Telltale Games Confirms Layoffs, With 'Most Of' The Studio Reportedly Gone

I thought they already went under a while back.

@Poodlestargenerica Exactly. Who knew they weren't completely dead already?

@Poodlestargenerica

Same here. The assets and some staff probably got snapped up by a holding company at some point.

I think the guy makes a good point about workers unionising though. I expect there's an existing union they could join.

I think they chose the wrong game to make their return with, why the expanse? Surely a game like The Wolf Among us 2 or even a new entry in the the Walking Dead series would of been better, just something more popular that would of got more attention, I watched the first part of the expanse game and it was their worst one yet.

@Poodlestargenerica Same here! I thought Telltale went under a while ago.

Love their games and I hope everyone finds jobs quickly ❤️

First couple of seasons of Walking Dead were good. Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands were also good, but these were all more than 5 years ago. Can't think of anything they've done that I've been interested in for a while. It's sad for the staff, but if you're working for a company that provides a product or service that nobody wants then it's sadly just a matter of time.

@Poodlestargenerica They did go under, at the end of 2018. LCG Entertainment acquired the name, their assets and some of their staff (about half of the "new" Telltale were previous Telltale employees).

@Woderwick The problem is, in the video game industry, labor unions are virtually nonexistent. And any talk of it amongst employees gets them fired post-haste. We've even seen it happen a few times within Nintendo, specifically the American branch (and the company allegedly tries to foster a good working environment).

Frankly, we wouldn't need unions if the companies invested more in their employees instead of trying to squeeze every last penny they could out of them before kicking them to the curb in order to pad their own bottom lines. But I would rather be part of a union and not need it rather than need a union and not have it.

Maybe with this increase of support for unions that we are seeing this year, we will see something. But it is going to be hard-fought. Just like with other industries, video game companies will bring in union-busters to cajole and threaten people to not form, much less join, a union.

The people trying to form one must stay the course and not allow themselves to be intimidated. Despite what the union-busters would say, being part of a union is better for the workers in the short and long term.

Someone needs to get a plagiarism checker, because I think I’ve heard this story before…

So they reformed just for the same thing to happen again? obviously their business model is no longer financially successful as that was the reason for their problems the first time around as well as how they treated staff. It's all well and good continuing on but their episodic game releases aren't as appealing as they were when they first came out and they failed to realise that.

@AstroTheGamosian
Agreed. It's a sad state of affairs. It's not as hard to unionise in the UK, but the Tories are doing their best to cut the unions off at the knees by incrementally making it harder for them.
Very different situation to the US though.

I think choose the expanse as one of comeback games isn't good move why haven't they done another Batman telltale or The wolf among us or how about revive the scarp project Stranger things pretty sure many fans will play due to how popular the series is.

A second death is not what we need. This industry is really being screwed over.

@Gamergirl94 the Batman game was a loss for them. The only profitable game they made were the walking dead season 1and Minecraft. The rest were funded with investor money and the losses written off that way.

(Source here https://comicbook.com/gaming/news/telltale-closure-the-walking-dead-minecraft-batman/ )

I imagine they went with the wolf among us since it was their most critically acclaimed one and hoped to turn that into more sales. I don’t think Netflix would want to work with them after the first crash.

@Woderwick The tories trying to undermine unions is the only good thing they are doing. Unions and communism, works on paper but not in reality.

Unfortunately the product they made didn't sell. Having a Union means nothing if the work you are doing doesn't have a customer to recoup your investments.

@dew12333 fundamentally disagree with you. Without unions, in UK and elsewhere, there'd be no retirement state pensions, sick pay, redundancy pay, anti discrimination laws, protection against manager bullying ... Etc etc.
Think again!

@dew12333
No one in the UK is proposing communism, and certainly not any of the unions. Elements of socialism yes, but that's a very different thing to communism.
I'm a union member and I've directly witnessed the good they've done for myself and others.
I hope you never find yourself in a situation where you need union support. Nobody calls their union rep because everything is going great.

Woah. Deja vu.

The bubble of growth that the video games business had, that grew during the height of the pandemic, is about to burst real dang fast.
And a lot of workers are gonna get hurt, while CEOs all get golden parachutes.

This is gonna make the 1983 crash look like a walk in the park, and that makes me very sad ☹️

Man, it sucks so much The Wolf Among Us 2 would have paid the licensing fee upfront. That IP is a freaking minefield now ... they basically are going to have to pay for it again OR just make the game without consent from all rights holders and hope for the best.

i am realy sad about Team 17.
hope they find a restart, i realy love them.
so many great unique games, and the company is old, there must be someone resurect it

@yoshifanboy I don't need to do anymore thinking, but you carry on peeing in their pot, the union fat cats love your money.
@Woderwick I am pleased that you have a good experience with your union, but at the end of the day they do no more than what a individual could do without them. And they hardly represent 10% of UK workers and in my opinion are just as full of greed as business in general.

@LadyCharlie I can't imagine these layoffs are going to have the same impact as the 1983 crash. For one, the market was much smaller back then. But who knows? Maybe it will all go down the drain and Nintendo will resurrect the industry, just like they did with the NES.

I’m all for unions, but how would a union help in this situation? It seems like this company is just straight up going out of business. Isn’t a Union a solution to a completely separate issue? Or am I missing something?

@dew12333 I agree with you, but you should know by now that type of opinion is not welcome on this site.

They need to diversify and not just make games that only a select few people want to play, again.

@Jiggies I've never been very good at 'you should know better'.

@Bobb Definitely, in all the places I have worked there has never been a chance of being in a union, and the mining strike was not pretty from my memory. But I always appreciate all opinions, it's what makes us all individuals.

@Jiggies ...and people wonder why this industry has problems. Debates are often too one-sided.

