6 ms·

Inside Annapurna Interactive's Mass Walkout

114 points by samfriedman 2y ago

redundantly 2y ago
I confused Annapurna Interactive with Annapurna Labs. Was lost for a bit there reading the article.
- hilux 2y ago
  Annapurna is a mountain in Nepal. "Only" tenth highest in the world, but with the highest or second-highest fatality rate. That makes it an attractive company name, I guess.
  - hinkley 2y ago
    > highest or second-highest fatality Dramatic irony?
  - dudeinjapan 2y ago
    Maybe we should just look at it and not try to climb it then.
  - blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
    From Wikipedia: > The mountain is named after Annapurna, the Hindu goddess of food and nourishment, who is said to reside there. The name Annapurna is derived from the Sanskrit-language words purna ("filled") and anna ("food"), and can be translated as "everlasting food".[8] Many streams descending from the slopes of the Annapurna Massif provide water for the agricultural fields and pastures located at lower elevations.[9]
    - Sateeshm 2y ago
      It is also a popular name in the south indian boomer generation
  - jajko 2y ago
    It also has one of most spectacular multi week hikes in the world, if not #1, the Annapurna circuit. I was lucky to take it in 2008 with almost nobody on the trail (just right after monsoons in second half of September), took 16 days, around 220km IIRC. No roads built back then although we saw few CAT bulldozers dropped in the impossible places in gorges, I guess part of construction. From absolute tropical jungle, through all other climates to frozen high altitude icy desert and all the way back, top point is 5,400m high. Also at one point hinduism of lowlands switches to buddhism. Wild marihuana growing everywhere. Muktinath just after(before) the highest pass is an important sacred and pilgrimage place for 3 different religions. There is one point in Kali Gandaki gorge where you look left and there is absolute tibetan-style desert with 0 plants, just rocks and dirt, going up to Manang region. You look right and its typical tropical jungle. And in between, in span of maybe 7-8km the whole gradient happens continuously on Annapurna western slopes. Another nice spot is IIRC Marpha where you are looking at almost 5000m pretty much vertical drop on cca top of Dhaulaghiri, its sister 8000m+ peak. Even after 2 weeks of constant exposition to himalayan giants I just stood there in awe. A life changing experience for me due to various factors and also people met. It has a special place in my heart.
    - devoutsalsa 2y ago
      In 5 days I’m flying to Nepal to trek up to Everest Base Camp. I’d also love to do the Annapurna Circuit. Maybe next year :)
      - jajko 2y ago
        I've done that one too, cca 7 years ago. A bit harder variant - 3 passes trek, where EBC is a side hike. Amazing place and whole region too, can't get enough of that country. Other valleys are much more remote seeing only fraction of the main EBC route traffic. If you are not part of organized group (I went solo), without prior booking it may be tricky to find accommodation in Gorak Shep, sort of bottleneck since everybody goes to EBC for morning views on the top of the world and its the closest place. I ended up convincing one of owners of guest house there to let me sleep with them in dining room, it was -10C outside and my sleeping bag would not be up to that, even in dining room it was just above freezing. Wishing you good weather for nice views from Kala Patthar and on Ama Dablam!
btown 2y ago
"You need to think of [Megan] Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about [Annapurna]." -- Bryan Cantrill, on the sins of the father, heavily editorialized. https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=38m24s https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=38m24s
- ethbr1 2y ago
  This seems like a very different scenario -- don't be part of a hobby business that's so low on the owner's radar that they aren't willing to bleed for it. Because if they lose interest and everything explodes, you're out of a job and they're still a billionaire.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    so, 99.9% of all businesses? passion or not a company will gut your position if it means more money or power. But yes, this is an extreme scenario. it sounds (crudely put) like Ellison saw the pandemic, completely retreated for a while, then decided to come back and act like nothing changed and just shuffeled stuff around. Then when her labor decided they wanted to be more independent she sat on her hands. I'm just proud the workers for a rare time could actually just completely walk away. Many issues would be solved almmost overnight if workers could coordinate a joint walkout like this.
    - karlgkk 2y ago
      The majority of businesses are not run by billionaires, in fact most of them are more tightly affiliated than the average large tech company. It's not nearly as simple as you're making it out, and those of us that work in large capital industries (tech), have a very different relationship than the majority of workers in America. I'm not saying we don't share problems, or that they don't have their own issues that are worse, just that your view doesn't reflect the total of reality
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Related: Entire Annapurna Game Team Resigns https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526074 Entire staff of game publisher Annapurna Interactive has reportedly resigned https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41528266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41528266
hinkley 2y ago
Doesn’t seem to be much information here except maybe that the next “Runic Games” but with Annapurna alumni will be called Verset.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  you get the entire story of a collapse of one of the most renowned indie game publishers over the course of ~7 years, a situation where the entire staff of the house walks out, and all you get out of this is "well we'll see what game they release next"? It's a long story, so if you are just wondering about their portfolio, you can skip to the end section "The Future of Annapura".
