Fans react to the Annapurna Interactive implosion, and it's not pretty

Indie game fans have been taken aback by events at Annapurna Interactive, as the entire game division's staff resigned en masse after failing to agree to terms with owner Megan Ellison. It marks a turning point for the innovative game publisher see as a bastion of 'arthouse' design in the games industry, and it has rocked many fans.

Megan Ellison, founder of Annapurna Pictures, created the game division with the aim of crafting contemporary, thoughtful and inventive video games. The aim was to put artists first and develop the aesthetic and language of video games in new, interesting ways. In recent years Annapurna Interactive has published some of the best indie gaming , challenging titles, such as Kentucky Route Zero, What Remains of Edith Finch, Outer Wilds and cat-adventure Stray .

Set against the backdrop of an industry in crisis, where every week more redundancies are announced, and around 2,000 jobs at Microsoft's game division alone have been lost this year, it's a very Annapurna thing for its staff to walk out rather than wait to be downsized.

The cause for the exodus came after plans by Megan Ellison to splinter the gaming division into an independent entity were opposed, and negotiations led by president Nathan Gary fell apart, and all 25 members of Annapurna Interactive collectively resigned.

"This was one of the hardest decisions we have ever had to make and we did not take this action lightly," said Gary in a statement to Bloomberg . While it looks like plans to spin the gaming division off are happening, for now a former executive at Epic Games, Hector Sanchez, has been hired to maintain order and keep partner studios on track.

None of this has gone down well with fans of Annapurna and its games. There remains a degree of chaos around the situation, especially for a publisher built on trust and putting needs of artists first. While the arrival of Hector Sanchez has eased partner studios concerns, many fans are left questioning if what remains of Annapurna Interactive is really the same as before. Read the fan-Tweets below: