Indie Publisher Humble Games on the Brink
– 2 min read
Humble Games is apparently going out of business. Although the company's official line is that it is restructuring, reports suggest that all staff have been made redundant and a consultancy will take care of their final games.
Yesterday evening, reports began to circulate that indie publisher Humble Games, a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, had laid off its entire team of 36 employees. The reports were mainly circulating on career networks, where the closure of the entire department was mentioned. Shortly afterwards, Humble Games issued a statement that spoke of challenging economic times for indie game publishing and the difficult decision to restructure its operations. There was no mention of closure, just a nebulous reference to a 'transition'. "In short, no, the company is not shutting down but is undergoing restructuring. Past and ongoing projects and all upcoming releases are not affected and will continue to be supported and published by Humble Games," it is said. Humble Bundle is not affected.
Chris Radley, Illustration Art Director at UVS Games and ex Humble Games (Creative Lead) employee, commented on LinkedIn: "I want it to be made abundantly clear, this is NOT a restructuring of operations. This is a total shutdown of #HumbleGames. Operations have been handed off to a third party consultancy. NO staff are left. DO NOT believe this AI message written by the parent company of Humble Games, Ziff Davis, who are trying to mitigate pushback. 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. Every ex-employee is being gaslit by this narrative and its so disrespectful."
Further reports from GamesBeat and Aftermath, based in part on interviews with those involved, shed some light on the matter. According to these reports, Ziff Davis had already tried to sell Humble Games twice, but had failed to find a buyer. Existing projects will be completed, overseen by a consultancy The Powell Group. No new projects have been signed for 2026 and 2027.
Humble Games was founded in 2017 and has released close to 50 indie games, including Signalis by rose-engine from Hamburg. Its biggest successes have been Temtem, Coral Island, Unpacked and Forager. Humble Games plans to release at least seven more games, including Wizard of Legend 2 by Dead Mage, Monaco 2 by Pocketwatch Games and Never Alone 2 by E-Line Media.
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