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Telltale Games Reportedly Laid Off Almost Entire Staff in September - Wolf Among Us 2 Status Unknown
- Thread starter adamsapple
- Start date
graywolf323
Member
again? sheesh, that sucks 
Telltale seems like it’s on it’s way back out already
also what would unionizing do to protect against this if they laid off nearly everybody?
Telltale seems like it’s on it’s way back out alreadyalso what would unionizing do to protect against this if they laid off nearly everybody?
The Cockatrice
Member
I mean...maybe improve your games? Episodic release was a fad 10 years ago, not a good one either and just having cinematic walking sims isnt going to cut it anymore unless its on a insane budget visually/audio like Detroit Become Human. Also they released their last game on Epic only so yeah, pretty much financial suicide. Fucking hell, whoever was in charge was a fucking moron.
ElRenoRaven
Member
Can't say this surprises me. Some things are better left dead. Sadly Telltale is one of those things.
Thick Thighs Save Lives
Gold Member
balls of snow
Member
Hey I did my part buying The Expanse so i can say It must have sold like 10 copies.
Rip Bigby, we will always have the first game.
Rip Bigby, we will always have the first game.
arkhamguy123
Member
I’m not going to get my Telltale Batman 3 am I?
ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
Yeah, "unionize!" is a bit of a joke here.also what would unionizing do to protect against this if they laid off nearly everybody?
The companies that need unionization are the ones that need to die anyway, like Epic Games. Sure, you might unionize and prevent them from treating the Fortnite skins team like trash, but that's already a trash company that has no reason to exist.
Good companies that are small enough to still be driven by gaming ideas, founders who are part of the actual team doing the work, etc -- those don't need unions. And those are the only devs worth caring about anymore, the giant corporate ones are a waste of time and oxygen.
I could even see this with someone like DoubleFine, who grew from a close knit team to an established company during the Psychonauts 2 development. You can see the addition of middle managers, HR types, etc just ruining their company if you watch the full documentary. At one point, Tim is wasting his time listening to a crybaby get physically emotional about the concept of crunch time, when the kind of crunch time Tim was expecting was exactly what they did in the old days with a group of guys building together: get pizza, stay late, debate wildly, and build something cool. These losers who want to be in gaming as a 9-5 job with HR managers running around babying you... go somewhere else, gaming is trash when it is run like a services company instead of a shared creative venture.
Ass of Can Whooping
Member
Salty Popsicle
Banned
If those people are making trash games for these companies that are losing money, wtf you unionize for?
If you want to unionize go be a school teacher, we do not want mediocrity in an entertainment product.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Unionizing in a studio on their last legs would just make them close up shop faster. Of course, not that any union worker cares about whether a company survives, comes to a halt or how their tactics affect their non-union coworkers.
Unionizing in modern day is best for workers who want to coast, gang up un numbers and negotiate with governments or companies with giant pockets who can afford to pay extra money.
Unionizing to make a stand against a small company like Telltales management is not useful.
Unionizing in modern day is best for workers who want to coast, gang up un numbers and negotiate with governments or companies with giant pockets who can afford to pay extra money.
Unionizing to make a stand against a small company like Telltales management is not useful.
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ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
Here's one part of the DoubleFine documentary related to what I was talking about:
I watched these documentaries on their company for over a decade now, and you can feel tangibly how it went from a group of like-minded guys with shared creativity to a damn mediocre business that has emotional wrecks being coddled. Sorry, but I do believe strongly that great creativity comes from shared effort of brilliant people, not from managing a line of 9-5 "diverse" developers through a million middle-manager HR layers.
I watched these documentaries on their company for over a decade now, and you can feel tangibly how it went from a group of like-minded guys with shared creativity to a damn mediocre business that has emotional wrecks being coddled. Sorry, but I do believe strongly that great creativity comes from shared effort of brilliant people, not from managing a line of 9-5 "diverse" developers through a million middle-manager HR layers.
Cert.in.Death
Member
TWAU was one of TT’s highlights. I will miss not having the chance at TWAU2, if true.
TaroYamada
Member
Unfortunate, unions would likely exacerbate the issues with modern production though. Game production has become too expensive, increasing expenses on staff would not do anything to improve that situation.
good luck with that, moron (jjonahjohnson).
they will just overseas large parts of production.
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StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Since gaming employees complain a lot, just imagine their complaints having people paid in set tier schedules based on years of service, not talent or negotiating a starting salary.
Bkdk
Member
Also many games are already unprofitable, they would be forced to shut down. Many more gaming industry layoffs to come, recession hit gaming sector really really hard and many younger game devs won't be prepared for the hardship that is coming to them. Layoffs, salaries cut, longer hours, it's a battle royale for these game devs and game companies out there.
Fbh
Member
A shame for those who are now out of a job. Seems like no one really cared about The Expanse. Personally the last couple of seasons of the show killed a lot of my interested in the franchise, and in such a packed year as this I think getting any attention as one of these slow narrative games with poor gameplay was going to be hard.
