News Telltale is shutting down

[lashman]

The Walking Dead studio Telltale hit with layoffs

Telltale Games, creators of episodic adventure games like The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and Batman: The Enemy Within, laid off a large number of its staff today. The company will retain a small team of around 25. According to multiple sources The Verge spoke with, employees were let go with no severance.

The final season of Telltale’s award-winning series, The Walking Dead, kicked off last month. The second episode is slated to launch next week.

The layoffs come a few months after revelations that Telltale was a studio mired in toxic management that included employees subjected to constant overwork. Once an industry darling, working on iconic brands like Game of Thrones and Minecraft, Telltale quickly spiraled. In June, co-founder and former CEO Kevin Bruner sued the company seeking recovery of financial damages. Telltale described the suit as “meritless” and “an apparent means of extracting revenge on a company already under financial strain.”

In a post on his personal site today titled “Telltale closure,” Bruner wrote that that he is saddened for the people who are losing their jobs at a studio they love. And I’m also saddened at the loss of a studio that green-lit crazy ideas that no one else would consider.”

This isn’t the first time Telltale has been subject to layoffs; last November the company laid off 90 employees, approximately 25 percent of its workforce. “The realities of the environment we face moving forward demand we evolve, as well, reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team,” CEO Pete Hawley said at the time.

a sad day indeed

some more info:

 

[pahamrick]

Man. There's some TT games I legit like. I really need to try and get the stuff I'm missing in case it starts getting pulled.

 

[brau]

I hope all the people affected by this land on their feet. There was a lot of very good talent there. They really revamped a lot of the quality. Its too bad to see them go.

 

[pahamrick]

I hope all the people affected by this land on their feet. There was a lot of very good talent there. They really revamped a lot of the quality. Its too bad to see them go.

Yep It kills me so much of the stuff was a money sink and didn't make money. The Wolf Among Us was GREAT.

 

[brau]

I hope all the people affected by this land on their feet. There was a lot of very good talent there. They really revamped a lot of the quality. Its too bad to see them go.

Yep It kills me so much of the stuff was a money sink and didn't make money. The Wolf Among Us was GREAT.

Well, i mentioned this on Twitter, but having to pay bills in what is THE most expensive area in the US probably didn't help.

 

[pahamrick]

I hope all the people affected by this land on their feet. There was a lot of very good talent there. They really revamped a lot of the quality. Its too bad to see them go.

Yep It kills me so much of the stuff was a money sink and didn't make money. The Wolf Among Us was GREAT.

Well, i mentioned this on Twitter, but having to pay bills in what is THE most expensive area in the US probably didn't help.

Yep, not to mention I imagine some of those licensed properties weren't cheap either.

 

[Chariot]

Genuinely shocked. I always had the impression that Telltale was doing well, because they were buying licences like there's no tomorrow, but it seems that this was just an escape forwards.

 

[brau]

I honestly have no idea how they acquire and manage the licenses. Its common to pay a fee. But in their case, i have no idea. I think maybe they have some documentation on it.

 

[Deepo]

Did not see that coming. Not sure what to say, really. Hope the affected people land on their feet. Pretty much played all their games, so this is genuinely sad.

 

[Nahkapukki]

That's out of nowhere for sure. I thought they were doing fine considering all the projects they had going on.

 

[Panda Pedinte]

What, TT shutting down and closing wasn't something that I was expecting to see. They released so many games that I always felt they were profitable even though mostly of them didn't sold so well.

 

[lashman]

What, TT shutting down and closing wasn't something that I was expecting to see. They released so many games that I always felt they were profitable even though mostly of them didn't sold so well.

yeah, exactly ... same! completely out of the blue!

 

[Nahkapukki]

Wonder how much they took on to themselves with the publishing. Reckon that was a bit too much for their finances when added in with the cost of licenses for all the licensed games they were making. And how many even bought all the games completely?

 

[lashman]

holy cow ...

(click to zoom in)

 

[Nahkapukki]

Yikes... Pretty much guessed as much tho. They weren't really THAT popular to begin with. Just sorta cult successes and their only cash making series was the one people were beginning to groan about. They overdiversified their portfolio.

 

[lashman]

yeah, but the drop-off there is just staggering ... their second best game hasn't even sold HALF of what TWD did .... how insane is that?!

 

[Nahkapukki]

Didn't the Walking Dead game come out around the same time as the series did? That in itself is enough marketing to get it high. I think they got the peak and overestimated how much people actually wanted these kind of games. The Wolf Among Us is a damn fine game but after that they started to do one season of this and that trying to hit that peak again after TWAU didn't hit it (even tho it sold and reviewed well)

 

[lashman]

yeah, that's true ... i mean - 1,000,000+ copies on steam alone for TWAU (and you have to remember they also have their own store and download thingy on PC ... not to mention consoles and mobile stuff since they were releasing their games on literally everything) is nothing to sneeze at, obviously ... but it's really crazy - it's like they spent most of that money on licencing, because they sure as hell haven't put it back into production values ... not saying the games were bad-looking or anything ... but they sure as hell didn't look (or run, thanks to their wonderful engine) like AAA or even AA games, more like higher-end indies really, tbh

Edit: oh wow ... it keeps getting worse and worse ... damn


(and to remind everyone - you could only buy single episodes on consoles .... they stopped doing that on PC a few years back)

 

[Nahkapukki]

Goddamn that sounds bad. Must really suck not getting severance pay.

