Telltale Games Abruptly Closes [Archive] - Giant in the Playground Forums

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-22, 03:00 PM

Callos_DeTerran

2018-09-22, 04:56 PM

So, I just discovered via the interwebs that as of today, Telltale Games is basically shutting down. This is no doubt a great blow to all of you that were following their series (I stopped myself after Sam and Max season three and TMI), since it seems that the final season of the Walking Dead might be dead after the second one releases shortly. (If it releases.)

I have no idea what will happen to one's accounts when it completely closes, so this post is as much to suggest that if anyone has games there, they download the installers, cack 'em up and file 'em away, since you might not get 'em at all if their website goes, whenever that may be.

This is actually pretty sad to me.

I loved a lot of the Telltale Games and was looking forward to seeing the continuations of their stories.

...In fact I was really only okay with the way their GoT season ended because I was certain there would be another one and pulling the threads together from how the story could have ended in the first season would have been fascinating.

....Now that this isn't going to happen, I hate that ending because I will never get to know what happened.

JadedDM

2018-09-22, 05:15 PM

Yes, I read about this yesterday. What's really tragic is that the people working there were laid off (except for 25 employees to basically wrap things up) without any warning or severance pay. :smallfrown:

Kaptin Keen

2018-09-22, 05:56 PM

But, wait ... weren't they supposed to be wildly succesful?! oO

Inarius

2018-09-22, 06:35 PM

But, wait ... weren't they supposed to be wildly succesful?! oO

Not really, its pretty much only their walking dead series that has been financially successful. Their other games haven't fared nearly as well and the Batman game in particular was a huge bomb. That along with poor management decisions plus the big layoffs they had last year kind of made this a fairly predictable outcome. Though I would of figured they would downsize again while trying to get out of their current creative rut would of been the more likely option.

deuterio12

2018-09-22, 06:52 PM

But, wait ... weren't they supposed to be wildly succesful?! oO

Maybe sometime in the distant past, but just last year Telltale Games were already doing mass layoffs (https://www.usgamer.net/articles/exclusive-how-a-culture-of-crunch-brought-telltale-from-critical-darlings-to-layoffs).

That they were using the same game bug-filled engine since 2005 wasn't a very good sign either.

Also seems like they were buying licenses for more and more big franchises, but only a few of those of their games actually sold well.

So basically they were wildly succesful at start but tried to bite more than they could chew.

Divayth Fyr

2018-09-23, 04:41 AM

But, wait ... weren't they supposed to be wildly succesful?! oO
They had their niche and some very dedicated fans - but they overextended. Being a very niche developer may work either for a small indie group (let's say several people) or one that makes their games extremely cheap (here the licence costs were already a big drain on their finances). And as people claim almost none of their projects managed to bring in decent profits...

Though the bit of news I find the most vexing is that apparently they kept hiring people as late as a week before announcing the shutdown, including someone who moved cross country to work for them. And now they're left with nothing.

Kitten Champion

2018-09-23, 08:23 AM

I guess that squares with so many of their games appearing on Playstation Plus.

I had a deeply enjoyable time with Tales of the Borderlands because it was really funny and creative, with charming characters and capable voice acting.

I couldn't go more than a few hours (about 3, I think) into Game of Thrones however, because I just felt like I was spiralling the characters into a deeper and deeper pit with essentially every decision and I didn't really feel invested enough in them to follow them. I'm not sure how much agency I had over events, and I didn't really want to know what would've happened with the other path because I'm fairly certain it was equally bad.

I stopped playing the Batman game about twenty minutes in because it had this annoying Bioware-esque tendency for the written responses to not really be indicative of what's dramatized in the subsequent dialogue, and the game crashed 3 times. I think I'll go back to it, just to see their interpretation of the rest of the Batman universe.

Avilan the Grey

2018-09-23, 11:13 AM

Aotrs Commander

2018-09-23, 11:31 AM

They had their niche and some very dedicated fans - but they overextended.

Yeah, I mean for a couple of years I thught they were great and bought a lot of their stuff (Sam & Max, Hector, Monkey Island). Then they started doing all the liscened stuff that I didn't give a frag about and that was the last they saw of my pennies, certainly.

JadedDM

2018-09-23, 03:41 PM

I mean you can spend too much time upgrading your engine, but yeah...

They actually were planning to update their engine (https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/06/25/telltale-is-reportedly-ditching-its-nearly-15-year-old-engine) to Unity right after the current season of TWD was released.

NeoVid

2018-09-23, 05:45 PM

Telltale was one of the only studios I would still preorder from, as I was never disappointed by their stuff... partly since I only played a few of their games, I didn't get burned out like a lot of people. This is really depressing news, especially since it means the conclusion of their Walking Dead storylines will never be finished.