cen4 2y ago
There is more content being produced than there are eyeballs and time to consume it all. How does such an industry survive? In a very round about manner that has nothing to do with what they say they do. General rule in life - Don't focus on the drama a fucked up environment produces.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  > How does such an industry survive? In a very round about manner that has nothing to do with what they say they do. can you clarify this statement? I just read this as "companies need to make money, creatives aren't focused on money". > Don't focus on the drama a fucked up environment produces. if you somehow found this politics/drama free work environment with no creative tensions whatsoever, congratulations I suppose. Most of us don't have that and are only one whim away from those "dramas" costing us our jobs, even if we keep our heads down.
- rcxdude 2y ago
  > There is more content being produced than there are eyeballs and time to consume it all. There's more than one person can ever experience. But the ratio of production to consumption is still quite small. Most stuff put on the internet is going to be seen by someone (e.g. 95% of youtube videos have at least one view).
  - cen4 2y ago
    Check out the UN report on the Attention Economy. They quote a study that says less than 0.05% of content is consumed by humans. Obviously it has to come from the UN cause such reports wont come from within the entertainment industry which lives in a disconnected la la land.
- Sakos 2y ago
  This affects gamers who want indie games worth playing. So, yeah, why wouldn't we care? They're at least partly responsible for a handful of the best games I've played in the past decade. Their loss can't be understated.
neonsunset 2y ago
Unfortunately, with the recent coverage of Concord by IGN, I don't think any content they put out is to be taken seriously.
seanhunter 2y ago
For reference, Annapurna Interactive are not a mainstream publisher churning out franchise type games, but tend to publish unique games, some of them considered classics: - Outer Wilds - Stray - Lorelei and the laser eyes - Cocoon - Neon White ...and others. https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/annapurnainteractive https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/annapurnainteractiv... This is a real shame for anyone who cares about really distinctive, original games.
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  Depending on the team that walked, this may be a new opportunity. Sounds like this all happened because they worked pretty well without Ellis, but Ellis would come in every now and then and cause a tornado of everything when she did. There's a name for this kind of manager, but it eludes me. Shame they lose the name, but the talent is what makes the company. And I'm sure any small dev will be following them closely on their next venture.
  - plg94 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_management : come in, make a lot of noise, shit everywhere, leave
  - UberFly 2y ago
    As if the "team" will exit together and re-establish as one unit on the other side for the greater good.
    - johnnyanmac 2y ago
      How would you define "the greater good" for a publisher of small-medium scaled games?
  - Sakos 2y ago
    The benefit was the funding that could be provided by Ellis, no? How are they going to make up for that if they make a new company?
lofaszvanitt 2y ago
In gamedev, the only thing that matters, once you have a good product is how to market it. Without exposure your project is dead, no matter the quality of it. Who will talk/write about it and for how much? Yters have steep pricing, and they usually don't give a F about your project. That's why Steam and other similar platforms are a trap. And yet, people protect/love them, like it's the 8th wonder of the world.
- antimemetics 2y ago
  I’ll take YouTube and Steam over the olden days of game „journalism“ any day.
- dxuh 2y ago
  I feel like actually good indie games have a much better chance, because from all I have heard the Steam algorithm actually wants to make money. It will show the game to a bunch of people regardless of the number of wishlists and if it does well, it will show it to more people. Of course Steam can not even do half the work for you, but it's still a much better system than just needing to have enough followers on Twitter or knowing someone at Kotaku or IGN.
  - lofaszvanitt 2y ago
    How, when you have to compete with thousands of games from the same genre? How do you find the outlier amongst the mediocre stuff? Who takes the time to fish out the real gems among the moissanites?
- saghm 2y ago
  > That's why Steam and other similar platforms are a trap. And yet, people protect/love them, like it's the 8th wonder of the world. Sure, if you only look at it from the developer perspective. From the player perspective, having a centralized location to find and download games is massive. I'm not saying there aren't tradeoffs, but looking at it from only one side ignores all of the reasons that it's successful in the first place.
penguin_booze 2y ago
I'm wondering what the genesis of the name Annapurna is. Clearly, it has some Indian grains to it. Pun intended? Maybe.
- titanomachy 2y ago
  It’s the name of a famous mountain in Nepal which is a popular tourism and climbing destination.
  - thoroughburro 2y ago
    This is the often given answer, but is wrong. The company, the mountain, and many other things are named after a Hindu god of food and nourishment. Don’t just mimic the first search result (check its etymology section, instead).
    - titanomachy 2y ago
      Do you know for a fact that the company is named after the goddess rather than the mountain? Otherwise it’s not so different from saying that Everest isn’t a mountain in Nepal, but rather an English Surveyor General of India. Similarly Annapurna the region has much greater recognition amongst non-Hindus than Annapurna the goddess.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

