Telltale Has Done a Majority Studio Closure

[Carlie]

“Today Telltale Games made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges,” the company said in a statement. “A majority of the company’s employees were dismissed earlier this morning.” The company will retain a small team of 25. These remaining employees will stay on “to fulfill the company’s obligations to its board and partners,” according to Telltale.

If you were looking forward to playing The Wolf Among Us: Season 2 after years and years waiting before it was finally announced, yeah that's not happening anymore.

And just to further prove the company's reported asshole and toxic management; "Staff were informed of the layoffs today and were given roughly 30 minutes to leave the building, according to one source. "

Source

 

[CrashOuch]

Oh man, it's too sad.

 

[The Twilight Mexican]

A lot of talent there. They'll find new (hopefully better managed) homes.

 

[Joe]

 

[Carlie]

More on how bad it is for the now ex employees

It seems they might not even finish The Walking Dead according to Melissa Hutchinson (voice of Clementine). If true one that's a massive dick move and two are they going to return the money to the people who payed for the season pass? Because right now considering how much of an asshole Telltale turned into, I'm guessing no.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

Always nice to see other studios reaching out in light of this shitty event.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1043960192394768390

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1044278036810661888

Also, this is one of those things that REALLY exposes how important it is to maintain indy/startup culture when you start to become a big company due to success, and also why Project Management needs to be focused more closely on ensuring that the process of creating things is still healthy for Devs. When things are really small, there's always an attitude of people putting in all the work necessary to make something really great. Too often when a company booms, that emphasis is expected heavily and burns out your devs BADLY, and it just keeps getting worse, because the end result of the PRODUCT is successful, while everything internally is falling to pieces. Couple that with needing to prove viability under projected growth models, and pretty soon there's a growing balloon that you can't meet, and you've no idea how the hell to get yourself out of that hole.

While we don't make games at my job, I do work in software at a company that was a little startup that's now really big. Being in a company with a similar background that's really internally open means that these are the kinds of things that we always look at in Company All Hands Meetings to make sure that we're not falling into one of these situations. It takes a LOT of constant work and people at the top knowing what they're doing not to ride the high of success, and hope that it can carry you from whatever.

This situation sucks a TON, and it's pretty clear that all of the writing on the wall for this was there back in March.




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[lithiumkatana17]

Under the cut are screencaps of various studios showing their support for Telltale. I love it when the gaming community comes together like this.

Spoiler

 

[Ghost X]

Clearly a breach of contract if people aren't getting what they paid for. Hopefully someone picks up where TWD left off. That or I just pretend this latest chapter doesn't exist :p.

 

[X-SOLDIER]

[Update - 10:30am, 9/25/18]: A class action complaint has been filed in California federal court against Telltale Games by an ex-employee. The complaint alleges that Telltale Games violated the state’s WARN Act by failing to provide 275 workers who were laid off from the studio last Friday with the 60 days notice required by law.

The complaint is seeking a judgement from the court that Telltale pay all of the laid off employees the wages, salaries, 401k contributions, and any other money they would have normally earned during those 60 days. It’s unclear at this time how many other employees have or will join in the lawsuit and whether it will be successful.

The WARN Act includes several exceptions, including certain instances in which a company is seeking to acquire new business or capital that would allow it to keep running normally and notifying employees of a potential shutdown could jeopardize those deals.

Via: https://kotaku.com/telltale-employees-left-stunned-by-company-closure-no-1829272139




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[CrashOuch]

Yeah I did think that sounded illegal! Hopefully this means those poor dudes get something <3