Brandoville is a company used for art and animation support in games such as Age of Empires 4 and Assassin's Creed Shadows.
At the centre of the video is Christa Sydney, who worked at the company from 2019 until 2024 and says she was subjected to mental and physical abuse by commissioner Kwan Cherry Lai, wife of Brandoville CEO Ken Lai, who ran day-to-day operations.
Jar of Sparks, the studio founded in 2022 by Xbox veteran Jerry Hook in partnership with publisher NetEase, says it is halting development on its debut game in the hope of securing new funding.
Three games budgets have been revealed in the document:
Black Ops 3 - Three year dev time, "over $450 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle"
2007 Modern Warfare - “Infinity Ward developed the game over several years and has spent over $640 million in development costs throughout the game’s lifecycle.”
Black Ops Cold War - “Treyarch and Raven Software took years to create the game with a team of hundreds of creatives. They ultimately spent over $700 million in development costs over the game’s lifecycle.”
According to the rumour, Private Division's buyer was Texas-based private equity firm Haveli Investments. Haveli reportedly then struck a deal with ex-Annapurna employees to fund their new company and place them in charge of distributing the former Private Division titles. These are include the Kerbal Space Program series, upcoming Lord of the Rings farming game Tales of the Shire, and Pokémon developer Game Freak's new action-adventure IP.
Bloomberg adds the new arrangement will likely result in a number of layoffs among the approximately 20 Private Division employees Haveli inherited as part of its purchase, although specifics are reportedly still to be finalised.