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Telltale shutting down ??
While I was surprised how badly Game of Thrones game sold, I’m not really that surprised Minecraft or Borderlands didn’t sell that well. Neither of those strikes me a title whose larger fan base is looking for a narrative driven experience set in the game world.
Sad but not unexpected. Saw this coming when they start churning out so many games and growing so fast. Should have stay small and focus on quality rather than quantity.
The way they treated the employees at the end shows you the kind of asshats running the company. They gave the staff 30 minutes to leave the building, did not give them any severance (in one of the most espensive places in the US to live in), did not give them any prior notice about the layoffs, and here’s the kicker: they even hired people one week before the layoffs, with one employee having to relocate aceoss the country. How much of an asshole do you have to be to do something like that?
All you need is a CEO that was previously working for Zynga.
While I was surprised how badly Game of Thrones game sold, I’m not really that surprised Minecraft or Borderlands didn’t sell that well. Neither of those strikes me a title whose larger fan base is looking for a narrative driven experience set in the game world.
I am always surprised that neither Telltale nor anyone else has made games from material which almost begs to be turned into an adventure game. Stuff like Columbo, MacGyver, etc. Maybe Babylon 5 and so on. Sure, the fan base is probably a bit older, but would be more likely to spend money on good quality adventure games too.
The way they treated the employees at the end shows you the kind of asshats running the company. They gave the staff 30 minutes to leave the building, did not give them any severance (in one of the most espensive places in the US to live in), did not give them any prior notice about the layoffs, and here’s the kicker: they even hired people one week before the layoffs, with one employee having to relocate aceoss the country. How much of an asshole do you have to be to do something like that?
I don’t know if 30 minutes warning is legal, in most places it isn’t, but if it is legal there, then it’s a **** move, but something that is probably not unexpected there.
As for hiring someone a week before, we don’t know if those people were kicked out, or if those were actually the ones who remain now. Either way, it seems a bit odd.
We can have three scenarios about that.
1) Those people have some special talent that the company can’t do without, in which case hiring them over their old employees makes perfect sense.
2) Something very unexpected happened during a week, like some investors writing Telltale off and cutting funding.
3) The company was more seriously mismanaged than previously thought, and some managers were genuinely trying to hire new people, while the bosses upstairs were planning layoffs (possibly including those managers too).
I’m sure the Telltale story will come out as a book or something sooner or later, revealing everything. Such a book was planned about Interplay (IIRC…), but sadly it didn’t meet the target at Kickstarter.
While I was surprised how badly Game of Thrones game sold, I’m not really that surprised Minecraft or Borderlands didn’t sell that well. Neither of those strikes me a title whose larger fan base is looking for a narrative driven experience set in the game world.
Game Of Thrones was a huge bomb but Tales From The Borderlands actually did decently. Considering the numbers we have are near 800k from steam alone I’d be willing to bet that across all platforms it hit 1 million sales or even slightly higher.
The real problem was that they were so massively overstaffed that they couldn’t turn a profit on selling 1 million units of an adventure game. Which is incomprehensible. Going from a company with 80 people to one with 400 was only sustainable in the delusional world where every subsequent game sells as well as TWD S1. That was never going to happen.
Looking at the actual numbers you see big, sustained, drop-offs after GoT and The Walking Dead New Frontier. Two of their absolute worst games. Looking at it you can see the core audience slowly diminishing with big drop-offs surrounding the most disappointing games.
Batman The Enemy Within, their last big game before TWD S4, was actually well written and enjoyable. They even brought back some exploration and puzzle solving with the logic mechanic & Riddler rooms.
It was too little too late by then, though.
Batman The Enemy Within, their last big game before TWD S4, was actually well written and enjoyable. They even brought back some exploration and puzzle solving with the logic mechanic & Riddler rooms.
Puzzle-wise I think they peaked in Sam & Max season 3. That had some very twisted puzzles and mechanics you don’t normally see in adventure games.
Overall I enjoyed season 3 less than seasons 1&2, but they really went an extra mile to innovate some of those puzzles for season 3.
Batman The Enemy Within, their last big game before TWD S4, was actually well written and enjoyable. They even brought back some exploration and puzzle solving with the logic mechanic & Riddler rooms.
