Having been in this exact situation before, its very hard to deal with. One of my employers died at 4:30 on a Thursday, we had 30 minutes to get out of the office before the building management locked the doors, there was no health insurance or severance for anyone (in fact as a contractor I was owed $8000 I never got). At least we all had some idea things were bad so it wasn't a complete surprise. This of course was during the Dotcom collapse so finding another job took me a long time. I've been in company ending situations since then but no matter how many you never feel good. It's easy to feel like you didn't do enough to keep things running (of course its not true) which doesn't help your attitude much. Your job is almost like a family sometimes and that makes it harder. If the employment market is hot its much easier to get over the shock but if its hard to find another job then its much more depressing.
The tragic end of Telltale Games
11–20 of 202 posts
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#12I feel sorry for the employees and apologize in advance if what I'm going to say sounds too negative or blunt, but anyway here is one opinion. Telltale games wasn't a very innovative company. It shouldn't surprise anyone when a company goes bankrupt that primarily produces bad game adoptions of blockbuster movies as a franchise. Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only a gamer and not an industry expert, but it seems to me…
> primarily produces bad game adoptions of blockbuster movies as a franchise. What are you talking about? Not one of their games is even an adaptation of a movie. Some are related to movies but separate stories not adaptations, and the majority have nothing to do with any movies (this includes the Batman game).
They did do a Guardians of the Galaxy one, but in general, not a lot of movies.
They did do a ton of work (exclusively?) with other people's IPs, which may have been what they were trying to say.
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#13I don't get how there is not a general insurance system for people losing their jobs unexpectedly which pays out three months of similar or something similar.
In Europe its called "Social Security"
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
> primarily produces bad game adoptions of blockbuster movies as a franchise. What are you talking about? Not one of their games is even an adaptation of a movie. Some are related to movies but separate stories not adaptations, and the majority have nothing to do with any movies (this includes the Batman game).
They did do a Guardians of the Galaxy one, but in general, not a lot of movies. They did do a ton of work (exclusively?) with other people's IPs, which may have been what they were trying to say.
But that wasn't an adaptation of the movies. It's an original story, and based on the comics not the movies.
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#15Sometimes you simply got to let the data speak for themselves:
It's so strange how the prestige around the brand was not correlated to the sells numbers. It so strange how their demise was so unexpected by the press and gaming communities when the writing was on the wall long ago.
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#16"years of nonstop crunch culture, toxic management, and frustration from developers who believed the company’s refusal to diversify gameplay had led to creative stagnation" I don't understand why the people who were let go didn't leave in the first place...
Reading "who believed the company’s refusal to diversify gameplay had led to creative stagnation" makes me laugh.
That would be like a Call of Duty developer or Assassin's Creed developer complaining that the company not diversifying the gameplay leads to stagnation.
I can see from an artists perspective why that's annoying.
But from an investors standpoint, if you have a profitable, winning formula, you use that formula!!
Telltale Games had a unique and successful storytelling formula and some extremely impressive partnerships, and it would be surprising to have seen them abandon their niche just because it got boring.
Of course, they were run into the ground so it's neither here nor there...
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#17I don't get how there is not a general insurance system for people losing their jobs unexpectedly which pays out three months of similar or something similar.
indeed, in the UK if there's not sufficient money to pay statutory redundancy then there's a national fund to make sure the employees get their legal entitlement
(and if this happens the company's directors are likely in the shit as they've probably been trading while insolvent)
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#18Sometimes you simply got to let the data speak for themselves: https://imgur.com/a/2tR4WVX It's so strange how the prestige around the brand was not correlated to the sells numbers. It so strange how their demise was so unexpected by the press and gaming communities when the writing was on the wall long ago.
Apparently making the same game over and over (with different intellectual property to tie it up) does not pay off.
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#19I don't get how there is not a general insurance system for people losing their jobs unexpectedly which pays out three months of similar or something similar.
There is "Unemployment Insurance" in America, and companies have to pay into it for their employees by law. Any employee who no-fault loses their job can draw from it.
This company used a "cheat" in the legal system in America for labor where they illegally labeled their employees as "independent contractors", which are treated differently under the law. These contractors aren't "employees" and aren't eligible for unemployment (because they were not 'employed', they were contracted).
For example if you were to hire someone to work on your kitchen for 1 week, you wouldn't pay unemployment insurance on their behalf. If they were self-employed doing remodeling/contracting, they would be expected to pay their own unemployment insurance.
It is unfortunate how the illegal abuse of "independent contracting" in America has created these terrible situations though.
Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games
#20Sometimes you simply got to let the data speak for themselves: https://imgur.com/a/2tR4WVX It's so strange how the prestige around the brand was not correlated to the sells numbers. It so strange how their demise was so unexpected by the press and gaming communities when the writing was on the wall long ago.
Important to keep in mind here that all sales numbers for digital titles are, by necessity, estimates because major marketplaces like Steam not only don't release numbers but place limits on what kind of information developers can release. Previous services for estimating sales numbers were shut down by Valve. SteamSpy was at least fairly accurate up until it was shut down, but it also leaves out sales on consoles and non-steam storefronts.
Another factor is that many of these games are 'prestige brands' like Minecraft or The Walking Dead, which means there may be partnership funding involved. This is demonstrated by how Telltale spoke about keeping a skeleton crew around to finish a game in order to fulfill obligations to partners - if that's happening it's because money changed hands.
(I agree in general with the premise that the writing has been on the wall for Telltale, just not that a steamspy chart is proof that the company was already dead in the water)