Video game unionizing desperately needs to happen. It'll probably take a long time, but VFX crews are starting to do it so sooner or later it'll happen, hopefully sooner.

That being said I do feel like this was always a failed venture. Telltale pretty much never made money and acquiring them just to have them then spend years not releasing anything was always just going to be an incredible waste.

It would be kinda funny to see Telltale dying again, I could use the joke:

"If I had a nickel for every time Telltale went bankrupt, I'd have two nickels. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice. Right?"

Dead man walking.....

@dew12333
I'm the first to admit unions aren't perfect, after all they're made up of humans so imperfection is guaranteed. But not being perfect isn't the same as being completely useless.
There's a massive imbalance between the power of an individual worker and that of their employer and the purpose of the union is to address that.

@VinylCreep It is a completely separate issue. Companies go under Union or not.

Poster just went off tangent and took advantage of the initial attention grabbing “most of us are gone” to talk about another issue.

Honestly even if Telltale went Union I still see the same fate if their insistence for a specific niche of games with a limited target audience + overly long dev times/tendency to cancel planned sequels of said games still remains the same.

So thats... twice now? Imagine having that on your resume.

Remember when Telltale was a small lil studio working on Strong Bads Cool Game for Attractive People? How did we get here? Every time I blink there is an article detailing how TTG messed up again

Big time cautionary tale of how not to run a studio. They hyperextended on niche games of declining quality and managed deadlines poorly, there was no chance they'd stay afloat.

I hope all of their creative talent finds gainful employment and soon

@Woderwick Well, let's just hope Labour gets back into the majority in Parliament when the UK's next general election happens. And it may very well happen, considering the Tories are basically flopping around like a Magikarp out of water right now, with an increasing number of Tory MPs accepting the likelihood of Labour sweeping back into power.

From the whole Brexit fiasco, to the cost of living crisis that the Tories in Parliament seems unable or unwilling to fix, to the multitude of scandals that plagued Boris Johnson's premiership, to three Prime Ministers in a row resigning in disgrace (the last of which, Liz Truss, holds the record for the shortest tenure in British history), Labour seems primed to take back power, maybe even in a landslide. Maybe then they can stymie the anti-union policies that the Tories are pushing.

I may be an American (born and raised), but as someone who tries to keep up on world affairs--compared to some within my home country--I take a keen interest in the major goings-on in the United Kingdom. I wish you all the best in the next few years. And for all I know, the way things are going here in America, I may just end up migrating to a place like the UK or Canada (although Japan is my dream destination).

My parents used to ask why I didn't try and work on games since I spend so much time with them and love them so much. I said "Because the industry treats everyone in it besides it's 'auteurs' like trash, so unless I have a Minecraft level idea, it ain't happening." That was like in the the seventh gen. It just keeps getting worse.

@AstroTheGamosian
Dude, you know more about English politics than most of our politicians do!
Agree, the Tories have basically run out of things to steal and sell to their mates so they're now inventing culture wars just to keep people distracted while they hoover up the lint from our pockets.
The idea of the incumbents trying to reframe themselves as the change candidates is completely insane but they have absolutely no shame whatsoever.
I hope Labour win, just because they'll be less bad than the Tories but I have little to no faith in Starmer. He's just another lawyer and Blair demonstrated how badly that can turn out.
Frankly I'm just gearing up for the apocalypse by welding a lawnmower to the front of an old Volvo and ordering a pair of arseless leather chaps.

@Woderwick I consider myself a global citizen, so I try to keep tabs on what is going on in the world at large, not just my own little corner of it.

And I know what you mean about the Tories. The Republicans here in America are basically doing the same thing, selling culture war propaganda in an attempt to get votes. If anything, the Tories are trying to copy the Republicans (although hopefully being less successful).

But the way I see it, if Labour lost their majority partly because of lies surrounding the circumstances behind the Iraq War and the handling of said conflict (from what I have heard, at least, although I could be wrong), then the Tories are screwed.

But maybe Keir Starmer will grow into the role as Prime Minister, or someone else will take the top job with his blessing. Time will tell.

@AstroTheGamosian
I'm similar in that I try and keep an eye on the political situation across the globe. It's a lot bigger than the little patch I inhabit.
You're bang on the money about the Tories cribbing from the republicans as well. Specifically that waste of skin Desantis. They'll almost certainly cock it up though, frankly they couldn't organise a bumming in an arsehole factory.
The left really needs someone with some fire and passion, not just being bland and not monstrous in contrast to the opposition. I think that's true on both sides of the pond.

Regarding the union comment, it probably isn’t a bad idea for staff to be in one to help fend off or get more reimbursement for the likes of crunch that the industry is known for. It also probably helps when a massive company like EA decides it wants to slim staff to save profits by helping to get better packages for staff impacted.

I dont however see how unionising will help staff in a situation where a company such as Telltale has a long run of financial issues and been on the brink of bankruptcy. The company probably isn’t in a position to support these staff, even if they wanted to, given what we know of the companies state over a prolonged period.

I also think the entire industry know the trouble Telltale has been in and one has to assume that staff sticking with them knew there was a risk of layoffs or bankruptcy.

Not saying that’s grounds to not unionise, not at all, but I wouldn’t link this to telltales woes.

Didn't they just got revised?

@UltimateOtaku91 would of is not a word. It is would've which comes from would have. You are welcome. Carry on

The "union" red meat seems to have triggered the autoimmune response it intended, it also doesn't seem relevant.

TT rode its incredible wave of success during the 360/PS3 era into the ground. They were poorly managed and the public grew tired of their products. The proof is in the proverbial pudding. I'm sure we'll find out more in an eventual post mortem info dump.

They have done some excellent stuff. This is a shame.

Anyone having their games sell it as it would be worthless at years end....