TellTale Games creators of The Wolf Among Us, Minecraft: Story mode, and many, story based third party IP games such as Batman, and GoT The Sam and Max reboot, Walking Dead, etc. , is reportedly closing left with just a skeleton staff right now of 25.
http://gamasutra.com/view/news/327085/Re...g_down.php
WOW! Of all the developers I'd expect to see shut down, Telltale Games is definitely not one of them. The hell happened?!
I would expect the lawsuit from their co founder and former CEO didn't help,
nor the bad press about how mistreated their employees,
nor the fact that people have been for years saying how stale TellTales' formula is/was and how it felt stagnate as not even a new game engine was ever used (infact Stranger Things was suppose to be their move over to Unity...)
I was a little surprised at first by this news but after thinking on it, it feels like it was inevitable. Having all those licenses and failing to reach the success TWD Season 1 had was likely making it hard to generate a healthy amount of money for the company. Also, it seems apart from Minecraft Story Mode for Netflix, all other projects are cancelled, including the final season of TWD.
Personally doesn't bother me, as I never really thought their games were any good. Sucks for the 250-ish employees that got laid off and only have one week of health insurance left and most of them can't get unemployment due to being contracted.
From what I've read, sounds like this is happening due to extremely terrible management. Sad that the little guys have to suffer for the stupidity of the big wigs, but I guess that's how the world has worked since... well, forever.
Wait does that mean the Walking Dead final season...isn't going to be finished? This is awful! D:
Yeah this is startling news for me. OK, I never bought any of their games, but thought they were doing OK at least. I didn't pry into what their staff were like and how the studio was actually doing. When did the news about how bad employees were treating come about? Just terrible and disappointing for all reasons. I only followed TWD on YouTube anyway, and thoroughly enjoyed it so far, even the seasons after S1 (although that one remains to be the best). Was thinking about finally buying the whole series after S4 finished and a pack is released, but there'll be no point now, with S4 being unfinished and damage already being done.
Looks like March of this year is when the Toxic management/work place conditions came out:
http://archive.is/modCn
Also looks like employees complained about underpaid/overworked, the culture of management, among other issues before the news broke too:
http://archive.is/TZnDs
So, Telltale is the new Team Bondi: a company with a supremely successful game that ended up dying due to controversy and poor working conditions.
F*** this industry.
(Sep 22nd, 2018, 07:09 PM)Maniakkid25 Wrote: [ -> ]So, Telltale is the new Team Bondi: a company with a supremely successful game that ended up dying due to controversy and poor working conditions.
F*** this industry.
To be fair, every AAA game dev team is basically the same Shit working conditions (going back to at lease over a decade ago
https://ea-spouse.livejournal.com/274.html ) to well just look at how much controversy EA games has from paying people to "protest" them to how they handled the PR of BFV and SWBFII, among a whole host of shit inbetween.
Ubi is guilty of it, Valve is guilty of it, etc etc etc.
Some get "lucky" to be an early player and be an established names, others who are new often are not so lucky.
Telltale is apparently trying to finish The Walking Dead: The Final Season thanks to the help of multiple potential partners:
I'm curious as to who the partners are, and also what they're looking to get out of this. I doubt sales alone is going to be enough reason, because if sales could fund multiple partners to finish the game it could've funded former employees of Telltale to do it instead.
Every partner gets to have an in-game cameo role, where they get to brutally dispatch a number of zombies, followed by a one-liner of their choice! *shot*
Some hopeful news, which I'd like to see happen. Forgot Episode 2 was coming out, so glad at least that was happening still. Although there's still a chance 3 and 4 won't get done, but I won't mind so much anymore. Would give players a reason to continue playing though.
If the episodes can't be released, at least release what the story was going to be so people can at least read how it was going to end. I don't think people are as bothered about getting to play the episodes as they are about knowing what the story turns out like. Better than just leaving the entire thing hanging in limbo because no one will make the episodes.
Well, at least they're trying to get it finished rather than giving the fans a huge middle finger by just saying, "Yeah, we fired nearly our entire company so now we can't finish the season and you just have to deal with only getting half of it."
Doesn't forgive the years of horrible mismanagement that lead to this, but at least it's something.