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The tragic end of Telltale Games

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Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#71

Post by tablethnuser »

Don't work in the games industry. This is the par story for game companies. Every little detail of this story I saw repeating on loop in a decade of working in games. The artists grabbing assets to stuff into their portfolios before two years of professional work disappears into a black hole, the ppl moving families across country to be laid off months later, the crunch, the over promising, it is all text book.

The games industry preys on young ppl who don't know what a healthy work/life balance looks like. The pay is lower because employees are passionate. Passion doesn't pay rent. It doesn't provide stability for your partner and children who all will suffer because you chose to work in games.

Your passion will be compromised endlessly by marketing and management who can air drop in and change a game's entire direction in one meeting. Because they saw a Minecraft commercial and their kid responded to it. They'll make you work weekend after weekend to fit their pivot into the original schedule and stop in for an hour to drop off donuts. Oh good, eight hours of work for a donut. Donuts also don't pay rent. They don't fix your marital problems.

Games is an industry stuck in a groundhog day loop of misery. This is my warning to anyone who thinks they like games enough to make them. You won't like them after making them. It isn't worth it.

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#72

Post by nottorp »

Sean1708 wrote: post #65
nottorp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but in those you have some mechanics to use. Telltalle took the adventure game formula, which is mostly exploration and puzzles, and dumbed it down until you were left with linear exploration and kindergarten puzzles. I stopped looking at their titles ages ago because while I grew up with adventure games, the Telltale titles ain't that any more. Edit: also, games made after a movie license (or a game license, Mi…

> Especially when they're story based so basically you're replaying the movie that you've already seen. Weren't most of Telltale's stories original? I didn't play any of the others, but I know the Borderlands and Batman ones were.

Maybe, if you mean as original as they can be within the restrictions of the franchise.

Personally, I played Borderlands but I never stopped and thought "oh gee, it would be nice to find out more about their background story". I just looked for the next thing to shoot. As for Batman... saturation anyone?

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#73

Post by muraiki »

fsloth wrote: post #43
JohnStrangeII wrote: post #2

I 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…

"bad game adoptions" At least their "Wolf among us" was an extremely enjoyable adaptation of an existing comic book franchise with a novel story.

And they were working on a sequel... :(

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#74

Post by michaelscott »

Razengan wrote: post #70
screye wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is very true. Gaming journos have very little influence inside the gaming community. Many of them do not quite get that "fun" is the most central reason for playing a game. Their articles often read like someone who is hoping for a regular media house to notice and hire them, rather than a gamer writing for other gamers. Gaming's biggest personalities are on YouTube and Twitch. ACG, Angry Joe, TB (rip), Dunkey h…

I have been gaming literally my entire life save for the first couple years, spending thousands of dollars on games every year, and I have never watched any of those “gaming personalities.”

If it helps add another data point to the mix, I can confirm parent's comment on these personalities and their influence within the gaming community. A number of them often provide in-depth critiques and unexpected insights on game design that take the form of comedic video quasi-essays, and they rack up huge subscriber counts.

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#75

Post by wafflesraccoon »

Entalpi wrote: post #54

“/../ hundreds still tumbled into unemployment with no safety net from their company.“ To be honest a company that can “barely keep its head above water” wont be in shape to provide a lot of support. That is kind of the point, if they could do that then maybe they could keep the company afloat which is a bit paradoxical. It would be nice situations like these to have some form of safety net in form of financial aid o…

Typically most states will let you file for unemployment benefits if you are laid off, these vary from state to state.

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#76

Post by erikb »

> These sources [...] paint a consistent picture of a company desperately struggling to keep its head above water.

No? Manager start doing this when their profits dwindle, not when the company has no cash left. The basic idea is to get one or two more bonus checks while the others lose their homes. You can be sure that some people still made a profit.

> “[Hawley] came into a situation where the staff needed a strong leader with a clear vision,” says a former employee.

Does anybody remember how Dunder Miflin tried to pursuade the stockholders by presenting Michael Scott as the hero who would turn things around?

And one thing I don't really get is why one brings oneself in a situation where one works ones ass off in exchange for living paycheck-to-paycheck. You should have a decent amount of spare time (or time for personal projects at least) and turn a profit, otherwise why work this job at all? I mean gaming industry is not a career you work in because you need to feed 3 children and don't have another choice.

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#77

Post by watwut »

screye wrote: post #57
lmm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gaming press is more press than gaming; they're often people with writing degrees who are disproportionately fond of "literary" games compared to the buying public.

This is very true. Gaming journos have very little influence inside the gaming community. Many of them do not quite get that "fun" is the most central reason for playing a game. Their articles often read like someone who is hoping for a regular media house to notice and hire them, rather than a gamer writing for other gamers. Gaming's biggest personalities are on YouTube and Twitch. ACG, Angry Joe, TB (rip), Dunkey h…

Just because something is fun to you does not mean it is fun for everybody. The gaming repeated conviction seem to be that some peoples tastes count.

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#78

Post by mcjiggerlog »

dudul wrote: post #41
mcjiggerlog wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Europe its called "Social Security"

No. Actually in most countries "social security" and "unemployment insurance" are 2 different things. Social security IIRC is mostly there to take care of medical expenses, including for employed people.

Social security generally pays unemployment benefits too. How that works is obviously very dependent on the country. Also, at least in the UK there are national funds available to cover redundancy.

And yes, I was being facetious - I'm aware unemployment benefit is often pretty low and that actual income protection insurance does exist.

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#79

Post by bunderbunder »

7000skeletons wrote: post #39
kevingadd wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's similar to how (in general) an industry-wide theme is that episodic titles have significant sales drop-off in later episodes. Sequels do too, albeit less so and less consistently. This is part of why companies selling episodic games (telltale included) try to sell you a whole season up front. A big notable example is Square Enix's Final Fantasy 13 trilogy (3 games, FF13, FF13-2, and Lightning Returns), where IIR…

I can't help but think there's some truth to all the talk about people growing tired of the same mechanics being used in essentially every Telltale game after the first series of The Walking Dead. Going from personal experience, it was a hell of a ride the first outing but it grew pretty samey even when new settings and stories were applied to it.

It's not just the physical mechanics. The story arcs and puzzles on their games also started feeling formulaic after a while too. Like, if you played one Telltale game, you'd played them all.

Which makes sense, now that I'm hearing how the company was managed - coming up with really original ideas, and making sure they work, takes time and breathing room. You get that out of people that have time to put their feet on the desk and daydream, not people that live on perpetual crunch time.

Re: The tragic end of Telltale Games

#80

Post by LUmBULtERA »

screye wrote: post #57
lmm wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The gaming press is more press than gaming; they're often people with writing degrees who are disproportionately fond of "literary" games compared to the buying public.

This is very true. Gaming journos have very little influence inside the gaming community. Many of them do not quite get that "fun" is the most central reason for playing a game. Their articles often read like someone who is hoping for a regular media house to notice and hire them, rather than a gamer writing for other gamers. Gaming's biggest personalities are on YouTube and Twitch. ACG, Angry Joe, TB (rip), Dunkey h…

I also have never seen any of those YouTube channels and never watch Twitch. I do peruse those gaming review websites from time to time.
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