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Fiktion · Dec 17, 2013

Nihilistic Monk said:
Absolutely awful situation. It baffles me that telltale seems to consistently get a free pass on pulling shit like this on its customers. The save bug, engine issues, the list goes on. We see the gushing praise in the press and they never get called out on this bollocks. At least a "We are aware of the issue and are looking into it" tweet/forum post would attempt to save face. Seems their crisis management is consistently just radio silence.

This post got me thinking. There is definitely a pattern here with a company that has not received the same scrutiny for its track record that others might. Here are a bunch of old stories I know about (and I'm sure there are plenty that I don't) which bear revisiting, all of which have been more or less swept under the rug.

Jurassic Park:
Telltale Games employees reviewing Jurassic Park on Metacritic
TellTale Damages the Jeep of Something Awful's Boomerjinks

The Walking Dead Season 1:
Telltale is giving the silent treatment to customers experiencing game-breaking bugs
Has Telltale Games responded to the save game glitch in TWD? (They didn't)
Is Walking Dead pc saves still broke? (They are)

Now as for what's happening today, Telltale's servers simply won't let people play the game. It's telling a lot of customers that they don't own the game, even if they paid for it. Many of us didn't even intend to purchase the game with Telltale's DRM, we bought it off Green Man Gaming where both Season 1 and the 400 Days expansion came with Steam Keys. Without any fanfare, this policy was changed for Season 2 so that we ended up with Telltale's shitty DRM instead.

Some posts from the OT:

TJP said:
I wish I'd bought this on Steam as many of us who bought directly from Telltale cannot log into their servers to authenticate our username & password. Not that anyone outside of their forums would know this because Telltale are far too happy to post the review scores instead.

Anung said:
Yeah, its kind of a joke D:

Matt Attack said:
I hope Telltale fixes the authentication issues soon. I'm really looking forward to playing the episode.

Intheflorsh said:
Apparently, in Telltale's eyes, I don't own the game now.

Matt Attack said:
Having the same issue. I'm getting pretty annoyed.

WARP10CK said:
Same here the forums are flooded with the same complaints no real answer from TT as of yet

Intheflorsh said:
There's a guy in those forums calling people that are upset about this situation "entitled, grabby whiners". We live in a demented time.

Blue Ninja said:
TellTale are idiots for trying to push their own system anyway. If you're gonna do DRM, at least do it good.

A mere glimpse of the chaos on the Telltale Support Forums:

With all this in mind, why does this company get a free pass when it commits a Sim City style sin for a point and click adventure game? When they're caught boosting their own ratings on Metacritic and refusing to address complaints, where is the media attention and fanfare? Why are they still considered one of the "good" companies when they treat customers the way they do?

RPGamer92 · Dec 17, 2013

Ouch, sucks for PC gamers. Good thing I'm waiting for the console releases.

outunderthestars · Dec 17, 2013

To be fair, the press seems to give almost every game a free pass in regards to how broken they are.

Kemal86 · Dec 17, 2013

I stopped buying TellTale games after purchasing a couple of their games on iOS. Every one (except for the Puzzle Agent games) have been completely and utterly unplayable on "supported" devices.

Papercuts · Dec 17, 2013

Wow, that's awful. And I'm sure if I try out the game on my 360 tomorrow I'll see the same atrocious performance their engine keeps giving out as they don't seem to care about fixing it.

sueil · Dec 17, 2013

No one cares about PC gamers or their problems. I say this as someone that games almost exclusively on PC.

Neuromancer · Dec 17, 2013

Maybe because games press get free copies, probably for console versions without these specific problems, and either way if they run into any issues Telltale fixes them swiftly? I don't know. But that DRM stuff sounds horrendous.

Shiggy · Dec 17, 2013

I always wonder why they get a free pass. Their games aren't even that good and look pretty shitty due to their ancient engine.

jediyoshi · Dec 17, 2013

Fiktion said:
With all this in mind, why does this company get a free pass when it commits a Sim City style sin for a point and click adventure game? When they're caught boosting their own ratings on Metacritic and refusing to address complaints, where is the media attention and fanfare? Why are they still considered one of the good companies when they treat customers the way they do?

Are you talking about the press? Enter any TT OT, they're flooded with bug complaints.

Neuromancer said:
Maybe because games press get free copies, probably for console versions without these specific problems, and either way if they run into any issues Telltale fixes them swiftly? I don't know. But that DRM stuff sounds horrendous.

Someone get EA on the phone, their nightmares can be over!

Krilekk · Dec 17, 2013

I'm done with Telltale for the near future. The way they treat Wolf Among Us is embarassing, if you do an episodic game do it right. They know how to do it right. Delaying an episode a whole month only to release the next episodic game is a shitty move. I can already see where this goes, we end up getting new episodes every four months because they release Wolf, Walking Dead, Borderlands, Game of Thrones each one episode a month. I'm just glad I didn't buy the season pass, from now on I will buy Telltale games only when the full season is out and on sale.

