News Game Workers Unite blasts Telltale over surprise layoffs

[lashman]

Game Workers Unite blasts Telltale over surprise layoffs

A pro-union organization has issued a scathing statement over Telltale Games’ treatment of its employees, 250 of whom were terminated without notice or severance Friday when the studio announced that it was closing down.

Game Workers Unite placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of Telltale’s executives, describing the management of the studio as “incompetent” and “exploitative.”

“We know that the management disregards their workers,” the organization said in the statement issued Saturday. “Several reports have continually highlighted the working conditions at Telltale, demonstrating that this is more of the ongoing prioritization of board members and shareholders that has existed since the studio’s founding – always to the detriment of their employees.”


Former Telltale narrative designer Emily Grace Buck explained on Twitter that none of the approximately 250 laid off employees received any prior notice or severance pay, and that many were contract employees who aren’t eligible for unemployment benefits in the U.S.

Telltale was hiring new employees as recently as a week prior to the announcement, and at least one of these had relocated across the country to take the job.

Several studios have reached out via Twitter and the hashtag #telltalejobs to help them find new places to work. Ubisoft San Francisco, the studio behind Rocksmith and South Park: The Fractured But Whole is hosting an impromptu jobs fair in San Rafael Monday:

But Game Workers Unite say it shouldn’t come to this, and that unionization is the way to protect individual developers from financial insecurity.

“We cannot continue to just be reactive to these events, it is a losing battle. We can’t just send out job lists after every major studio closure. We have to be proactive. We have to be unionized before these disasters escalate too far.”

 

[Alcoholikaust]

Sounding more like bad business practices lead to this-not looking out for the welfare of your employees as the major one (besides trying to make 8 games at a time that more people youtube than actually “play”)

Hope they can move on to bigger and better things. Surprised no one has come out to flat out absorb them entirely tbh. (THQ Nordic/Microsoft being developer-hungry these days)

 

[lashman]

yeah, but on the other hand - i imagine if the workers had any say in those decisions they wouldn't have decided to work on 70 games at the same time ... probably

but yeah, hope everyone can find a job now ... especially those people who moved cross country just a week ago

 

[Alcoholikaust]

yeah, but on the other hand - i imagine if the workers had any say in those decisions they wouldn't have decided to work on 70 games at the same time ... probably

but yeah, hope everyone can find a job now ... especially those people who moved cross country just a week ago

absolutely

focus on one or 2 things at a time and make it shine. don’t spread you resources and money too thin with 8 projects

 

[lashman]

yeah, exactly .... it's kinda sad that after the huge success of TWD (and VERY mild success of TWAU) the management apparently started to just buy licences left and right .... like at one point they had 2 or 3 games overlapping ffs ... as in: before all the episodes of the previous ones were out, they were already releasing the first (or even second) episode of another game ... that's just INSANE!

i guess they (the management, i mean) thought they'd just throw everything out there and hope something sticks (is as successful as TWD S1)

 

[Nahkapukki]

The whole thing reeks of mismanagement for me. It's not the workers fault that they were overflowing with projects. I think this here is a case of not having a suit making decisions but a group of people who thought "oh this would be a cool thing to do.

 

[shepcommandr]

yeah, exactly .... it's kinda sad that after the huge success of TWD (and VERY mild success of TWAU) the management apparently started to just buy licences left and right .... like at one point they had 2 or 3 games overlapping ffs ... as in: before all the episodes of the previous ones were out, they were already releasing the first (or even second) episode of another game ... that's just INSANE!

i guess they (the management, i mean) thought they'd just throw everything out there and hope something sticks (is as successful as TWD S1)

Most of the stories are saying that TWAU didn't actually make money.
I have to assume that the GoT license was the first nail in the coffin though. That was probably their worst series, and they likely overpaid to have dinklebot and co in the series... even if they were brief cameos to tie to the TV series.
TWD S1 was sort of an anomaly, so I'm not sure why the old management regime decided to expand so rapidly after a single success. But most of the employees are saying that people knew that management had issues, and made poor choices, but a lot just genuinely loved making these games. Which is sort of the sad part tbh.

 

[lashman]

But most of the employees are saying that people knew that management had issues, and made poor choices, but a lot just genuinely loved making these games. Which is sort of the sad part tbh.

all the more reason to let workers decide ... pretty much every single time a dev goes under - everyone who actually worked there says they knew for the longest time things were really bad ... so why let the suits decide on things if they keep fucking up over and over and over and over again? seems counterproductive imho

 

[shepcommandr]

all the more reason to let workers decide ... pretty much every single time a dev goes under - everyone who actually worked there says they knew for the longest time things were really bad ... so why let the suits decide on things if they keep fucking up over and over and over and over again? seems counterproductive imho

Gotta assume that people left after TWD S1 because they saw issues.
Not everyone has that option though.

 

[lashman]

yeah, i know ... exactly ... not everyone can just up and leave when they see stuff going badly .... that's even more reason to let the actual workers have a say in what's going on with the company, not just a few suits who most of the time probably don't even care and even if everything goes down the drain - they'll always land on their feet, probably with a huge bonus to go with it too

 

[Ed Comment]

Sounding more like bad business practices lead to this-not looking out for the welfare of your employees as the major one (besides trying to make 8 games at a time that more people youtube than actually “play”)

Hope they can move on to bigger and better things. Surprised no one has come out to flat out absorb them entirely tbh. (THQ Nordic/Microsoft being developer-hungry these days)

I think with their entire history being licensed IP and the whole internal culture being booty. Both THQ Nordic and MS likely would have passed on it. Especially if they acquired them and then cleaned house on the management team because they decide to take a stance that it needs to be rebooted at the top due to management being responsible for the issues. You're still talking a big chunk of workforce being cut and that's still not good news. Sucks because what they did was great most of the time. But that's one of the big issues with gaming in that if the top has no idea what it's doing, then the workers below suffer for it.

 

[lashman]

if only there was a way for the workers to band together and give a boot to all the shitty management ... i bet most (if not all) of the studios that had to be closed down would still be around making awesome games

 

[shepcommandr]

if only there was a way for the workers to band together and give a boot to all the shitty management ... i bet most (if not all) of the studios that had to be closed down would still be around making awesome games

Not really what unions do though.
There's no scenario where employees rise up and dethrone their mgmt.
Also, "Awesome games" =/= profitable games. There's plenty of studios that were shuttered that made cool stuff that just didn't resonate w/enough people to make the studio sustainable. There's some studios that just operate in bad locations, which make production significantly higher.

 

[lashman]

Not really want unions do though.

yeah, i know that ... didn't say it was

There's no scenario where employees rise up and dethrone their mgmt.

unfortunately ... but there should be

 

[shepcommandr]

unfortunately ... but there should be

lol

Games industry needs a lot of things... employees rising up against management, probably isn't it.
Realistic timelines, budgets, software MSRP would be a good start.
People looking at historical trends and learning from past mistakes would be a nice follow up.
First set would likely help the employees, with both wages and QoL, although realistically it would shrink the size of the industry since you'd have a lot fewer game devs running w/1000+ people.

 

[lashman]

that wouldn't be a bad thing, you know