humble,” said Squid Shock Studios, developer of the newly released Bō: Path of the Blue Lotus, x.com/SquidShock/status/1817973044826226968″>he said in a post on Monday. (The game is available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch in addition to Steam.) “We are actively pursuing all available avenues that will allow us to implement updates for the console versions, but we regret to say that this may take some time.” The studio is also planning x.com/SquidShock/status/1818295470034456578″>Launch a Patreon.
Coral Island Developer Stairway Games x.com/coralislandgame/status/1816674043954925590″>He said last week that the impact of the restructuring “remains uncertain for everything console-related.” The game is available for Xbox Series x/S, PlayStation 5, and Steam, with a Switch port in the works. The team has a hotfix for its 1.1 update “about to go live” on Steam, but “we have no idea how to get this update to players on other platforms as we don’t have the backend permission on console platforms to push updates,” Stairway said. “We only have access to the Steam backend.” Stairway is offering Kickstarter backers who are still waiting for the Switch release the option to get a Steam key instead.
“Changing publishers would be a very difficult battle”
Even if developers wanted to make a switch from Humble Games as a result of the restructuring, that could be difficult. “As far as I know, Humble Games is fulfilling its contractual obligations to us, so switching publishers would be an extremely difficult battle,” says Matthew Taylor of Rolling Hills Catch & Release Developer.
Not all studios appear to have been significantly affected, and things seem to be looking up for developers since the restructuring. Cody Greenhalge, technical director at #blud Developer Exit 73 Studios tells us The edge that the Powell Group “has worked well with us and we are hopeful that our game will not have any lasting effects from this terrible experience.”
Taylor says Powell Group has created Catch & Release with a new release manager, producer, and back catalog specialist. “It’s still too early to tell how efficiently all these new employees can work together and how quickly they can come on board, but for our game we just need someone to help us submit new updates to Microsoft and manage discounts and events, so I think we’ll be fine,” Taylor says. “If we were working on a game that’s still in development or was only recently released, I’d be a lot more stressed.”
Despite the uncertainties, Humble Games spokesperson Michael Brown said: to Polygon Brown added that “nothing has changed and no developers have had to change their plans for adaptation; all projects are moving forward.” Brown added that “when people see that the new Humble Games team has been brought on board to improve operations and support levels for all developers, all concerns will disappear.”
While things are slowly improving, the situation has been chaotic, with developers unsure of how to move forward with their games. “The layoff of the entire Humble team was the strangest thing I’ve seen in my 20 years of work experience,” says Fassihi. “The fact that we weren’t told anything beforehand and had to read about it on the news makes it even worse.”
