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Well, gently caress, the industry needed a studio like them. I'll update as more details come in, but as it is, according to IGN a skeleton crew of staff are hanging on to finish the final season of Walking Dead and all other projects are cancelled, including Stranger Things and Wolf Among Us 2. This blows. I knew they'd had some trouble with the former CEO being a poo poo and many talented staff leaving due to him but it sounded like they were well past that. I'd guess that too many of their players were waiting on seasons to be completed and on put on sale before actually buying them. For now, who knows. Guess they just couldn't wait for the holiday season's numbers to save them. This whole thing really sucks.
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Sep 21, 2018 21:40
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My opinion of them never really recovered after Walking Dead Season One ate my save file between episodes, but its still shocking and sad to see them go. They more or less kept adventure games alive back in the day when adventure gamers were trying to convince themselves that poo poo like Still/Life was good. In the end, their management problems ultimately destroyed them even after they tried to work past them. 
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Sep 21, 2018 21:53
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Huh, I kind of assumed Telltale were doing well. Real shame to see they are not, I like most of their stuff and love some of it
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Sep 21, 2018 22:05
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I liked Walking Dead 1, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands, everything else kinda sucked. Game of Thrones in particular was really loving lovely and I never bought a Telltale game again after that.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:06
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So this was as sudden to people inside the company as it seemed from the outside, and TWD S4 may not even see completion. https://variety.com/2018/gaming/news/walking-dead-game-developer-hit-staff-layoffs-1202952915/ quote:The team behind the highly successful narratively-driven “The Walking Dead” video game adaptation was rocked with massive layoffs this week, with nearly 90 percent of the estimates 250 employees let go, a source with the company who asked not to be named told Variety. The remaining employees will finish the Netflix “Minecraft: Story Mode” interactive series.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:23
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The industry didn't need a toxic company owned by greedy bastards that pumped out terrible games that only sold due to pop culture licenses.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:24
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It's terrible news for the employees and I really hope they find new jobs elsewhere in the industry soon. But I won't miss Telltale itself at all, they made some good ones initially (wish they'd kept the Nelson Tethers series going) but wow towards the end it was just shovelware.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:32
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The last game I played from them was the first Batman season and while I liked the writing, some of the location( the Wayne's manor pop to mind) felt like it had a really simple geometry. Their tech was ancient and dated, it really needed to be updated because in some scenes it seemed to struggle event recent hardware.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:35
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Bleusilences posted:The last game I played from them was the first Batman season and while I liked the writing the engine felt so old and some of the location( the Wayne's manor pop to mind) felt like it had a really simple geometry. Their tech was ancient and dates, it really needed to be updated because in some scenes it seemed to struggle event recent hardware. I want someone to leak the Telltale engine just so we can see how lovely it really is
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Sep 21, 2018 22:37
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I enjoyed both the Sam and Max Seasons and the Monkey Island one and the general attempts to breathe life into a dead genre, but the crazy success of TWD Season 1 obviously sent them in a completely different direction. I suppose that the issue is that I, like most, stopped buying their stuff after it became obvious that the main selling point, dramatic choices, weren't actually functional. Tales from the Borderlands was good though, because it was funny enough that the implied drama surrounding the false choices didn't really overwhelm it.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:43
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waffle posted:It's terrible news for the employees and I really hope they find new jobs elsewhere in the industry soon. But I won't miss Telltale itself at all, they made some good ones initially (wish they'd kept the Nelson Tethers series going) but wow towards the end it was just shovelware. Many of later offerings seemed iffy, and I found a lot of the narrative presentation to be dull. There were too many moments of people expositing to eachother while standing completely still in a room, or expositing to eachother while walking down a bland hallway. A lot of the gameplay felt like you were simply plodding along until you got to the next part where the animation budget was parceled out.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:47
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Telltale confirms what everyone already knew https://twitter.com/telltalegames/status/1043252010999410689
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Sep 21, 2018 22:48
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Sad to see them go, but honestly haven't bought any game of their in years. I loved their work when it was Sam & Max, Monkey Island, and even stuff like Tales of Borderlands or Wolf Among Us. But while I enjoyed Walking Dead season 1, I never bother to play beyond the first episode of season 2 as it was just getting comical on how the game wanted to be cruel to the player. And after that there was no more Sam & Max or Monkey Island type games and more and more license games that I honestly had no interest in playing.
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Sep 21, 2018 22:54
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The walking dead the first season and tales from the borderlands. I’d list in my top 50 or so favorite games. It’s probably for the best though because what has telltale put out in the last few years that’s been anything near the level of the first two. I hope the people laid off can quickly find new and better jobs.