Count of Monte Sawed-Off · Dec 17, 2013

Damn that sucks. Makes me glad I'm getting I'm getting the 360 version, although it'll probably run like complete shit at times.

Air Zombie Meat · Dec 17, 2013

Goddamnit telltale. Was expecting some kind of issue to pop up.

Tucah · Dec 17, 2013

A Telltale game has problems? You don't say. Their games are good but goddamn barely anything I've bought of theirs has worked as intended.

Palette Swap · Dec 17, 2013

Yeah, I'm always a bit surprised there's so much goodwill considering:
a) their games are full of jank while being (seemingly) technically simple
b) every once in a while there's a story where they come off as utter assholes (the SA jeep thing in particular but also how they've essentially ignored nasty glitches).

I truly like their games but I certainly don't like them as a dev/pub.

Marjar · Dec 17, 2013

Wow that sucks. I had no issues at all with the game on Steam.

ultratruman · Dec 17, 2013

There is definitely a pattern here

There certainly is.

KHlover · Dec 17, 2013

Didn't even know about this. Awful :/

Solution: Buy it on Steam in the first place next time

Fergie · Dec 17, 2013

Doesn't bode well for the Borderlands and GOT games.

OverBlood 3 · Dec 17, 2013

What really pissed me off apart from the last season's debacle regarding saves was their gloating of positive reviews on their twitter, nice to know the press got to play it through but what about people that have paid for the game? You know them what pay their wages? Ignored. I hate their silent treatment and i hate their half arsed save game implementation. For a game that is all about your choices having meaning they sure do fuck all to ensure that works? All they care about is porting to every system/platform out there then go deaf when it doesn't work. I won't buy another thing from Telltale until they start supporting their games after sale and caring a little more about their customers.

Ingueferroque · Dec 17, 2013

Did they end up paying for the jeep?
Did they fix the save issue on PC?

Zach · Dec 17, 2013

outunderthestars said:
To be fair, the press seems to give almost every game a free pass in regards to how broken they are.

Yup.

Matt Attack · Dec 17, 2013

I love Telltale and have bought a majority of their titles directly from them, but this is not the first time I've faced issues. I had hoped they would have cleaned up their act by now, but the issues persist. So many of their games are really special, so it's truly unfortunate for their launches to be so consistently mired in errors.

Sciz · Dec 17, 2013

Krilekk said:
I can already see where this goes, we end up getting new episodes every four months because they release Wolf, Walking Dead, Borderlands, Game of Thrones each one episode a month. I'm just glad I didn't buy the season pass, from now on I will buy Telltale games only when the full season is out and on sale.

Not to excuse Wolf's protracted release schedule, but games releasing concurrently have different staff working on them.

dimb · Dec 17, 2013

Krilekk said:
I'm done with Telltale for the near future. The way they treat Wolf Among Us is embarassing, if you do an episodic game do it right. They know how to do it right. Delaying an episode a whole month only to release the next episodic game is a shitty move.

They are different teams.

louiedog · Dec 17, 2013

Telltale's communication about problems has been consistently bad for as long as I can remember. I have no interest in buying their games anywhere close to the first episode as a result.

JordanKZ · Dec 17, 2013

This is the reason I'd rather pay a few pounds more and get it on Steam. Fairly reliable download and authentication servers are worth it.

SirVilhelm · Dec 17, 2013

Anyone know if they gave us the option to invert controls in season 2?

Glass Rebel · Dec 17, 2013

People will eventually learn.

Hopefully.

Guri · Dec 17, 2013

JordanKZ said:
This is the reason I'd rather pay a few pounds more and get it on Steam. Fairly reliable download and authentication servers are worth it.

I was going to buy on Steam, but then the whole save issue people had last season worried me. And now their store version has this issue. I can understand first-time logins, but I wish they would explain why you need to do it every time you play.

Timeaisis · Dec 17, 2013

Let's not forget how buggy TWD Season 1 was on PS3. I mean, I liked the game, bug those bugs...

Fiktion · Dec 17, 2013

JordanKZ said:
This is the reason I'd rather pay a few pounds more and get it on Steam. Fairly reliable download and authentication servers are worth it.

When I purchased my copy on Green Man Gaming, I fully expected that it would come with a Steam Key as Season 1 and 400 Days did. It didn't, because Telltale suddenly wants to push their own DRM servers, probably to save a few cents by not giving Valve a cut. It is anti-consumerism at its worst.

JakeD · Dec 17, 2013

it sucks they are having issues with their own DRM, but to be fair, greenmangaming made it pretty darn clear that they were not giving steam keys

JordanKZ · Dec 17, 2013

Fiktion said:
When I purchased my copy on Green Man Gaming, I fully expected that it would come with a Steam Key as Season 1 and 400 Days did. It didn't, because Telltale suddenly wants to push their own DRM servers, probably to save a few cents by not giving Valve a cut. It is anti-consumerism at its worst.

