Annapurna Games, LLC (

trade name A trade name, trading name, or business name, is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is a "fictitious" business name. Registering the fictitious name w ...

: Annapurna Interactive) is an American

video game publisher A video game publisher is a company that publishes video games that have been developed either internally by the publisher or externally by a video game developer. They often finance the development, sometimes by paying a video game developer ...

. The company is a division of

Annapurna Pictures Annapurna Pictures is an independent American media company founded by Megan Ellison in 2011, that specializes in film production, live theatre production, television through its Annapurna Television division, and video game publishing through i ...

, and was founded in 2016. Notable games released by the company include ''

Donut County ''Donut County'' is an indie video game developed by American indie designer Ben Esposito and published by Annapurna Interactive. In the game, the player moves a hole to swallow objects, which makes the hole increase in size. The concept origina ...

'', ''

Kentucky Route Zero ''Kentucky Route Zero'' is a point-and-click adventure game developed by Cardboard Computer and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was first revealed in 2011 via the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and is separated into five acts th ...

'', '' Outer Wilds'', ''

Sayonara Wild Hearts ''Sayonara Wild Hearts'' is a music-based action game created by Swedish developer Simogo and published by Annapurna Interactive. Described as a "pop album video game", ''Sayonara Wild Hearts'' follows the story of a heartbroken young woman thr ...

'', ''

Wattam ''Wattam'' is a 2019 puzzle-platform game developed by Funomena and published by Annapurna Interactive. It was designed by Keita Takahashi, better known for creating the ''Katamari Damacy'' series, and was released for PlayStation 4 and Windows ...

'', ''

What Remains of Edith Finch ''What Remains of Edith Finch'' is a first-person adventure game developed by Giant Sparrow and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was released in April 2017 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One; for Nintendo Switch in ...

'', '' Telling Lies'', ''

Neon White ''Neon White'' is a first-person shooter and puzzle-platforming game developed by Angel Matrix and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was released for Microsoft Windows and the Nintendo Switch on June 16, 2022. It was released on PlaySt ...

'' and '' Stray''.

History

The company was founded as a division of

on December 1, 2016 as Annapurna's attempt to expand into the video game industry. The company's early staff was composed of existing Annapurna executives, producer Neale Hemrajani and Technology Head James Masi along with several video game veterans, including Nathan Gary, Deborah Mars, Hector Sanchez, and Jeff Legaspi, who had worked in

Sony Interactive Entertainment Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), formerly known as Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE), is a multinational video game and digital entertainment company wholly owned by multinational conglomerate Sony. The SIE Group is made up of two legal co ...

and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. Jenova Chen also served as the company's advisor. The company aimed to publish games that are "personal, emotional, and original". On the day of establishment, the company announced several publishing deals it had signed with several independent developers. Some of the first games published by the company included ''

Gorogoa ''Gorogoa'' is a puzzle video game developed by Jason Roberts and published by Annapurna Interactive. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch, and iOS on 14 December 2017, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in March 2018, and shortl ...

'', ''

'', and ''

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

''. In 2017, Annapurna announced that it would begin publishing more games, which included '' The Artful Escape'', '' Ashen'', and '' Telling Lies''. In May 2020, it was announced that Nathan Vella, former president of

Capybara Games Capybara Games is an independent game studio based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The studio was founded in 2003 from a collection of Toronto IGDA members. The company is most known for developing 2011's '' Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP' ...

, had joined the company as an executive. In October 2020, Annapurna established an internal development studio in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

. In March 2022, video game journalism

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

channel ''

People Make Games ''People Make Games'' (PMG) is a British investigative video game journalism YouTube channel. The channel focuses on the developers and people who make video games. ''People Make Games'' has reported on topics like video game crunch, outsourc ...

'' reported on three video game studios publishing under Annapurna Interactive — Mountains, Fullbright, and

Funomena Robin Hunicke (; born March 15, 1973) is an American video game designer and producer. She is a professor of game design at UC Santa Cruz and the co-founder of Funomena. Hunicke began her career at Electronic Arts where she worked on multiple ...

. In all three cases, employees reportedly reached out to Annapurna Interactive, addressing concerns regarding

abuse Abuse is the improper usage or treatment of a thing, often to unfairly or improperly gain benefit. Abuse can come in many forms, such as: physical or verbal maltreatment, injury, assault, violation, rape, unjust practices, crimes, or other t ...

and a toxic work environment being created by the studio founders. In hopes of getting Annapurna Interactive to mediate, employees stated that the publisher was siding mostly with the founders in question. According to one former studio employee, representatives of Annapurna Interactive had been quoted responding that "without strong personalities, games don't get made." Chris Bratt of ''People Make Games'' saw these incidents as part of a greater pattern of

auteur An auteur (; , 'author') is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded but personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, which thus manifests the director's unique ...

culture that can be found across the independent film and video game industry. Two limited edition box sets containing the games ''

'', ''

'', '' Outer Wilds'', ''

'', ''

'', '' Telling Lies'', and ''

'', celebrating the first five years of the publisher, were released in collaboration with

iam8bit iam8bit, Inc. is a media production company, creative think tank, policy institute, and art exhibition based in Los Angeles, California. Development iam8bit was originally developed by video game and tech journalist Jon M. Gibson, in the su ...

for the PlayStation 4 in late 2020.

Games

References

External links

* {{Official website, https://annapurnainteractive.com/ Companies based in Los Angeles 2016 establishments in California Video game companies established in 2016 Video game companies of the United States Video game publishers American companies established in 2016 Apple Design Awards recipients