Another video game publisher has reportedly fired all of its staff, the latest example in an increasingly worrying, never-ending procession of firings within the video game industry.
Humble Games, the publishing arm of the much beloved Humble Bundle storefront, fired "all 36 employees" on Monday morning according to a LinkedIn post by former employee Nicola Kwan. The publisher is likely best known for its work on titles such as Slay the Spire, Unsighted and SIGNALIS.
The publisher was acquired by the digital media giant Ziff Davis Inc. back in 2017, which previously announced that an undefined number of employees were let go back in November last year.
Ziff Davis Inc. also owns the video game media outlets IGN, Rock Paper Shotgun, and Eurogamer, the latter of which was purchased from former owners ReedPop on the 21st of May this year.
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The 36 former Humble Games employees now take their spot alongside the 11,200 members of the games industry who have lost their jobs this year, bringing the combined total of industry-wide layoffs across 2023 and 2024 to somewhere around 22,000.
In a statement posted on the official Humble Games Twitter account, a spokesperson announced that the "difficult but necessary decision" to fire its staff wouldn't affect the upcoming releases of titles such as Monaco 2 and Wizard of Legend II.
The statement referred to the layoffs as a "restructuring of operations" and that they had no current plans to shutter the publisher permanently.
Former creative lead at Humble Games Chris Radley countered the statement on LinkedIn, stating in turn that "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."
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Aftermath also obtained a copy of the call in which Ziff Davis president Steve Horowitz broke the news to the Humble Games staff, during which he specified that the consultancy firm The Powell Group would finish any outstanding work following the layoffs.
And yet, it somehow gets worse. According to both Chris Radley and Larian Studios' director of publishing Michael Douse, the previously mentioned statement posted on the Humble Games Twitter account may have actually be AI generated. Guess it would probably be kind of hard to have a human type up a statement when you don't currently employ any.
Whoever is actually left at Humble Games did deny the allegation, so we'll have to wait and see if there are any further developments on that front. At the very least it proves that the statement was absolutely pants if AI detection software mistook its lifeless, robotic corporate-speak for something artificially generated.
It probably goes without saying at this point, but the video game industry isn't in the best of shape right now. As the bigwigs at the top of the food chain continue to rake in millions of dollars in bonuses every year, it's starting to become more and more obvious that the people who actually work on the games we play are the industry's least valued members.
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This will undoubtedly not be the last set of firings within the industry this year. In all honesty it probably won't even be the final string of firings this month, even though the video game industry is projected to generate over $282 billion in revenue this year alone.
At this point in time, the best we can do is wish those who have been affected the best of luck in securing jobs at other companies as quickly as possible. You all deserved better, and I hope you at least know that tens of thousands of us are acutely aware of and appreciate the work you've put into the games that we love. I'll be looking out for all of your names in the credits of the next titles you work on.