Developing Original IP
 

Welcome Telltale

So far we have had 2 episodes of Bone (Currently playing no2), Sam & Max on the way and CSI 3 in the shops.


Any chance we will get to see some original IP in the future?

Would love to see what you could do without the constraints of a license.

And no weaseling out of the question by pointing out that Telltale Texas Holdem is original IP. (Thanks and welcome, and so on, and thanks for the prizes in that pre-Cow Race competition that I won.)

Welcome Everyone!

As far as original IP goes, we've got some ideas brewing that we hope can evolve into our first original adventure. The truth is, developing IP from scratch is a much more time consuming processes than adapting existing IP. But we are working on it.

The other side of the coin is we really like working with licenses! Our time at Lucas honed our "license" skills (while working on Star Wars or Indy). Bringing a license into the game space is something we think we do pretty well! Just look at our Bone Games, and imagine what a larger publisher would do to that license! One of the reasons Jeff Smith is working with Telltale is that we're very committed to faithfully executing his license. Same thing with Steve Purcell. And there are many more licenses we'd love to make interactive! Imagine what Telltale could do with the Simpsons, Futurama or The Muppets!
(no, we don't have any of those licenses....)

AND

HoldEm IS valid original IP. We're very proud of the writing and characters in that game, and hope to do more with them in the future... Sheez.... Dudebrough gettin' no respect!

A Muppet adventure game!

That would be awesome. :D

What about Dank?
Will you ever stick him in a game?

Futurama adventure game sounds really exciting. But if we could play with all the main characters: Fry, Bender (omg, that would be so cool :) ) and Leela.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply it's not. Just wanted to be sure to get some info on the possibility of an original adventure.

There is always this... ;)

Billy Connoly was in that movie? :crazy:

From a design perspective, it would most assuredly be fun to work on original IP but as Kevin pointed out, it's also a blast to work with really great licenses. Bone is a fantastic story, and very much fun to be involved with.

I shudder to think...:P;)

Well, keep trying! I would absolutely love Futurama adventure game episodes, and so would a lot of people.:) It might be heresy to say this, but it might even be better than Space Quest!

Original Licenses
 

As far as adventure games go you guys seem to be working (at this point in time) exclusively with licensed material (i.e. Bone, CSI, Sam & Max). Do you have plans to expand this into original licenses in the future and if so, anything you can share about them?

See the responses here. :)

The original IP question has been addressed here.

EDIT: Too fast for me again, Emily!

D'oh, totally missed that thread! :crazy:

I love working on original stuff - some years ago I was even kind of pig-headed about it. But having a license is like getting a head start....

Can also be restrictive I would imagine.

Lots of rules about what what you can't do.

Surely it's creatively more fun to think up original ideas? Thinking up original ideas for other people's ideas is easier, but far less satisfying. Still fun, but you guys are creative people - look at LucasArts: the point most people complain about with them now is too much reliance on their licenses!

They've been merged. :)

It is terribly fun to think up original ideas. But one of the neat things about doing a game like Bone is it takes alot of creativity to figure out how to make the game within the restrictions you have. I think that restrictions actually force one to be more creative than otherwise.

And the thing is, we LOVE Bone! So successfully telling the story in a fun way while getting to add our own bits to it is extremely satisfying. If we were dealing with a license we were less passionate about, then I agree it wouldn't be as much fun as coming up with our own content.