Learning that the only games they ever made that were profitable were the early Walking Dead and Minecraft Story Mode is also pretty depressing. Grabbing big-name licenses and then not making money off of them was certain to end badly...

It's weird what I find to be an up side to this news: Their absolute greatest game, Tales from the Borderlands, wasn't getting a sequel anyway, so at least the closure isn't costing us that.

factotum

2018-09-23, 09:49 PM

Learning that the only games they ever made that were profitable were the early Walking Dead and Minecraft Story Mode is also pretty depressing. Grabbing big-name licenses and then not making money off of them was certain to end badly...

That's really Telltale's fault, though. Their games are a fairly small niche in the modern era, so what they were presumably trying to do with the licensing was to get additional customers who wouldn't normally buy a game of this type--and that failed spectacularly. Yet they kept trying it with more and more out-there options--I know you said Tales from the Borderlands is their best game *ever*, but it's still relying on people who are fans of an FPS-RPG deciding they want to play a largely QTE-based point-and-click adventure, and the Venn diagram of people who like both types of game probably doesn't have a lot of overlap!

NeoVid

2018-09-23, 10:31 PM

I know you said Tales from the Borderlands is their best game *ever*, but it's still relying on people who are fans of an FPS-RPG deciding they want to play a largely QTE-based point-and-click adventure, and the Venn diagram of people who like both types of game probably doesn't have a lot of overlap!

Yeah, it was their best game and the only game they ever did that was such a low seller they didn't plan to make a sequel. I should have realized that if quality wasn't enough to make their games sell, it was a very bad sign for the company.

I feel bad that so many people missed out on it... but since Tales is the canonical story of what happens between Borderlands 2 and 3, I have this slight hope that it'll show up in a bundle with the Borderlands main series.

Kato

2018-09-24, 03:28 AM

Releasing 5 million games with no improvement or upgrade of your engine, basically being the cheap dump for licenses ("Hey we need some sort of tie in, let's pay Telltale to do something with Lego / Batman / Borderlands / Minecraft ..."

I mean you can spend too much time upgrading your engine, but yeah...
(emphasis mine)

As others pointed out, a large problem is you got that backward. Nobody was paying them to do these, they paid probably a lot of money hoping to sell games with popular names attached. And that backfired...

While I like the genre well enough, I can't say I have played many Telltale games, but just because I'm much more into other genres. From all I know, the games were decent enough and they should have been able to make decent money with them but... I guess that didn't work out. It's really sad, but Ihope able people like them will find other studios to work for or decide to use their experience and do something of their own, maybe improving upon what they couldn't do with Telltale.

Razade

2018-09-24, 04:14 AM

Tales from the Borderlands was probably their best. It's certainly better regarded than a lot of their other stuff other than The Walking Dead.

Eldan

2018-09-24, 04:19 AM

I really liked The Wolf Among Us. That was a solid game. That said, I never liked the gameplay. Quicktime events are terrible and will always be terrible.

keepLooking

2018-09-24, 07:37 AM

The Wolf Among Us was a marvellous one but after that, they'd started to make the very one game several times a year - it makes sense they went bankrupt after all

PhantomFox

2018-09-24, 09:21 AM

In the bright side, someone might actually pick and do something with Sam and Max

Leecros

2018-09-24, 12:18 PM

While I absolutely detested their method of storytelling...
...I can't deny that their stories were at least entertaining the first time through. Certainly, I hope that the developers that were laid off are quickly hired by other companies as many of them cannot even receive any benefits and were living from paycheck to paycheck anyway.

CarpeGuitarrem

2018-09-24, 12:25 PM

(emphasis mine)

As others pointed out, a large problem is you got that backward. Nobody was paying them to do these, they paid probably a lot of money hoping to sell games with popular names attached. And that backfired...

While I like the genre well enough, I can't say I have played many Telltale games, but just because I'm much more into other genres. From all I know, the games were decent enough and they should have been able to make decent money with them but... I guess that didn't work out. It's really sad, but Ihope able people like them will find other studios to work for or decide to use their experience and do something of their own, maybe improving upon what they couldn't do with Telltale.
Yeah, this. A lot of money spent on licenses, plus a ton of licensed games released in rapid succession with varying amounts of polish put into them, seems a likely cause of demise. I'm pinning this one directly on management. Working on an in-house IP or focusing on a smaller number of licenses would have been a much better idea, I think. And given the success of The Walking Dead, a lot of those smaller spinoff games (Michonne, 400 Days, I think they even had a pre-Season 3 game) make more sense. I guess management was rapid-firing a lot of other licensed games to try and find a smash hit that would stick.

Brookshw

2018-09-24, 03:24 PM

Yeah, this. A lot of money spent on licenses,

Possibly. A royalty would probably have made more sense, especially if they were cash strapped. Unless someone has seen the contract the licensing element is speculative.

