Adventure Gamers - Forums

The Verge article posted about their working conditions six months ago basically answers the question of “What happened?” https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17130056/telltale-games-developer-layoffs-toxic-video-game-industry

I feel horrible for the people who were laid off yesterday, with no warning or severance pay. I eagerly covered Telltale for Adventure Gamers when they first started up and I worked there for three years in 2006-2009. I wasn’t there when they got really big but I know people who were, and the Verge article is accurate. To see the company close down like this and 250 people unceremoniously lose their jobs,  knowing how much of themselves they gave away to the company, makes me really sad for everyone involved.

Very sad news to hear. While not everyone was a fan of their games they did help keep the adventure genre alive and bring it back to the mainstream.

But I am still hopeful. Wasn’t Telltale itself formed by ex employees of Lucasarts? So hopefully these former employees of Telltale can form new studios and make new games. They may even make original games as well so we’ll just have to see what happens.

Call me uncaring but I don’t see what’s sad about this at all.

It means we’ll get less overproduced, bloated and unoriginal storygames which were likely created by a handful of executives at the “top” and manufactured by several hundred worker drones on a very tight leash. Those drones are now free to go and express their creativity however they like, which means we’ll likely be seeing a great number of new and diverse projects popping up with actually fresh and interesting ideas. As for the jobs aspect - when I read in the newspaper “former Telltale employee starves to death on freezing street corner” maybe I’ll shed a tear. But I won’t be holding my breath.

Mmm. This is presumably what happens when your modus operandi is to capitalize on “hype”.

What IP’s are people hyped about? Quick - buy it! oh, they’re not hyped anymore or oh, they were only hyped for the movie. What we’re seeing is effectively a stark realization that I’m certain a lot of people here and elsewhere starkly realized many years ago.

It’s a shame for fans, it really is. But they just put 250 people out of the job with no warning* and no severance (and according to some employees they had 30 mins to leave the building after they were laid off) so really, fuck ‘em. I can’t celebrate a company that does that. Like you say, those 250 ppl were just expendable assets at the end of the day, but isn’t that the case for most.

* maybe some saw it coming, I don’t know. Certain comments by now former employees suggest warning was minimal.

That said, unless I’ve missed it, we don’t know if it’s a Chapter 11 or a Chapter 7 bankruptcy. 7 (liquidation) and you’ll know it’s completely over - example: Desura. 11 (re-organization) and there may be a chance they want to carry on in some small capacity.

Sad news, even though I also lost my interest in many of their later projects.

Ahenobarbus - 21 September 2018 07:19 PM

Really sad ending! Telltale was a safe haven for many former LucasArts employees and they had a massive impact for new revival of adventure games. They were the little guys, who carried the adventure torch and refused to desert the genre. Then they hit the jackpot with the TWD S1 and everything changed. Really shame that The Walking Dead S1 was also a curse and the beginning of the end..

I really think part of the problem was they lost a lot of the main designers / writers for season 1, immediately after it concluded.  They struck gold with that, and if they kept that crew together making more games I think they would’ve continued to have more success for quite some time.

Probably because this is an adventure games forum for adventure game related discussion, and not the problems of the world?

Wow, so don’t sympathize with people when they lose their job, just ignore them, because they’re not third world enough. Interesting logic you got there.

But do tell us oh great senpai, what is the “one way” you speak of?

Some of us don’t care much about the games, but we care enough about the people affected to show a little sympathy on that front.

markymint - 22 September 2018 09:22 PM

Wow, so don’t sympathize with people when they lose their job, just ignore them, because they’re not third world enough. Interesting logic you got there.

But do tell us oh great senpai, what is the “one way” you speak of?

Some of us don’t care much about the games, but we care enough about the people affected to show a little sympathy on that front.

I don’t get it. First you complain that we shouldn’t talk about ‘the world’ on an adventure forum, and then you criticise others for not sympathising with the world on an adventure forum. Which is it to be?

Your reply is so misguided I can’t even be arsed to explain. Re-read the posts #38 thru #41.

markymint - 22 September 2018 09:48 PM

Your reply is so misguided I can’t even be arsed to explain. Re-read the posts #38 thru #41.

Okay, let’s do that.

#1.

markymint - 22 September 2018 08:58 PM

Probably because this is an adventure games forum for adventure game related discussion, and not the problems of the world?

Implying that we shouldn’t talk about the problems of the world because it is an adventure forum.

#2.

markymint - 22 September 2018 09:22 PM

Wow, so don’t sympathize with people when they lose their job, just ignore them, because they’re not third world enough. Interesting logic you got there.

But do tell us oh great senpai, what is the “one way” you speak of?

Some of us don’t care much about the games, but we care enough about the people affected to show a little sympathy on that front.

Implying that we should care about the world and talk about it on an adventure forum, directly contradicting #1