114 points by samfriedman 2y ago

redundantly 2y ago

I confused Annapurna Interactive with Annapurna Labs. Was lost for a bit there reading the article.

hilux 2y ago
Annapurna is a mountain in Nepal. "Only" tenth highest in the world, but with the highest or second-highest fatality rate. That makes it an attractive company name, I guess.
- hinkley 2y ago
  > highest or second-highest fatality Dramatic irony?
- dudeinjapan 2y ago
  Maybe we should just look at it and not try to climb it then.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago
  From Wikipedia: > The mountain is named after Annapurna, the Hindu goddess of food and nourishment, who is said to reside there. The name Annapurna is derived from the Sanskrit-language words purna ("filled") and anna ("food"), and can be translated as "everlasting food".[8] Many streams descending from the slopes of the Annapurna Massif provide water for the agricultural fields and pastures located at lower elevations.[9]
  - Sateeshm 2y ago
    It is also a popular name in the south indian boomer generation
- jajko 2y ago
  It also has one of most spectacular multi week hikes in the world, if not #1, the Annapurna circuit. I was lucky to take it in 2008 with almost nobody on the trail (just right after monsoons in second half of September), took 16 days, around 220km IIRC. No roads built back then although we saw few CAT bulldozers dropped in the impossible places in gorges, I guess part of construction. From absolute tropical jungle, through all other climates to frozen high altitude icy desert and all the way back, top point is 5,400m high. Also at one point hinduism of lowlands switches to buddhism. Wild marihuana growing everywhere. Muktinath just after(before) the highest pass is an important sacred and pilgrimage place for 3 different religions. There is one point in Kali Gandaki gorge where you look left and there is absolute tibetan-style desert with 0 plants, just rocks and dirt, going up to Manang region. You look right and its typical tropical jungle. And in between, in span of maybe 7-8km the whole gradient happens continuously on Annapurna western slopes. Another nice spot is IIRC Marpha where you are looking at almost 5000m pretty much vertical drop on cca top of Dhaulaghiri, its sister 8000m+ peak. Even after 2 weeks of constant exposition to himalayan giants I just stood there in awe. A life changing experience for me due to various factors and also people met. It has a special place in my heart.
  - devoutsalsa 2y ago
    In 5 days I’m flying to Nepal to trek up to Everest Base Camp. I’d also love to do the Annapurna Circuit. Maybe next year :)
    - jajko 2y ago
      I've done that one too, cca 7 years ago. A bit harder variant - 3 passes trek, where EBC is a side hike. Amazing place and whole region too, can't get enough of that country. Other valleys are much more remote seeing only fraction of the main EBC route traffic. If you are not part of organized group (I went solo), without prior booking it may be tricky to find accommodation in Gorak Shep, sort of bottleneck since everybody goes to EBC for morning views on the top of the world and its the closest place. I ended up convincing one of owners of guest house there to let me sleep with them in dining room, it was -10C outside and my sleeping bag would not be up to that, even in dining room it was just above freezing. Wishing you good weather for nice views from Kala Patthar and on Ama Dablam!

