3 ms·

I followed Telltales quite a bit before they went out of business, I even know a few people that worked/applied to work there. For me there were always red fla

I followed Telltales quite a bit before they went out of business, I even know a few people that worked/applied to work there. For me there were always red flags, they tried too hard to chase the dragon after the unexpected success of TWD, all of the sudden they were churning out 2-3 titles a year (17 individual episodes were released in 2017 alone) with an aging engine. They were constantly missing out release dates for episodes and unable to update their games for new experiences. Also do not forget that licences for these properties are very expensive to procure making it even more difficult to break even. They also added an Exec from Zynga as their CEO in 2017, which for me represent the very worst gaming has to offer in terms of low effort, exploitable gaming. This was the final nail in the coffin, unsustainable business practices with high level execs who only care about the bottom line always breeds failure. Its a shame, a lot of people knew the end was coming but management kept quiet until they literally had to close up shop and gave people a few hours to leave the building. All the workers there deserve better.

felipemnoa 8y ago
>>they tried too hard to chase the dragon What does this phrase mean? A google search game me results about heroin use which I don't think that that's what you meant.
- bliblah 8y ago
  In this case it means that they used too many resources to recreate their previous success, which happened to be fleeting.
- Topgamer7 8y ago
  It's analogous to the heroin reference. Basically as a company they were chasing that high from TWD's success in an unsustainable, detrimental manner.
debacle 8y ago
I listened to a podcast yesterday by someone whose friend was let go from Telltale. The key points seem to be: - Really bad (one sided) deals on IP. - Taking on more than they can chew. - A domino effect of failures. - Failing to adapt. It sounds like basically everyone saw the writing on the wall, but no one expected the end to be so inhumane.
- drspacemonkey 8y ago
  What was the podcast? I wouldn't mind giving it a listen.
  - debacle 8y ago
    It was more like some guy on Twitch talking with his friend while they played some game. Let me see if I can find it. Edit: The stream was https://www.twitch.tv/thatguytagg https://www.twitch.tv/thatguytagg. I can't find the VOD though.
CalRobert 8y ago
Related to your comment re: pace of releases, it's also possible that their publisher was pushing them to grind out titles as fast as possible. I used to work for another studio with the same publisher.
rincebrain 8y ago
While I'm no fan of Zynga for a great many reasons, the writeup I was reading from June [1] went into detail about their current woes stemming from irrational former management, and was hopeful that the new exec and high-profile licenses would be sufficient to save them from falling off the edge. Obviously, that didn't work out in practice (and the complete lack of transparency about running out of money is horrific), but the firing of the CEO and some of his cohorts, and the former CEO suing the company he cofounded for firing him, are objective facts, independent of whether you believe the story of why he was fired or why this would have been different. Having worked for a bit as a contractor, and knowing how close to not having reliable funding for some of us the small contracting shop I worked for was at times, I'm less surprised by the lack of warning than I might otherwise be, though a place sufficiently large should definitely have been more...robust against that failure case. The whole thing leaves a horrendous taste in my mouth, because I liked some of what they did (I never found TWD appealing, for whatever reason), but after I found out how horrendous their working conditions were, I couldn't convince myself to buy any more of their work. And now I'd like to hope this will be a cautionary tale about trying to live on the knife edge of viability, but I suspect it will just go down as something where the founders take shallow lessons but not the substance behind them to heart. [1] - https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/netflix-telltale-stranger-things-deal-1202855424/ https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/netflix-telltale-st...

felipemnoa 8y ago

>>they tried too hard to chase the dragon What does this phrase mean? A google search game me results about heroin use which I don't think that that's what you meant.

bliblah 8y ago
In this case it means that they used too many resources to recreate their previous success, which happened to be fleeting.
Topgamer7 8y ago
It's analogous to the heroin reference. Basically as a company they were chasing that high from TWD's success in an unsustainable, detrimental manner.

debacle 8y ago

I listened to a podcast yesterday by someone whose friend was let go from Telltale. The key points seem to be: - Really bad (one sided) deals on IP. - Taking on more than they can chew. - A domino effect of failures. - Failing to adapt. It sounds like basically everyone saw the writing on the wall, but no one expected the end to be so inhumane.

drspacemonkey 8y ago
What was the podcast? I wouldn't mind giving it a listen.
- debacle 8y ago
  It was more like some guy on Twitch talking with his friend while they played some game. Let me see if I can find it. Edit: The stream was https://www.twitch.tv/thatguytagg https://www.twitch.tv/thatguytagg. I can't find the VOD though.

CalRobert 8y ago

Related to your comment re: pace of releases, it's also possible that their publisher was pushing them to grind out titles as fast as possible. I used to work for another studio with the same publisher.

rincebrain 8y ago

While I'm no fan of Zynga for a great many reasons, the writeup I was reading from June [1] went into detail about their current woes stemming from irrational former management, and was hopeful that the new exec and high-profile licenses would be sufficient to save them from falling off the edge. Obviously, that didn't work out in practice (and the complete lack of transparency about running out of money is horrific), but the firing of the CEO and some of his cohorts, and the former CEO suing the company he cofounded for firing him, are objective facts, independent of whether you believe the story of why he was fired or why this would have been different. Having worked for a bit as a contractor, and knowing how close to not having reliable funding for some of us the small contracting shop I worked for was at times, I'm less surprised by the lack of warning than I might otherwise be, though a place sufficiently large should definitely have been more...robust against that failure case. The whole thing leaves a horrendous taste in my mouth, because I liked some of what they did (I never found TWD appealing, for whatever reason), but after I found out how horrendous their working conditions were, I couldn't convince myself to buy any more of their work. And now I'd like to hope this will be a cautionary tale about trying to live on the knife edge of viability, but I suspect it will just go down as something where the founders take shallow lessons but not the substance behind them to heart. [1] - https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/netflix-telltale-stranger-things-deal-1202855424/ https://variety.com/2018/gaming/features/netflix-telltale-st...