Puzzle-wise I think they peaked in Sam & Max season 3. That had some very twisted puzzles and mechanics you don’t normally see in adventure games.
Overall I enjoyed season 3 less than seasons 1&2, but they really went an extra mile to innovate some of those puzzles for season 3.
Yeah, I wasn’t intending to compare Batman to their older games. It’s far more simple than Sam & Max. Just mentioning that they did actually start making some changes to their formula toward the end. Since a lot of people tuned out from TellTale by then and might not know.
Regarding these mass layoffs, how can the WARN Act not apply to these folks? I honestly don’t know so if someone can explain, I’m curious! From Wikipedia:
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (the “WARN Act”) is a US labor law which protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 calendar-day advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs of employees, as defined in the Act….
Employees entitled to notice under the WARN Act include managers and supervisors, hourly wage, and salaried workers. The WARN Act requires that notice also be given to employees’ representatives (i.e., a labor union), the local chief elected official (i.e. the mayor), and the state dislocated worker unit.
The advance notice is intended to give workers and their families transition time to adjust to the prospective loss of employment, to seek and to obtain other employment, and, if necessary, to enter skill training or retraining programs that will allow these workers to successfully compete in the job market.[2]
These folks appear to be covered under this act, but there are some exceptions. For further info, see the article here: Wiki article re the WARN Act
Of course, maybe they are covered and TTG just didn’t follow the law. For a company going bankrupt, there may be no assets to pay the fine anyway?
Life is too short to drink bad wine…
Regarding these mass layoffs, how can the WARN Act not apply to these folks? I honestly don’t know so if someone can explain, I’m curious!
It may depend on what their work contracts said, if they were for example only hired for a specific project. Those kinds of working arrangements are common in the entertainment industry and especially in the gaming industry.
NP: A Link Between Worlds, Beneath a Steel Sky and Vampyr
Very interesting info, Mike.
I found this:
The WARN Act allows for three exceptions to 60-day notice with the burden of proof on the employer:
Faltering company. This exception, to be narrowly construed, covers situations where a company has sought new capital or business to stay open and where giving notice would ruin the opportunity to get the new capital or business, and applies only to plant closings.
Unforeseeable business circumstances. This exception applies to closings and layoffs that are caused by business circumstances that were not reasonably foreseeable at the time notice would otherwise have been required.
Natural disaster. This applies where a closing or layoff is the direct result of a natural disaster, such as a flood, earthquake, drought or storm.
Is it possible, under the first exception, that they have a buyer for the intellectual property but the deal is off if the employees are included? Where does Skybound fit into this?
2) Something very unexpected happened during a week, like some investors writing Telltale off and cutting funding.
Probably this. ^
This Variety story has some insight: https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/telltale-games-the-walking-dead-studio-closure-1202955309/
When they did layoffs last year they provided the notice and severance required by the WARN Act, which makes me think whatever happened this time falls under one of the exceptions. (I have no idea, just speculation.)
Interesting but in “some form” makes me think it might be a comic book to end the story. Skybound probably has the rights, no?
It’s going to be weird playing the second tomorrow.
Regarding these mass layoffs, how can the WARN Act not apply to these folks? I honestly don’t know so if someone can explain, I’m curious! From Wikipedia:
The Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (the “WARN Act”) is a US labor law which protects employees, their families, and communities by requiring most employers with 100 or more employees to provide 60 calendar-day advance notification of plant closings and mass layoffs of employees, as defined in the Act….
Employees entitled to notice under the WARN Act include managers and supervisors, hourly wage, and salaried workers. The WARN Act requires that notice also be given to employees’ representatives (i.e., a labor union), the local chief elected official (i.e. the mayor), and the state dislocated worker unit.
The advance notice is intended to give workers and their families transition time to adjust to the prospective loss of employment, to seek and to obtain other employment, and, if necessary, to enter skill training or retraining programs that will allow these workers to successfully compete in the job market.[2]
These folks appear to be covered under this act, but there are some exceptions. For further info, see the article here: Wiki article re the WARN Act
Of course, maybe they are covered and TTG just didn’t follow the law. For a company going bankrupt, there may be no assets to pay the fine anyway?
I am not a lawyer but this might constitute a potential opportunity for a law suit. It could be incompetent HR that is not familiar with the law. I hope TTG employees pursue this.
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