btown 2y ago

"You need to think of [Megan] Ellison the way you think of a lawnmower. You don't anthropomorphize your lawnmower, the lawnmower just mows the lawn, you stick your hand in there and it'll chop it off, the end. You don't think 'oh, the lawnmower hates me' -- lawnmower doesn't give a shit about you, lawnmower can't hate you. Don't anthropomorphize the lawnmower. Don't fall into that trap about [Annapurna]." -- Bryan Cantrill, on the sins of the father, heavily editorialized. https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=38m24s https://youtu.be/-zRN7XLCRhc?t=38m24s

ethbr1 2y ago
This seems like a very different scenario -- don't be part of a hobby business that's so low on the owner's radar that they aren't willing to bleed for it. Because if they lose interest and everything explodes, you're out of a job and they're still a billionaire.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- johnnyanmac 2y ago
  so, 99.9% of all businesses? passion or not a company will gut your position if it means more money or power. But yes, this is an extreme scenario. it sounds (crudely put) like Ellison saw the pandemic, completely retreated for a while, then decided to come back and act like nothing changed and just shuffeled stuff around. Then when her labor decided they wanted to be more independent she sat on her hands. I'm just proud the workers for a rare time could actually just completely walk away. Many issues would be solved almmost overnight if workers could coordinate a joint walkout like this.
  - karlgkk 2y ago
    The majority of businesses are not run by billionaires, in fact most of them are more tightly affiliated than the average large tech company. It's not nearly as simple as you're making it out, and those of us that work in large capital industries (tech), have a very different relationship than the majority of workers in America. I'm not saying we don't share problems, or that they don't have their own issues that are worse, just that your view doesn't reflect the total of reality

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Related: Entire Annapurna Game Team Resigns https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526074 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41526074 Entire staff of game publisher Annapurna Interactive has reportedly resigned https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41528266 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41528266

hinkley 2y ago

Doesn’t seem to be much information here except maybe that the next “Runic Games” but with Annapurna alumni will be called Verset.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
you get the entire story of a collapse of one of the most renowned indie game publishers over the course of ~7 years, a situation where the entire staff of the house walks out, and all you get out of this is "well we'll see what game they release next"? It's a long story, so if you are just wondering about their portfolio, you can skip to the end section "The Future of Annapura".

cen4 2y ago

There is more content being produced than there are eyeballs and time to consume it all. How does such an industry survive? In a very round about manner that has nothing to do with what they say they do. General rule in life - Don't focus on the drama a fucked up environment produces.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
> How does such an industry survive? In a very round about manner that has nothing to do with what they say they do. can you clarify this statement? I just read this as "companies need to make money, creatives aren't focused on money". > Don't focus on the drama a fucked up environment produces. if you somehow found this politics/drama free work environment with no creative tensions whatsoever, congratulations I suppose. Most of us don't have that and are only one whim away from those "dramas" costing us our jobs, even if we keep our heads down.
rcxdude 2y ago
> There is more content being produced than there are eyeballs and time to consume it all. There's more than one person can ever experience. But the ratio of production to consumption is still quite small. Most stuff put on the internet is going to be seen by someone (e.g. 95% of youtube videos have at least one view).
- cen4 2y ago
  Check out the UN report on the Attention Economy. They quote a study that says less than 0.05% of content is consumed by humans. Obviously it has to come from the UN cause such reports wont come from within the entertainment industry which lives in a disconnected la la land.
Sakos 2y ago
This affects gamers who want indie games worth playing. So, yeah, why wouldn't we care? They're at least partly responsible for a handful of the best games I've played in the past decade. Their loss can't be understated.