Avilan the Grey

2018-09-24, 03:33 PM

(emphasis mine)

As others pointed out, a large problem is you got that backward. Nobody was paying them to do these, they paid probably a lot of money hoping to sell games with popular names attached. And that backfired...

---Seriously?

That is...

...Dumb. Seriously. That is really really stupid. No wonder they went belly up.

Wookieetank

2018-09-24, 03:37 PM

Color me overall unimpressed with Tale Tell games. They could tell a decent story, but their gimmick of being able to determine the outcome of things, was A) wildly overstated and B) terribly false. If you want to say that the player's choice matters, then make it matter.
With what I have played of TT games, it doesn't matter what you chose, the same thing is going to happen regardless of what you chose. TT really needed to take notes from Quantic Dream and/or Supermassive on how to do player choices, particularly with how much TT played up player choice mattering.

Divayth Fyr

2018-09-24, 05:37 PM

...Dumb. Seriously. That is really really stupid. No wonder they went belly up.
I'm not sure why would you expect otherwise. Compared to the brands they were using, TellTale was nothing. And I doubt things like Batman, Borderlands or TWD wanting to expand their brand would go for a veeeeeery niche developer with even more niche games ;)

factotum

2018-09-25, 12:04 AM

Color me overall unimpressed with Tale Tell games. They could tell a decent story, but their gimmick of being able to determine the outcome of things, was A) wildly overstated and B) terribly false.

I think that was a large part of the problem in the end. Once you saw the man behind the curtain and realised that all the "choices" you were making had approximately three-fifths of naff all effect on the course of the story, a large part of the attraction of their games went away, and since they were churning out so many of them, they were always going to run into trouble.

Avilan the Grey

2018-09-25, 01:29 AM

I'm not sure why would you expect otherwise. Compared to the brands they were using, TellTale was nothing. And I doubt things like Batman, Borderlands or TWD wanting to expand their brand would go for a veeeeeery niche developer with even more niche games ;)

Caveat:
I never played ANY of their games, not my type of games
BUT:

The oNLY game I found interesting and almost bought was the Wolf Among Us. It's the only one they did that on the surface felt original and interesting.

factotum

2018-09-25, 01:38 AM

Caveat:
The oNLY game I found interesting and almost bought was the Wolf Among Us. It's the only one they did that on the surface felt original and interesting.

You know that was a licensed one as well, right? It was licensed from the Fables comic series. In fact, I think the only games Telltale ever produced that were entirely their own IP was Puzzle Agent and its sequel.

Eldan

2018-09-25, 02:24 AM

It was still an interesting game. However, i was seriously unimpressed with their batman game.

Avilan the Grey

2018-09-25, 04:29 AM

You know that was a licensed one as well, right? It was licensed from the Fables comic series. In fact, I think the only games Telltale ever produced that were entirely their own IP was Puzzle Agent and its sequel.

No I didn't, actually. I didn't even know there was a Fables comic.
But then I can't really be bothered with comics anymore.

Cozzer

2018-09-25, 04:51 AM

I'm pretty sad about this, both on a human level (another case of bad management costing hundreds of people their jobs, while the ones who actually made the wrong choices will just go being rich somewhere else) and because I enjoyed the few games from them that I played.

I agree with pretty much everyone that Tales from the Borderlands was their best work, though I loved the Batman games too, especially the second one.

Avilan the Grey

2018-09-25, 05:42 AM

Cozzer

2018-09-25, 05:54 AM

From what I read, the worst part of the layoffs was how the employees were kept in the dark until the very last minute, some of them having very recently relocated to a very high-cost area in order to work there. :smallyuk:

Hope they fall on their feet somehow, Telltale had mixed results but I always liked what they tried to do.

Seerow

2018-09-25, 07:01 AM

According to people on my Twitter feed, Blizzard employees has advised Telltale employees to hurriedly apply for jobs as Blizzard becasue they desperately need more people.

Fingers crossed some of them will get hired.

Saw Santa Monica studio (God of war) making the same offer. Think there's a lot of empathy for the developers from telltale, and studios looking for experienced devs who can tell a good story. So hopefully some good comes from this.

Resileaf

2018-09-25, 09:40 AM

Saw Santa Monica studio (God of war) making the same offer. Think there's a lot of empathy for the developers from telltale, and studios looking for experienced devs who can tell a good story. So hopefully some good comes from this.

That's good news. It's good to know that despite the bad thing that happened to the company, the devs are not necessarily going to hang dry. Even if the Telltale games weren't the best quality, I don't think we can accuse them of lack of passion.

NeoVid

2018-09-25, 04:33 PM

According to people on my Twitter feed, Blizzard employees has advised Telltale employees to hurriedly apply for jobs as Blizzard becasue they desperately need more people.

I'm sidetracking the thread a bit, but it would be awesome if Blizzard got some people who know how storytelling works onto the WoW staff.