 

[lashman]

holy moly .... dang that seriously sucks ... BIG TIME!

 

[RionaaM]

This is awful, and a really sad day for the games industry. Of course, losing these games is nothing compared to all these people losing their jobs, so the most important thing is that they find work soon. This must be an incredibly stressful situation, and I feel sorry for them.

As for the games, I really liked Telltale's output. Not all of it, mind you, but their games felt special and unique enough (although it can't be denied that they shared many elements between them). I never imagined they performed so badly, and that's a shame. Guess I'll have to buy the last season of Walking Dead before it gets removed from stores.

 

[lashman]

This is awful, and a really sad day for the games industry. Of course, losing these games is nothing compared to all these people losing their jobs, so the most important thing is that they find work soon. This must be an incredibly stressful situation, and I feel sorry for them.

oh yeah, i agree 10000% ... absolutely!

 

[shepcommandr]

Some of the stories that came out later in the evening were sort of terrifying.
Apparently some people were hired as late as last week. And yeah, because the layoffs were tied to bankruptcy filings, there will be no severance or mandate to provide insurance for any period of time.
It's crazy how out of no where this was.
Hopefully people land on their feet.

 

[Schnitzelfee]

I'm with Chariot on this one, totally unexpected...
I kinda thought Telltale is swimming in money.... Wow... Miss managed much eh? Crazy

 

[lashman]

Some of the stories that came out later in the evening were sort of terrifying.
Apparently some people were hired as late as last week. And yeah, because the layoffs were tied to bankruptcy filings, there will be no severance or mandate to provide insurance for any period of time.
It's crazy how out of no where this was.
Hopefully people land on their feet.

at least one of those people had to move cross country too! and now they're left with nothing ... it's insane!

Post automatically merged: Sep 22, 2018

even more Telltale stuff ... damn, that sounds GRIM as fuck

 

[Ed Comment]

Didn't the Walking Dead game come out around the same time as the series did? That in itself is enough marketing to get it high. I think they got the peak and overestimated how much people actually wanted these kind of games. The Wolf Among Us is a damn fine game but after that they started to do one season of this and that trying to hit that peak again after TWAU didn't hit it (even tho it sold and reviewed well)

In hindsight. TWAU seemed like the begining of the downfall for Telltale as episode 3 missed its release date and was delayed for months. People, understandably, weren't happy with that. Some claimed it was because of the community figuring out the plot twist but that was around the time the reports of really bad performance on high end machines and consoles started kicking off with the first episode in particular running really badly on PC and internal issues with the engine were coming to the front. And then the same happened with TWD Season 2 along with major console performance issues on 360/PS3 (And it sold a significant amount on both those consoles). I think once they had that rep of making good games but with huge performance issues. A lot of the core audience started pulling away, even though Borderlands and Minecraft ran fine and were both decent games because there was no point in picking up a Telltale game from the start to go through bad performance (Minecraft being a big exception because that did huge numbers on consoles and mobile)

And then it got worse as Batman S1 had awful issues at launch despite promises that it was the first game using an upgraded version of the engine. Episode 1 had horrific stuttering issues on PC, and it ran sub 720p on both PS4 and Xbone with heavy framerate drops amd the same stuttering issues that were on PC. And that just seemed to completely kill confidence in those. And it's truly a shame. I've seen a lot of very high critical and fan opinion on Batman Season 2 so they still had the story chops. The genre is still very popular with Dontnod's Life Is Strange being a big hit. But hanging onto that engine really seemed to cause a ton of turmoil within TT and put customers off that the switch to Unity was far too late (TWD S4 was supposed to be the last Telltale Engine game). The saddest part is that it seemed they were able to hit that peak again, but they just kept on handicapping themselves to the point the audience for those mature storytelling games disappeared when they seemed to be bouncing back and they had run out of time and money.

 

[lashman]

yeah, that's probably true .... but it might've also been the fact that i think most people figured out those games are nothing more than glorified VNs and they might as well just watch them on youtube since there's so little actual gameplay in there

that's why i've been saying for the longest time that i really miss their older adventure games ... stuff like Monkey Island, Sam & Max, Back to the Future or Wallace & Gromit - those were (and still are) great!

 

[shepcommandr]

yeah, that's probably true .... but it might've also been the fact that i think most people figured out those games are nothing more than glorified VNs and they might as well just watch them on youtube since there's so little actual gameplay in there

That was part of the issue. I think the technical problems, lack of choice vs like games, and just the volume of their output scared a lot of customers off. It's sort of crazy to hear that TWD S1 and Minecraft were the only profitable projects for them. It makes you wonder why they didn't change things sooner, rather than just repeatedly trying the same thing and hoping it worked.

I thought the start of the Final Season of TWD was actually pretty solid. And tech issues aside, Batman was pretty solid.

It's all pretty unfortunate.