On 9/21/18, Telltale Incorporated laid off the majority of its staff, leaving only 25 of it’s 250 employees, and canceled most of the games it was making. Multiple Telltale employees stated that they had been laid off. The let-go employees were informed that they would not receive any severance package. The Wolf Among Us: Season Two, Game of Thrones: Season Two and the untitled Stranger Things game were cancelled until further notice with development basically ceasing due to a lack of staff to make the games, while the remaining team would finish the final season of The Walking Dead.
Telltale Incorporated, dba Telltale Games, is a video game developer based in the us. The company was founded in June 2004 by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, initially employing staff from what was LucasArts. Telltale’s business model revolves around serial storyline based titles, and the company is best known for games based on existing ip franchises.
Most of Telltale’s products are adventure games based on licensed properties from film, comics, television, and other video games already existing games. Their initial games followed more traditional adventure game approaches with the player solving puzzles to progress.
The software title they are best known for, The Walking Dead, based on the comic book series and television series by AMC, introduced a more narrative-directed approach. This type of game play allows the user to essentially choose their own game, much like a goosebumps choose your own adventure book.
Possible explanations include issues with business creditors, insufficient cash-flow, loss of a major investor, poor sales, or poor product quality. Whatever the case is, it just goes to show you that game development isn’t a stable career. More people make games, more games fail. It’s a well known truth that game programmers are also underpaid and overworked, especially towards a ship date. Just because a job is a “Dream Job” doesn’t mean employees should be fearful of workplace issues like layoffs, cost cutting, or H1-B replacements. In my opinion, globalization has gone too far and hurt the domestic economy. Cheap goods flood in, and jobs flood out to cheaper labor pools when tariffs are low, or free trade agreements are in place.
Works Cited
For Immediate Press Release. (2018, September 21). Retrieved September 21, 2018, from https://twitter.com/telltalegames