neonsunset 2y ago

Unfortunately, with the recent coverage of Concord by IGN, I don't think any content they put out is to be taken seriously.

seanhunter 2y ago

For reference, Annapurna Interactive are not a mainstream publisher churning out franchise type games, but tend to publish unique games, some of them considered classics: - Outer Wilds - Stray - Lorelei and the laser eyes - Cocoon - Neon White ...and others. https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/annapurnainteractive https://store.steampowered.com/publisher/annapurnainteractiv... This is a real shame for anyone who cares about really distinctive, original games.

johnnyanmac 2y ago
Depending on the team that walked, this may be a new opportunity. Sounds like this all happened because they worked pretty well without Ellis, but Ellis would come in every now and then and cause a tornado of everything when she did. There's a name for this kind of manager, but it eludes me. Shame they lose the name, but the talent is what makes the company. And I'm sure any small dev will be following them closely on their next venture.
- plg94 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_management https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seagull_management : come in, make a lot of noise, shit everywhere, leave
- UberFly 2y ago
  As if the "team" will exit together and re-establish as one unit on the other side for the greater good.
  - johnnyanmac 2y ago
    How would you define "the greater good" for a publisher of small-medium scaled games?
- Sakos 2y ago
  The benefit was the funding that could be provided by Ellis, no? How are they going to make up for that if they make a new company?

lofaszvanitt 2y ago

In gamedev, the only thing that matters, once you have a good product is how to market it. Without exposure your project is dead, no matter the quality of it. Who will talk/write about it and for how much? Yters have steep pricing, and they usually don't give a F about your project. That's why Steam and other similar platforms are a trap. And yet, people protect/love them, like it's the 8th wonder of the world.

antimemetics 2y ago
I’ll take YouTube and Steam over the olden days of game „journalism“ any day.
dxuh 2y ago
I feel like actually good indie games have a much better chance, because from all I have heard the Steam algorithm actually wants to make money. It will show the game to a bunch of people regardless of the number of wishlists and if it does well, it will show it to more people. Of course Steam can not even do half the work for you, but it's still a much better system than just needing to have enough followers on Twitter or knowing someone at Kotaku or IGN.
- lofaszvanitt 2y ago
  How, when you have to compete with thousands of games from the same genre? How do you find the outlier amongst the mediocre stuff? Who takes the time to fish out the real gems among the moissanites?
saghm 2y ago
> That's why Steam and other similar platforms are a trap. And yet, people protect/love them, like it's the 8th wonder of the world. Sure, if you only look at it from the developer perspective. From the player perspective, having a centralized location to find and download games is massive. I'm not saying there aren't tradeoffs, but looking at it from only one side ignores all of the reasons that it's successful in the first place.

penguin_booze 2y ago

I'm wondering what the genesis of the name Annapurna is. Clearly, it has some Indian grains to it. Pun intended? Maybe.

titanomachy 2y ago
It’s the name of a famous mountain in Nepal which is a popular tourism and climbing destination.
- thoroughburro 2y ago
  This is the often given answer, but is wrong. The company, the mountain, and many other things are named after a Hindu god of food and nourishment. Don’t just mimic the first search result (check its etymology section, instead).
  - titanomachy 2y ago
    Do you know for a fact that the company is named after the goddess rather than the mountain? Otherwise it’s not so different from saying that Everest isn’t a mountain in Nepal, but rather an English Surveyor General of India. Similarly Annapurna the region has much greater recognition amongst non-Hindus than Annapurna the goddess.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]