Telltale Games Shuts Down

[Replay]

Employees previously in crunch time are brutalized to discover they get no severance and have 30 minutes to leave the building.

At least a few had been hired in preceding weeks and borne their own relocation costs to the *Bay Area*. That's easily very possibly $10k burned just to get there only to find out you're now stuck in one of the most expensive places in the world with no income.

This sounds pretty ugly.

https://kotaku.com/telltale-employees-l ... 1829272139

[Shrinweck]

We've been talking about this in the Now Playing thread, actually. I'm sad for the employees, but I have been considering pushing Steam for a refund for The Walking Dead S3. The fact that I didn't actually send a ticket in to support this week suggests that my curiosity to watch what happens has won over my urge to get $17-20 back into my Steam wallet.

I do hope former the employees land well. I also hope that this closure doesn't hurt studios that release episodic games permanently.

[Julius Seeker]

From what I gather it was destroyed by corporate types managing the studio and labour in toxic ways in order to make it look like they're actually doing something. I am unsure why videogame companies have such a bureaucracy of professional brownnosers. "Now we're going to divide you by discipline" "I'm against these silos, we're going to split you up into teams working on the same thing." "Let's have a 3 hour meeting about changing the length of Sprints." "You know what, it's beneficial if we put everyone together by discipline." "Lets have a wide open office where everyone can talk to one another" "Let's enforce a no talking rule!" - that's basically what these committees do in their 5-6 hours of meetings per day, and get paid more than everyone else to do it. This kills studios, IMO.

[Shrinweck]

Skybound has apparently reached a deal to finish the series. They seem like a decent studio. They've done Slime Rancher and The Long Dark.

[kali o.]

Well, extremely unexpected if true - but I hope its true. Clem fans deserve an ending.

[Shrinweck]

Skybound has said they're committed to re-hiring as many Telltale employees that are willing to come back to work on the remaining episode. They say they'll only hire outside people if the vacancy cannot be filled by a former Telltale employee.

Continuing to make Telltale-style games after the completion of the last episodes is on the table.

[kali o.]

Something about this feels....showy and fake..on the part of Skybound and Telltale. I'm not positive what it is that is bothering me so much. I'm taking a skeptical wait-and-see position for now.

[Shrinweck]

Skybound was founded by Robert Kirkman the original author of the Walking Dead comic. It makes sense that he's personally invested in something carrying his most notable works name not going to shit (at least in so far as the game not finishing and ruining the reputation of episodic games... story/plot development is another argument). The guy probably has enough money to keep it afloat for two last episodes if he wanted.

[Shrinweck]

Next episode is January 19th. I guess they failed to meet their end of the year goal but January is a lot better than never.