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Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

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Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#171

Post by btilly »

otoburb wrote: post #136
btilly wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employers. See https://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/uifactsheet.as... and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_S... for more information about it. Note that the caps are per state, but is sufficiently low that it doesn't replace a professional level income. Therefore if your lifestyle is based on an income of $50K+, you are strongly advised to acquire personal savings for emergencies in…

>> This can lead to weirdly misaligned incentives, like C-level executives on a failing company trying to get fired because their severance package will leave them better off than staying with the sinking ship. If anybody is fired in the U.S. they are almost always never entitled to severance. Severance is primarily available for employees who have been laid off. Such companies would love to fire executives in the tr…

A contract can say whatever it says. If it says that in event of your being asked to leave the company that you get 6 months salary, then you get 6 months salary upon being asked to leave. Regardless of why you're asked to leave the company.

This kind of contract term is not given rank and file employees. But I personally know executives who have been fired and kept a salary because it was in their contract, including one who was fired in the last year, and another who maneuvered to get fired a few years ago because the company was going out of business.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#172

Post by qubax »

cloakandswagger wrote: post #10
lquist wrote: post #9

Is severance normal at a startup or a game studio? I would think first priority would be contractual obligations (payroll, contractual severance, vendors, etc.) and then only then severance.

I don't think severance is normal or expected of any business teetering on insolvency.

It is normal and expected for the executives though. Somehow, even in the worst bankruptcies or closures, they always seem to end up with golden parachutes. Must be luck.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#173

Post by qubax »

This type of stuff happened a lot during the dotcom bust. It seemed like good times would last forever. People would get hired with great salary, options, benefits, etc and fly across the country to start their new jobs only to find the business had shut down. It's insane. These companies would hold job interviews and hire people knowing full well they are about to go close shop.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#174

Post by ericdykstra »

zemo wrote: post #150
gaius wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses I’ve sometimes wondered if that’s true. I mean debugging a race condition in C++ is going to be the same in a game engine as in a trading engine right? Except the latter will be well paid and secure.

If you view your work through a lens of pure abstraction and intellectual curiosity, what's to stop you from working on something that hurts people, just because the problems are interesting?

It would depend on that person’s moral preferences and perceived value of benefits/drawbacks a company offers. Your “harm” might be someone else’s “good” (see: other person in this thread condemning games).

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#175

Post by antisthenes »

c3534l wrote: post #70
ta987654321 wrote: post #19

This studio closure hits a little close to me, since I know a few former employees: - They really did not see a full studio closure coming so suddenly. Yes, they were aware that they were struggling, but the 25% staff reduction was supposed to keep the studio sustainable. - They were in the planning stages for an original IP, their new leadership realized too late that expensive IP licenses were unsustainable. - Thei…

There were people who moved to accept a job at that company a few months ago who got fired. Imagine uprooting your entire life, moving across country for your dream job, for the sole purpose that management can keep up appearances that they're a functioning company so people won't jump ship. The company was scummy and ran into the ground because of incompetence.

That's a more typically American phenomenon, I think.

Unless you live in an absolutely hopeless job market (e.g. small mid-west towns with nothing for 50-60 miles around them), then relocating for a job should come with absolutely mind-blowing perks and really be worth it for you to uproot everything.

Or you're relocating within the same region where you can still commute back every weekend or so (e.g. DC to NY or Boston to NY).

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#176

Post by Bartweiss »

JansjoFromIkea wrote: post #157
WillPostForFood wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their games steeply declined in sales after the first Walking Dead. From selling many millions to the last few selling only a few hundred thousand in spite of high profile licenses like Batman.

I wonder how much this decline was to do with how heavily they embraced things like Humble Bundle I for one never bought a Telltale game because I knew they'd wind up as either in part of a pretty solid bundle or even just a full fledged Telltale bundle. Can't think of another company in the games industry who so willingly devalued their whole catalogue as quickly. Assume the goal was to get loads of people up to dat…

I think the use of Humble was definitely about the episodic nature of the product, but I'm not sure it worked very well. Humble buyers were presumably a bit less excited for the games than others, and I seriously doubt it was enough extra headcount to overcome the fact that Telltale basically sold games to shrinking funnels.

Everyone I know who enjoyed the first GoT Telltale game had quit by the third, but apparently there were six in total? That hardly looks like a sustainable technique.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#177

Post by antisthenes »

vecter wrote: post #127
dleslie wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

_Never_ work longer hours than you would be willing to be paid hourly for given your salary. _Never_. I've been interviewed at companies where it was evident from my questions that I would make more working half time at my current employer than the hours typically worked at the prospective employer. Really, I don't see why overtime is so rare in our industry. Not having it is more often an excuse to over utilize and…

Never is a pretty bad rule. If you want to get ahead in life and advance your career, sometimes working more is the only way to do it. Everyone should decide at the end of the day how much they want to balance work vs. life, but for many people, working hard is the right choice.

You should appear to work hard to get ahead. You shouldn't actually be working hard - if possible - work smarter, if not, make the appearance of working hard.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#178

Post by ericdykstra »

zemo wrote: post #149
ericdykstra wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean to be callous, but the game industry is one where much of the benefit comes from the fact that one gets to work on games as opposed to B2B SAAS apps or other banal businesses. In exchange for getting to work on games, you are taking a lower salary, higher competition, and much less stable working environment. It's very similar to sports; there are many more people who want to work in sports than there ar…

of course it's not callous, you're describing purpose as a motivator. Most people in most industries in most societies in most parts of the world are at least partly motivated by purpose. It's the opposite that is callous: to see every C++ programming job as being equivalent. Seeing programming jobs only through the lens of "what programming problems am I solving" and "what tools am I using" is nihilist. Callous woul…

Callous in that my comment might be read as “the people who got fired with no severance deserved it.”

I’m closer to “The people who got fired with no severance knew what they were getting into with this industry, and if they didn’t that ignorance is their own fault,” which might also be read as callous.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#179

Post by klodolph »

antisthenes wrote: post #175
c3534l wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were people who moved to accept a job at that company a few months ago who got fired. Imagine uprooting your entire life, moving across country for your dream job, for the sole purpose that management can keep up appearances that they're a functioning company so people won't jump ship. The company was scummy and ran into the ground because of incompetence.

That's a more typically American phenomenon, I think. Unless you live in an absolutely hopeless job market (e.g. small mid-west towns with nothing for 50-60 miles around them), then relocating for a job should come with absolutely mind-blowing perks and really be worth it for you to uproot everything. Or you're relocating within the same region where you can still commute back every weekend or so (e.g. DC to NY or Bo…

There aren’t many cities with good jobs for the games industry. People don’t just uproot because they’re hopeless but also for the opposite, because they’re hopeful that the increased opportunities are worth it.

Re: Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance

#180

Post by Bartweiss »

stuaxo wrote: post #158
c3534l wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There were people who moved to accept a job at that company a few months ago who got fired. Imagine uprooting your entire life, moving across country for your dream job, for the sole purpose that management can keep up appearances that they're a functioning company so people won't jump ship. The company was scummy and ran into the ground because of incompetence.

Always ask about a companies profit and revenue streams in an interview.

From the past accounts of top-level management, I'm not convinced this information would have been accurate and forthcoming. Which is information in its own right, but it means that instead of saying "is this company solvent", you have to say "do I feel like my question was deflected heavily enough to turn down the offer?"

https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17130056/telltale-games-d...

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