Today Humble Games, publisher of indie hits like Signalis, Wizard of Legend, and Temtem, informed employees of layoffs that will impact the whole company, leaving its staff of 36 jobless.
Laid-off workers took to LinkedIn to relay what management told them in a morning meeting, which Aftermath has obtained a recording of. In the meeting, Steve Horowitz, president of parent company Ziff Davis’ technology and shopping division, pointed to long delays and rising costs as pervasive issues faced by Humble Games. He went on to say that Ziff had attempted to sell Humble Games twice, but that “neither attempt created significant demand, and unfortunately neither attempt created a viable offer or an outcome."
As a result, he explained, employees are being let go, and remaining projects will be carried over the finish line by a third-party company called The Powell Group.
"We continue to see the cost rise, delays continue, and during the sale process or our attempt to sell over the past couple of months, we've seen an additional millions increase in development expenses coupled with even longer delays in bringing titles to market,” Horowitz told employees. “Given all this, we've made a very tough but necessary decision to restructure all of Humble Games with the goal of providing the best cost-effective way to make sure that the games see the market, our existing slate sees market, and supporting the developers that are associated with it. As such, 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."
A spokesperson for Humble Games told Aftermath that this is a restructuring, not a closure, mirroring Humble Games’ statement on the matter on Twitter. However, considering that all employees are being laid off and a third-party company is taking over their duties, what remains will be Humble Games in name only.
Former employees are incensed by what they perceive to be damage control tactics on Ziff Davis’ part.
"Ziff is trying to spread the idea that it's a restructuring to save face, but that's a lie," one former Humble Games employee, who was granted anonymity to avoid potentially voiding a severance agreement, told Aftermath. "No one from HG survived the layoffs, nor will they have anything to do with game launches moving forward."
Chris Radley, a former Humble Games creative lead who left the company at the end of 2022, spelled things out even more clearly on LinkedIn.
"Operations have been handed off to a third party consultancy. NO staff are left," Radley wrote. "Do not believe this tailored 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 it's so disrespectful."
Humble Games was a publisher spun off from Humble Bundle, a charity-centric storefront that was acquired by IGN in 2017 and which has not been impacted by today’s cuts. More recently, IGN purchased the Gamer Network of sites – which includes Eurogamer, Rock Paper Shotgun, GamesIndustry.biz, and VG247 – for an undisclosed sum, leading to immediate layoffs and the gutting of Dicebreaker, a beloved board game site. Former Humble Games employees to whom Aftermath spoke believe that these cuts are less tied up in that side of the business and more the end result of a media company failing to understand how to run a video game publisher.
"The business models were just incompatible with each other,” a former Humble Games employee told Aftermath. “Ziff is very good at owning a lot of media and increasing revenue in advertising, and Humble Games publishing was just not something that agreed with their business model. They needed money. They needed it now. They wanted to see an immediate increase in revenue after investing cash into a business, and unfortunately that's just not how games works."
Another former Humble Games employee told Aftermath: “Ziff Davis does not understand the world of game development – and the principle that when you invest money, a game is not released in six months but takes time to be done – and were starting to not like this when they understood its workings, so with their stock going down, they simply decided they did not want to be in that business anymore. Their decision was not rational and will really hurt indie development in the long run, on top of their employees and the project in development.”
Former employees were surprised by Ziff’s decision to lay everybody off, with some hoping today’s meeting would instead be about a sale. That said, there were signs that trouble was afoot: Late last year, Humble Games was hit with layoffs, and former employees say that this year saw the company fail to sign any projects for 2026 or 2027, a conspicuous gap in the calendar considering the kind of lead time game releases require.
Former employees are feeling crushed by this latest turn of events, a painfully jarring conclusion to a project they took immense pride in despite the ups and downs.
"We were very charity-oriented. Humble Bundle itself raised a quarter of a billion dollars for charity, and I know a portion of that was due to Humble Games,” said one former employee. "We looked for people who didn't just want to be in games, who didn't just want to be in some random indie games publisher, but people that very much exemplified those values.”
“Everyone cared for each other, taking on work of their colleagues to help when needed, always taking into consideration what could hurt or impact their colleagues and trying to ease it before it even happened,” said another former employee. “And this was reflected back to the way we worked with the indie devs, providing honest feedback without imposing creative changes, respecting and trusting in their game visions, not going by the letter of the contract when it came to [approving] milestones, as everyone knows how game devs work and how sometimes things takes a bit longer before becoming good. … This was truly a unique publisher with an amazing cast of people, and I am not sure that a similar publishing structure exists.”
