It's simple, only idiot would increase number of people so fast without guaranteed jobs for at least few years...Unbelievable that this happened so sudden. I have only played two of their games, TWD1 and The Wolf Among Us, but those were brilliant in their genre. I hope the devs find new jobs soon.
How can a company let go 250 people from one day to another without severance, without healthcare is beyond me. Oh, wait, they live in the USA, the best country in the world.
I really did enjoy their Back to the Future game. It's a shame they declined so far (which is a feat considering they were simple from the get go). Budget casual adventure games are fine but they went too far and clearly overextended.We never did get that 2nd season of Back to the Future.
Have you watched any of the recent "Walking Dead" TV output? Compared to that, the first Season of Telltales TWD was almost a Masterpiece.A TV series has excellent actors with really strong performances and has the money to invest on really good screenwriting talent, something TellTales doesn't have and ever would have. They had a really aging engine, the characters had stiff facial animations, their writing never was that great and their whole schtick was the choice and consequence stuff, after The Walking Dead, people eventually came to realize that even that was a fraud and only an illusion.
"With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry."
If the owners would have had even some sense they would have worked on a new engine a longtime ago, as well as some additions to the gameplay on the old engine. They should have stopped hoarding licences left and right and kept the company in much smaller state. Like pretty much everyone has said already, they oversaturated the market, all alone. No one else was even competing for the same crowd and they still managed to oversaturate by creating the same game over and over again, with just different license.
You can't live off the 10 dollars (minus Steam fees and license fees) that you get from a sale during Steam sales. And honestly, why would anyone buy their game on Day 1. Their method of sellling them relatevily cheap quite soon after full release guaranteed that, not to mention the 5 other games allready on your wishlist/backlog that you hadn't have the time/will to start.
you could make a case that feminism sunk Telltale.
Imagine being the "Telltale Gameplay designer". What is this gameplay you speak of?
And ever so subtle Obsidian is at fast
"Hey, I need money to feed Timmy, Bob and Jimmy being a single mom and the goverment checks aren't enough... hummm... Brian always said he liked my work when he got to talk with me... that was strange, quite creepy, the way he was sympathetic and all ... I dunno, he was always so much progressive and let me cry on his shoulder when that insensitive brute Ahemed left me. Now that I think about it, Brian was white and he talked with me too much, a white male talking with a woman too much, this is certainly harassment... my God, I feel so oppressed right now... I will call my lawyer. Don't worry kids, mom will get your milk and that bastard gonna pay."Yo guise, I'm gonna lay my chips on the table and make a not-so-risky bet: this Telltale fiasco is gonna culminate with some unlucky higher up getting #metoo'ed. At this moment I have zero evidence, not even a rumor to support this prediction, but my gut feeling says that's gonna happen. But here is why I think this is gonna happen:
a) The company has (well, HAD) an unusually large amount of skanks in its payroll
b) 250 people got legit screwed over. No warning, no severance pack, just THE BOOT
c) Most of these skanks are nothing but diversity hires with no real talent they can market to a new company
d) Everyone involved holds (at least in theory) progressive values
e) SOME of them will come to the realization that the "game developer gurl" cow can't be milked anymore, so might as well go for the slaughter
f) "Male feminist soyboy" aka "the perfect victim for rapehoaxing" are probably abundant in Telltale's upper management. So there is no shortage of targets
So, yeah. ONE of these recently unemployed dangerhaired hambeasts WILL eventually figure out that rapehoaxing might just be her ticket out of the poorhouse.
Fasten your seatbealts, boyos, cuz this is gonna be a WILD ride!
Meh,the management is also SJW retards! Everyone should be praised for their skilful execution of the company! Without them we wouldn't have seen this amazing crumble of a shit studio.Some people don't think that the management higher ups are to blame ?
Are you completely blinded by your anti-sjw crusades ?
This is the perfect example of shitty management of a video game studio (probably by white males but who gives a fuck, dumb management is dumb management).