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Sep 21, 2018 23:08
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How the gently caress you make Batman boring? Good ridance imo, i hope cdpr contact the people who made wolf among us
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Sep 21, 2018 23:14
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Saw this headline and was just like yeah that makes sense. I just don' care to buy their games with how insanely little effort actually seemed to go into them after TWD S1. S2 cemented that for me.
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Sep 21, 2018 23:16
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I loving loved both seasons of Batman, tbh
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Sep 21, 2018 23:31
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DoctorGonzo posted:How the gently caress you make Batman boring? Good ridance imo, i hope cdpr contact the people who made wolf among us What does the California Department of Pesticide Regulation have anything to do with this? 
Unlucky7 fucked around with this message at 23:37 on Sep 21, 2018 |
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Sep 21, 2018 23:32
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I heard a lot about Telltale, mainly about how they were actually quite bad to work for since every project director after TWD1's success wanted to get writing credit for everything and turned into massive divas whenever someone tried to suggest anything that deviated from 'their vision'.
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Sep 21, 2018 23:44
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S1 TWD was pretty great until i got to the end and discovered and none of my choices really mattered, but the ending saved it anyway. Enjoyed S2 too cause Kenny was cool, but retarded and neat to play Clem, but it had some huge issues with the writing. Everything else sucked really hard, i never tried the wolf game tho.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:04
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Bleusilences posted:The last game I played from them was the first Batman season and while I liked the writing, some of the location( the Wayne's manor pop to mind) felt like it had a really simple geometry. Their tech was ancient and dated, it really needed to be updated because in some scenes it seemed to struggle event recent hardware. They were going to be making their future games off Unity after TWD4 was finished. Honestly the engine didn't bother me that much (though it does seem improved in the latest TWD). But I can see how for many it could turn them off and they probably should have put more resources towards a new engine sooner.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:13
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Looks like they aren't even going to be able to finish Walking Dead https://twitter.com/LawofTD/status/1043278296396357633
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Sep 22, 2018 00:24
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Talk about adding insult to injury.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:26
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Just how much effort was needed for one of their games anyway? They're glorified visual novels, or create your own adventures. Won't most of the work be done by animators?
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Sep 22, 2018 00:29
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I bought that final season of Walking Dead, so lol on me I suppose. Hell I liked basically every game of theirs I played. A sad day.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:30
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the TWD games/seasons are basically the only game my wife liked, RIP (I loved season 1, but since then I played a bit or all of season 2, Wolf Among Us, Borderlands, and Game of Thrones and maybe Batman? (you get free episodes so much with PS plus)... felt like their stuff was getting worse over time tbh
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Sep 22, 2018 00:35
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Rirse posted:Sad to see them go, but honestly haven't bought any game of their in years. I loved their work when it was Sam & Max, Monkey Island, and even stuff like Tales of Borderlands or Wolf Among Us. But while I enjoyed Walking Dead season 1, I never bother to play beyond the first episode of season 2 as it was just getting comical on how the game wanted to be cruel to the player. And after that there was no more Sam & Max or Monkey Island type games and more and more license games that I honestly had no interest in playing. I'm the same story, though it wasn't the writing or the cracks in their player choice systems becoming fully apparent that pushed me off of TWD season 2, but because they entirely abandoned any of the puzzle elements I need from my adventure games. The meager, half-assed puzzles it did include (I don't even think there were more than 4 or 5 in the entire season, if even that many) were insultingly basic. Telltale enticed me with promises of another quality adventure game but ended up selling me some poorly written visual novel. I mean, TWD season 2 was the last Telltale game I played, so I honestly don't even know if they ultimately stopped making puzzles, but I strongly suspect they did.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:39
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twd season 1 was fantastic, 2 fell off a goddamn cliff though. not even sad that the last season got cancelled, it's been bad since 2. sucks for the people that work there though, but this industry is also a merciless meat grinder so, welp.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:42
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I would love to see some financial details on them, because their stuff seems to sell pretty drat well. I'm guessing they spend most of their budget on acquiring licences and voice acting, and possibly having to kick back a too high percentage to the license holders as well? I was hoping to get new stuff from them on an engine that didn't run like poo poo because I did like a lot of their stuff. Game of Thrones was easily their worst game. Knowing what happens in the books or show ends up coloring all your decisions and ruining tension. They could have made a dope Westworld game. It's a real shame that Telltale goes out of business and David Cage is still doing his thing, even though I guess Telltale was awful to work for.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:53
