Topic: Telltale Layoffs Discussion

So as.I am sure we have heard that Telltale Studios is laying off a significant amount of their employees, as a result games like the final season of The Walking Dead and Wolf Among Us 2 have been cancelled. First off I hope everyone effected finds work somewhere else but I figure we can discuss what we think the future of these great series.

Honestly I can't see these series not be finished so who will pick them up. Truthfully I see Camp Santo picking them up as it would make sense. First off Firewatch was a hit so they have that going for them but more importantly Camp Santo was started by a couple of writers who did The Walking Dead Season 1 which many feel that was the best season. So as I said naturally they would be a good fit.

Another I can see continuing the series is Dontnod due to their work with Life is Strange and Vampyre.

So what are your guys thoughts. Who will continue the Telltalle Series (which obviously won't be called that) now that Telltale has cancelled them?

If any of them will be continued, it's going to take a long time before that happens.
I don't think they have an original IP? The Wolf Among Us belongs to DC Comics (Fables).
Those licenses must have cost a ton to obtain.
Once Minecraft is done, there'll probably be a TellTale fire-sale. My hope is that they sell-off everything (including the TellTale name) and whoever buys them strikes new deals for the licenses and carries on the more popular games (TWD,WAU).
Best case scenario.

This does seem like a TV show getting cancelled, which is ironic given the episodic nature of the games...

I wonder whether the games will get pulled from the digitial storefronts? I've had Batman S2 on my wishlist for a while now... .

Seems like they expanded way too quickly after the success of TWD S1. At their peak they were 400 men strong, which is insane given the nature of their games imo.

@Fight_Teza_Fight I can't see them not finishing at least TWD that just won't make sense since they put out the first episode, That and it was meant for the last season so everything up to that would be irrelevant.

I see alot of people are saying that maybe streamers played a part of this and caused the low sales of the games. Which is an interesting idea.

@Tasuki I don't know. Streamers don't cause the death of other games story based games. I don't hear about visual novels having trouble from streamers, even though they often have less choices and could suffer much more in theory than a telltale game. It might just be that I don't watch streams though, so I'm biased against the idea as watching streams seems pointless to me.

@Jaz007 Well some places are saying that the low sales of Telltale games could be due to streamers. Where as Telltale games are pure story watching one being played gives most people the same satisfaction as playing it, at least that's their argument. Where as an action game like God of War or and RPG like say Skyrim challenges can be taken on in different ways. For example one person might fight a dragon as a fighter type while another may use magic and yet another player might stealth. Then you have gear thats different etc. Telltale games not so much . Yes you may have a couple of different options but not nowhere as much as other games. There's no customization so character builds mean nothing. It's just following prompts mostly. Its pretty much the same thing as read a book or listening to an audio version of the same book.

So their argument is why pay $60 (or whatever price it was) when they get the same satisfaction for free by watching it on YouTube.

@Tasuki I think it's a valid complain. PewDiePie's TWD S1 ep1 video has over 13million views. I'm sure a number of people simply watched the Let's Play rather than went out and bought the game- and that's just 1 'influencer'.
However, there are similar games that seemed to excel from having such exposure such as Detroit (Brian Dechart aka Connor promoting Detroit on Twitch).

It's probably a mixture of poor management, TT over-saturating their on market and not trying to 'evolve' their games.

One of the devs...

https://twitter.com/emilybuckshot/status/1043364095330639872

They literally terminated the teams working on those episodes. Crazy how whoever in charge woke up this morning and thought ''Everyone stop what your doing. We're done.''

@Fight_Teza_Fight This whole situation sucks quiet frankly as I said I feel bad for those that lost their job but quiet honestly I am sure they will bounce back. Heck Gearbox (maker of Borderlands) put out a Tweet yesterday giving condolences to those that lost their jobs but in that same Tweet they said that they are currently hiring and for those effected to check their job listings which I thought was awesome.

It's the game though that I fear will take the brunt of the damage from this. I really enjoyed TWD Season one. I was waiting for the final season to be released so I could buy Season 2 onward and just "binge" on them, Now untill someone picks up the IP and finished the final season I have no desire to play those games. Same goes with Batman.

It's.just a shame really.

@Kidfried I also lost a bit of love for the developers after being stung by the almost four month wait between episode one and two of The Wolf Among Us. After that, I think I bought Tales From the Borderlands when it came out but never played it until the episodes were released.

But I agree that the same format can only be carried across so many games. It's sad that it's ended so abruptly but it feels they spread themselves too thin with so many games, often with more than one title in ongoing development at a time.

@Tasuki My question is will those who paid for the season pass be reimbursed by the percentage of episodes that will never see the light of day in The Walking Dead: Final Season?

@ReanSchwarzer7 probably not unless Sony/Microsoft are the ones who are accountable for ant reimbursements

@Kidfried Yeah they took on way to many IPs. They should have stuck with TWD and maybe The Wolf Among Us and then once those were fully finished maybe then do some other IPs.

@ReanSchwarzer7 Well technically they are delevering something, at least another epidsode so it.may not be all of it but it's something

@Fight_Teza_Fight Surely all their games won’t be pulled from the digital store, would they? I still own Game of Thrones (from PS plus giveaway), Batman Season 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy (which I got heavily discounted) and I haven’t downloaded all the episodes.

@Th3solution You never know when a studio goes out of business.

@Th3solution Usually when something gets pulled it doesn't get taken away from those who own it. They took Alan Wake off Steam because of licensing issues, but if you bought, you can download the original game regardless. If it got taken away from people who bought, there'd be a big uproar.

If you have the game downloaded it should be yours to keep. If it is removed from the store and then you delete the game, you won't be able to download it again.

This is always sad news, but like others have said they over stretched themselves and didn't improve the engine enough to squash the bugs that every game shipped with. I also think they stuck with the episodic format for too long. I bought when all the episodes were released after The Wolf Among Us, as the wait between episodes was infuriating.

Hopefully another team will be able to carry on development of the games.

@JohnnyShoulder Why do you keep spreading misinformation? Yes you can redownload a game removed from PSN from your downloads list. The only people who're unable to access the game's listing are people who haven't previously downloaded the game at some point...

Its a sad day. I think there were a few issues. The first was they spread themselevs to thin by going in different directions with the projects. If they had put more time and eenrgy into the games that made them a popular studeo in the first place. Next the fact that the games got discounted too quickly too many people waited until the games when down in price to buy them.

I love episodic games. You can play and finish each episode rather than playing a lengthy game that gets boring and repetative after a while.

@Th3solution If you own them, they'll still be in your library. I do think they'll get pulled from the store within the near future.
I've held off on Batman S2 for too long and now it might not get another discount when/if it gets pulled. I may just snap it up at full price... . Don't know yet.

@ReanSchwarzer7 then why can't i re-download P.T?

games can be taken off the store to buy and you can still re-download them that's true but if they are removed from PSN completely then they are gone for good and you can never re-download them again

another reason i don't like Digital only releases