Exact same thing happened to me. It was a bit of a bait and switch, but I ended up asking for a refund after seeing the notice.

MakeshiftChef · Dec 17, 2013

After the save issue with the last game, I am waiting to get this until all of the episodes are released. Hopefully they'll get this sorted out quickly.

Ikuu · Dec 17, 2013

Fiktion said:
When I purchased my copy on Green Man Gaming, I fully expected that it would come with a Steam Key as Season 1 and 400 Days did. It didn't, because Telltale suddenly wants to push their own DRM servers, probably to save a few cents by not giving Valve a cut. It is anti-consumerism at its worst.

Should check out the various TF2/Steam trading sites, can get the game for 6-7 keys which is like half the price of the Steam Store.

purpletentacle · Dec 17, 2013

I re downloaded my copy of Tales from Monkey Island from their server the other day (figured I should finally play it)

Kept crashing at launch. (I'm on Mac)

Frankly, I wasn't surprised and didn't care anymore. I pretty much expect this stuff from
Telltale at this point.

Fiktion · Dec 17, 2013

Ikuu said:
Should check out the various TF2/Steam trading sites, can get the game for 6-7 keys which is like half the price of the Steam Store.

Thank you for the tip, but my immediate recourse right now is going to be calling American Express and disputing the charge since I was sold something that doesn't actually fucking work.

Sciz · Dec 17, 2013

Fiktion said:
When I purchased my copy on Green Man Gaming, I fully expected that it would come with a Steam Key as Season 1 and 400 Days did. It didn't, because Telltale suddenly wants to push their own DRM servers, probably to save a few cents by not giving Valve a cut. It is anti-consumerism at its worst.

For the record, GMG's store pages clearly state if a game activates on Steam, although I imagine the big header there about requiring a Telltale account is a recent addition.

Blue Ninja · Dec 17, 2013

I'll react to my post being copied in the OT: I had absolutely no problems with the game. Bought it on Steam, and it worked perfectly. It's the non-steam version that's fucked. And TellTale are idiots for using their own DRM when they've got a working solution at hand.

FluxWaveZ · Dec 17, 2013

Not buying another Telltale Game anywhere near its release again because of the issues I've had with The Walking Dead series on Steam. It's a bummer, because these games are pretty good.

kerotan_eater · Dec 17, 2013

I can't even log on to authenticate my details. The little pop up box just goes away in the games title screen which doesn't transition to the menu.

They should be refunding games or at least giving Steam keys as an alternative work around to their own version of the game.

dark10x · Dec 17, 2013

Ingueferroque said:
Did they end up paying for the jeep?
Did they fix the save issue on PC?

Dunno about the jeep, but they never addressed the save issues.

kubus · Dec 17, 2013

I have a pretty beasty PC but TWD ran like shit. Frames would constantly freeze for 5 seconds while sound kept playing. The first episode ran like a slideshow for me, no hyperbole.

Turned out I had to turn off some weird graphic setting (I think it was an effect? Maybe motion blur) and then it went away.

Also had issues with my save file once. My choices suddenly disappeared.

Not buying TWD2 until they sort out this stuff. Didn't know they had their own DRM now. Ugh.

edit: Looked it up. It was the Shadows setting. Also seems to be a problem with all of their releases. Wow.

The Dear Leader · Dec 17, 2013

The main reason I'm waiting on this game is because BOTH of my playthroughs on PC where bugged and reset me back to the second or third episode, so I have to replay AGAIN in order for my save to carry over. As far as I know the save bug still isn't fixed.

Oppo · Dec 17, 2013

Kemal86 said:
I stopped buying TellTale games after purchasing a couple of their games on iOS. Every one (except for the Puzzle Agent games) have been completely and utterly unplayable on "supported" devices.

My full first season of Walking Dead on iPad was perfect.

That said, it really does look like they have some 'splaining to do.

Traumahound · Dec 17, 2013

Fiktion said:
Jurassic Park:

TellTale Damages the Jeep of Something Awful's Boomerjinks

While TellTale likely isn't completely blameless in the whole Jeep fiasco, Boomerjinks also comes out as less than completely honest and blameless himself.

Crimsonclaw111 · Dec 17, 2013

And here I am, still refusing to buy the series until TT fixes their shit.

SlowRevolution · Dec 17, 2013

I'm interested in playing season two of TWD but yeah, I'm done with Telltale for the time being. I've had way too many problems with their stuff in the past.

GetemMa · Dec 17, 2013

because the emotion man, feel the emotion!

and games can be art.

The writing is SO GOOD

Telltale is pushing the industry forward while everyone else is holding it back.

I've never been so invested in characters.

The art style didn't break the immersion for me, at all.

There, I think I got them all.

Nzyme32 · Dec 17, 2013

What the fuck?! There I was playing it on steam without issue... They are the same game and connect to the same servers, surely telltales drm thing would just use a system on there right?

Was the save feature problem only on telltale's store version or the steam version or was it a console thing?

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