llaura, dreamfeel, annapurna, 13 sep 24

heyyy, it's llaura. considering the HUGE role Annapurna played with our lil studio and with If Found I want to share a few thoughts off the cuff. I don't have any insight or knowledge of what happened beyond what's public, it's not a statement or anything so please don't quote it anywhere such as in an article. it's really not my place to comment. these are just some hopes for the future and mostly of all just sending my best wishes to the team that resigned.

there were so so many great game developers, producers, etc at annapurna interactive. and I was always surprised and impressed by how many hats they all wore and how few they were in total. it really felt more like an indie studio itself.

the best credit I can give them is the lineup of games they released over 7+ years, which was v arguably the most interesting and diverse lineup of games from any publisher in that time.

my other main thought, is just a hope that big bro Annapurna continues existing in the indie space and in investing and believing in smaller interactive projects/games as well as the bigger and flashier ones. being cool is v overrated, and it's the small games imo that change the world (if more invisibly). that might just be my taste in games talking, but I don't think art is anything without taste.

thankfully Annapurna's statement does mention that they will continue to support the teams whose games are in development (as well as 'new media', which sounds interesting whatever they mean). I understand it's hard to justify spending money on art to accountants, but there's little that's more worthwhile imo.

as humans we kinda default to painting good guys/bad guys but reality is almost always more complex. it's usually just people making the best of complicated situations. clearly whatever happened they all reached an impasse and it was a tough decision all round. so likewise I want to give Annapurna's original management credit too for their role in the games that got made in that time too.

they had the initial spark that saw a future for video games which could be different from the status quo. annapurna swooped in and picked up a (I think) cancelled Edith Finch and Giant Sparrow from Sony as well as the Sony third party subteam that became the foundation of the brilliant AI. But, as an outsider, it's obvious to see that AI wasn't just a one-off when something similarly cool happened with the animated film Nimona as well.

likewise I hope the former annapurna interactive team can continue independently. the amount of experience and knowledge among them all hopefully won't be lost. and hopefully good people will still have jobs.

two cakes! imagine! the more folks trying to make and fund cool art the better. that would be swell.

dreamfeel has gone through changes this Summer too and we'll share more about what we're up to next week.

take care ya'll <3