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treat posted:I'm the same story, though it wasn't the writing or the cracks in their player choice systems becoming fully apparent that pushed me off of TWD season 2, but because they entirely abandoned any of the puzzle elements I need from my adventure games. The meager, half-assed puzzles it did include (I don't even think there were more than 4 or 5 in the entire season, if even that many) were insultingly basic. Telltale enticed me with promises of another quality adventure game but ended up selling me some poorly written visual novel. The Batman games had some scenes akin to puzzling where you basically investigate crime scenes or plot enemy takedowns. The Minecraft one also had some level of puzzle solving to the point that, gasp, you were able finish the game without getting all achievements. Surprisingly, the best game they did after TWD1 was Borderlands. It wasn't mechanically innovative, but it's a joyous, absolutely fun game that I'd reccomend to anyone.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:54
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PringleCreamEgg posted:I would love to see some financial details on them, because their stuff seems to sell pretty drat well. I'm guessing they spend most of their budget on acquiring licences and voice acting, and possibly having to kick back a too high percentage to the license holders as well? I was hoping to get new stuff from them on an engine that didn't run like poo poo because I did like a lot of their stuff. Back when SteamSpy was still around I would look at how certain games were doing and Telltale was really not doing so hot in 2017. I remember Batman and TWD Season 3 were both below 100k copies at some point well into their respective runs, which was downright awful for how popular those IPs are.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:55
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PringleCreamEgg posted:I would love to see some financial details on them, because their stuff seems to sell pretty drat well. I'm guessing they spend most of their budget on acquiring licences and voice acting, and possibly having to kick back a too high percentage to the license holders as well? I was hoping to get new stuff from them on an engine that didn't run like poo poo because I did like a lot of their stuff. I know it's nothing concrete but there's this graph that seems to be sourcing Steamspy. It doesn't take consoles into account of course but I'm guessing the proportions of each game are more likely accurate than not. At least in the sense that everything post TWD S1 never got anywhere near the level it did.
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Sep 22, 2018 00:57
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So TWD won't be finished, so I'll just make my own canon ending: Clem lives and is very happy and nothing bad will ever happen to her again. The End.
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Sep 22, 2018 01:07
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honestly considering the amount of games they were pumping out year after year I thought they were doing just fine. I never played a single one of their games but own a decent amount of them thanks to PS+ so maybe I'll play a few in memoriam
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Sep 22, 2018 01:09
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PringleCreamEgg posted:I would love to see some financial details on them, because their stuff seems to sell pretty drat well. I'm guessing they spend most of their budget on acquiring licences and voice acting, and possibly having to kick back a too high percentage to the license holders as well? I was hoping to get new stuff from them on an engine that didn't run like poo poo because I did like a lot of their stuff. I'm curious too I wonder I how sales have been since TWD season 1? I really felt like the studio still had potential and would eventually release another good game.
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Sep 22, 2018 01:13
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To be fair, I've seen other developers ape Telltale's style arguably better than Telltale themselves did (and with actual gameplay to boot rather than being one long interactive cutscene) so it's not like this genre of games is going away any time soon even with them out of the picture. It's a pity they weren't at least able to finish TWD though.
Larryb fucked around with this message at 01:21 on Sep 22, 2018 |
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Sep 22, 2018 01:18
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I'm just grateful we got 3 seasons of Sam & Max. Wow it has been a while since those were released hasn't it?
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Sep 22, 2018 01:24
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This story got progressively worse throughout the day, from 'some layoffs' to 'actually we're closing' to 'we're so broke we can't even finish our current game' 
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Sep 22, 2018 01:38
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Shneak posted:This story got progressively worse throughout the day, from 'some layoffs' to 'actually we're closing' to 'we're so broke we can't even finish our current game' I'm honestly surprised the CEO didn't just sneak away in the middle of the night on a plane to a country with no extradition treaty with the US.
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Sep 22, 2018 01:41
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https://www.theverge.com/2018/3/20/17130056/telltale-games-developer-layoffs-toxic-video-game-industry This article is from back in March, but it really goes in deep on why this ultimately happened. However, if you're a sad morbid gently caress, this'll be the best part: verge posted:Although people within Telltale are still saddened by the loss of so many of their colleagues, many said they now feel more optimistic about the developer’s future than they have in a long time. “We’re certainly at a place where we have more freedom to experiment than we ever had in the past,” says one source. “Between last year and now the difference in the company is like night and day. I now walk into an executive review meeting knowing I’ll get usable feedback instead of wondering who will be in charge of the project tomorrow.”
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Sep 22, 2018 01:47
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