CarpeGuitarrem

2018-09-25, 06:11 PM

Yeah, the #TelltaleJobs hashtag has been filled with support and potential job opportunities for the staff.

Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit is coming against Telltale (https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/25/17901106/telltale-layoffs-lawsuit-warn-act) for the abrupt mass sacking of those employees, which seems like it could be in violation of federal and state laws.

Winthur

2018-09-25, 07:50 PM

Meanwhile, a class-action lawsuit is coming against Telltale (https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/25/17901106/telltale-layoffs-lawsuit-warn-act) for the abrupt mass sacking of those employees, which seems like it could be in violation of federal and state laws.

Hey, now the company can learn that your choices actually do make a difference!

Inarius

2018-09-25, 08:25 PM

Hey, now the company can learn that your choices actually do make a difference!

Heh, that got a good laugh out of me. It does however look like they might be able to skate under the federal laws due to some loopholes for extenuating circumstances. The California law is written a bit differently so they probably will wind up in trouble over that though.

factotum

2018-09-25, 10:15 PM

Inarius

2018-09-25, 11:28 PM

I'm pretty sure that law is designed to protect people being laid off from a large company that continues in operation. Telltale is shutting down due to having no money, so even if the class action succeeds, where is the money going to come from to pay the laid off workers?

Considering they haven't filed for bankruptcy they likely still have money in the piggy bank. I have no idea whether that money is for a cash out of the people at the top or to try and restructure and move the company in a different direction. Of course they could simply be waiting to file for bankruptcy, but if they're going to do that they probably should of done it before firing all their employees as it would give them some extra cover from labor laws.

Wookieetank

2018-09-26, 08:16 AM

In fact, I think the only games Telltale ever produced that were entirely their own IP was Puzzle Agent and its sequel.

I had forgotten that those 2 were Telltale. They were both fantastic: fun, quirky, and full of Professor Layton style puzzles. What's not to love? Really, we could do with more outlandishly plotted puzzle games (or point and click games that are less obtuse with their puzzles).

GreatWyrmGold

2018-09-26, 10:14 AM

Ask a Game Dev's initial take on the situation. (http://askagamedev.tumblr.com/post/178416997221/what-do-you-think-about-the-telltale-closure-i) TL;DR: The developers aren't to blame, but they're in a lot of pain. Don't pester them.

Erloas

2018-09-28, 04:02 PM

Well for the employees themselves, this is about as good a time as any to have the company go under, they shouldn't have much trouble finding new jobs. Not that it doesn't suck, but it is significantly better to have one company fold in an otherwise hot industry versus having a whole industry collapse.

As for the licensing of IP, it is a hard thing to guess. Some companies do amazing with it and for others it kills them. It is really hard to gain mind-share, and that is vital to a story based game. If you've got a gameplay driven game you can build the story up as you go as long as the gameplay is good enough to draw people in, with a story you have to convince someone the story is worth listening to when they can't already know the story. So taking a popular setting and expanding it is an easier path. The question is then whether or not the IP is worth what is being charged for it, and that is the hard part for both sides.

See Marvel making piles of cash for themselves and all the studios making stuff for them with pretty much any character they throw out there, and then there is DC where try as they might, no one seems to want anything other than Batman. Fallout was a great IP buy for Bethesda, but other rebirth games from the same period are nothing now.

ANOTHERSTORY

2018-09-30, 01:56 PM

Sad ending to a Sad Story :(

Psyren

2018-10-01, 02:29 PM

(emphasis mine)

As others pointed out, a large problem is you got that backward. Nobody was paying them to do these, they paid probably a lot of money hoping to sell games with popular names attached. And that backfired...

While I like the genre well enough, I can't say I have played many Telltale games, but just because I'm much more into other genres. From all I know, the games were decent enough and they should have been able to make decent money with them but... I guess that didn't work out. It's really sad, but Ihope able people like them will find other studios to work for or decide to use their experience and do something of their own, maybe improving upon what they couldn't do with Telltale.

Yeah that - licensing all your IP without then investing in making your own is very expensive in the long run. It's a quick way to make a name for yourself (just ask Netflix!) but you can't keep it up forever, eventually you need your own brands so that you can keep more of the profits if you want to grow.

I really liked The Wolf Among Us. That was a solid game. That said, I never liked the gameplay. Quicktime events are terrible and will always be terrible.

That's the other big problem, no innovation of their engine. Same slow tank-control lulls broken up by the same the same keyboard-smashing/RSI-causing QTEs.

This wasn't bad when they were the only real adventure game aficionados in town - people had to come to them to get their fix. But when viable competition started showing up in the genre with more innovative gameplay, like Life Is Strange or the King's Quest remake, they just doubled down - more licensed IP, same gameplay, same smoke-and-mirrors branching dialogue that didn't actually change the plot.

The end result was inevitable and should have been more obvious than it was.