The TellTale Games thread

[Rocky]

49 minutes ago, Liam Mk2 said:

Save bug?

It never remembered the choices I made from Episode one. I only noticed because It swapped my choice of Sentinel. The only choice it remembered was the very first one where I had to save or leave Bowen.
 

[BuddyAwesome]

Weird, I played it years ago now and didn't have an issue.

[Bobfoc]

9 hours ago, Rocky said:

It never remembered the choices I made from Episode one. I only noticed because It swapped my choice of Sentinel. The only choice it remembered was the very first one where I had to save or leave Bowen.
 

Which system are you playing on?

[Rocky]

6 hours ago, Bobfoc said:

Which system are you playing on?

Playing on Steam. 

[FLiam]

There are reports that TellTale is shutting down.

[thatshortguy]

23 minutes ago, Liam Mk2 said:

There are reports that TellTale is shutting down.

Laying all 225 people, leaving 25 to finish The Walking Dead and then the studio is finished.  An absolute gut-punching news story.

[Your Mom]

Terrible news. Even the lower quality ones were always at the very least entertaining to me. I know it's no comfort to the people losing their jobs but I'm really glad they at least get to finish TWD

[JasonM]

It really sucks that 250 people are losing their jobs, with some of them sticking around to finish off TWD before the company goes fully belly up afterwards to pay the debtors with whatever they'll earn.

But on the one side, this is a niche company that had 250 people on the books, which is a ridiculous amount of staff for such a small studio that for all intents makes small games. On top of that they brought in some huge licenses that undoubtedly would've set them back for a lot of money, stuff like Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy, Borderlands, and even Minecraft are all major names that they wouldn't just have been given to play with for free.

This was a company that before TWD:S1 produced one or maybe two titles a year, niche games like Sam & Max or Puzzle Agent, or even older lapsed IP's like BTTF, Jurassic Park or even Law and Order...

When TWD exploded and they reached universal acclaim, they kinda started punching below their weight class, hiring too many employees, taking on too many simultaneous projects, and they eventually just saturated their own market with niche titles that they kinda had a monopoly on (other than say, Life is Strange). The games were good but the stories tended to be safe, choices didn't matter that much in the end, and after a while the novelty started to wear off because you could kinda read things that were going to happen, or at least, predict certain paths.

Between 16/17 they had 7 projects running, including Minecraft 1+2, Two series of Walking Dead, Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy. That's a shitload of episodic content to dump on your fanbase, they got sold plenty, sure, but is that enough to pay 250 employees year-round as you continue to pay for other licenses like Stranger Things, or even some other Marvel things they allegedly had in the pipeline.

On top of that, continued criticism got put on those repetitive and predictable stories, and their continuing non-desire to push the needle and innovate with their games. Even in 2012 the TellTale engine was showing cracks (It's been in use in one form or the other since 2005, when it was also a bit of a shambling mess) and they just continued adding stuff to it, sprucing it up here and there, but never working on fixing it or replacing it with something that would be easier to work with, and that would make their games more interested for people that didn't want very basic cell-shaded artstyle. Their later titles made it a bit better looking, but it's still pretty barebones for something you're paying 20-25 bucks for about 10 hours of entertainment for.

It's a bit of a tragedy that this company is falling/has fallen, because they produced something unique for the market. But on the other hand, they got too big for their britches, they started flying too close to the sun, and they burned off their own wings by saturating their niche market.

It sucks for the people involved, but as far as running a healthy company goes, TellTale is a new example of how not to run one...

 

[Meacon Keaton]

Well don't hold back, brotha', tell us what you really think. 

[TMM]

https://buff.ly/2NvmFG4

Apparently The Walking Dead has been cancelled and the small crew staying on is for fucking Minecraft

[FLiam]

Errrrgghh fuck off.

I only completed episode one today of the last season.

[Your Mom]

So not only do I not get to see the end am I fucked if I bought the season pass?

[Rocky]

I can see that being the biggest issues with most people. Paying full price for what may end up being only half the game.
 

[JasonM]

Here's a really in depth article from TheVerge about TellTale, and a big omen to their eventual demise. This was written only half a year ago, and it pretty much sketches a really bad picture for the company. Ranging from people working insane hours up to 20 a day, and a management group that pretty much pressured their employees to work harder and harder and harder.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17130056/telltale-games-developer-layoffs-toxic-video-game-industry

[Noah]

Im well behind. I bought season 2 really quickly but felt the need to replay season 1, saving the other out of Doug/Carley and this time convincing Vince to come along with everyone else in 400 days(essentially when I started season 2 I felt like I wanted 2 saves of it active, my original save and one with alterations to my original narrative to see what differences it'd make) but just like with replaying Splinter Cell Double Agent (finished the PS2 version but when I bought the next game in the series, I realised the differences from the PS2 version of DA to every other version meant I'd probably need to play the PS3 DA to get back on the real Splinter Cell timeline)I got bored at a certain point replaying too familiar bits and stopped playing.

Edited September 22, 2018 by Noah

[apsham]

They're not going to finish fucking Walking Dead? I hardly care about that series, but my god - Clementine is the best thing they've done.

Also, Ubisoft San Francisco made an open post to the Telltale employees about meeting up with them on a resturant/bar's patio on Monday to talk about jobs and stuff - and they're going to pick up the bill for food and drinks. That's really cool.

[Benji]

The cynic in me knows it is shameless PR but still a cool gesture and hopefully it sees folks back in work sooner. The workers apparently aren't even getting severance which is awful.

[MDK]

[OctoberRaven]

[JasonM]

I hope when the assets get sold, a developer picks up the Sam & Max franchise and brings them back, eight years has been too long and they deserve some new shenanigans!