Heimdall_Xtreme
Jim Ryan Fanclub's #1 Member
Deja vu?
ChuckeRearmed
Member
How people are there? It seems like they lay off people all the time, yet they are still afloat.
The funny part is that due to unions, european companies are not competitive worldwide unless they are coming from the old era. And those that are competitive grew from startups (and even then from nordic countries) and they began to decline as soon as they grew. Humongous Ubisoft is unable to come up with anything that can generate money for them, despite being that huge.
Well some people say (believe I guess) that if you are unionized nobody will be able to fire you even if you are not doing anything. Considering that studio's output with or without layoffs is the same, I am not sure if laid off people contributed anything.also what would unionizing do to protect against this if they laid off nearly everybody?
The funny part is that due to unions, european companies are not competitive worldwide unless they are coming from the old era. And those that are competitive grew from startups (and even then from nordic countries) and they began to decline as soon as they grew. Humongous Ubisoft is unable to come up with anything that can generate money for them, despite being that huge.
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ReBurn
Gold Member
Poll: Mobile gamers and the cost of living crisis - The PickFu blog
PickFu asked over 750 gamers about the impact of the cost of living crisis on their spending and playing habits. Here's what they told us.
www.pickfu.com
PlayStation Data Suggests $70 Games Are Resulting In Fewer Sales
This can only mean one thing.
www.thegamer.com
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diffusionx
Gold Member
Strategize
Member
Releasing The Expanse as your first game back was the dumbest move ever. It's not even that it's bad, I didn't play it, nor did anyone else. I mean if GOTG bombed, why on earth did they think The Expanse, a much smaller brand would do any better? You successfully managed to get everyone hyped for TWAU2, so put everything on that first.
MiguelItUp
Member
Man, I feel really bad for those folks. What a rough experience.
This week has been a mess for the industry. Such a shame.
This week has been a mess for the industry. Such a shame.
Mibu no ookami
Member
Cashflow problems.
It's impossible to take out large loans now to cover cash flow, so people are trying to reduce payroll as much as possible. Tech companies, especially video game studios aren't flush with cash and they have to process payroll twice a month or every two weeks depending on the employee type.
The larger the loan you take out, the more you're going to pay for the interest, which will come back to bite you.
These companies generally only get influx of cash when they release a game, which can be 3-5+ years out. When games get delayed, that impacts operating income, which leaves cash flows even tighter.
You're not seeing big layoffs at Sony studios at the moment, which says that Sony largely believes in their efforts. You mention Naughty Dog, but all they've done (so far) is let some contractors go. Similarly, if you look at Deviation Games, that was more aggressive. That's Sony saying they have to be careful before they start running really low on cash flow too. They unlike Telltale have revenue coming in from hardware sales. That's why things like the PlayStation Portal are really important for Sony because they can bring in revenue through out the year.
Epic's revenue on Unreal Engine and Fortnite are drying up compared to what they expect, and more importantly compared to the size of their payroll currently. The only thing they CAN do is do layoffs, otherwise you're taking out short term loans that will eat into your future revenue, which will make it harder to rebound.
Mr.Phoenix
Member
These devs calling for unionizing haven't learned anything. Pubs would just take most of the development overseas. By the time they are done only the VA talent would remain local.
However, a conversation really has to be had on what is going on with all these lay-offs.
However, a conversation really has to be had on what is going on with all these lay-offs.
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Sleepwalker
Member
Wolf among us 2 was always vaporware
diffusionx
Gold Member
Unionization is useless if the company has no money and needs to shut down, or is in some generally unsustainable position. Blood from a stone etc.
Like when Telltale shut down the first time all these stories came out about how the company had a bloated staff, offices in the most expensive real estate area in the world, ancient engine with no physics (lots of manual work required), and was basically running a pyramid scheme to keep kicking the can down the road. That just doesn’t work and if anything unionization would’ve killed them and quicker.
Mibu no ookami
Member
Poll: Mobile gamers and the cost of living crisis - The PickFu blog
PickFu asked over 750 gamers about the impact of the cost of living crisis on their spending and playing habits. Here's what they told us.
PlayStation Data Suggests $70 Games Are Resulting In Fewer Sales
This can only mean one thing.
The last game I bought for 70 dollars was God of War Ragnarok.
The dirge of me buying games though has little to do with the price of games, but the proliferation of games that I buy that ended up on PS+ and I feel like I should have just waited to get them on PS+ and the general lack of exciting games.
At some point I'll buy Hogwarts Legacy, but I'm in zero rush to play it. Same with Resident Evil 4, maybe Baldur's Gate, FF16, Dead Space. Cyberpunk is on my shelf as well (purchased for 10 dollars on disc). I might eventually play Horizon Forbidden West. Most of these I'll wait to play on PS5 Pro because I'm in no rush.
I'll buy Spider-Man at 70 dollars no problem. Depending on reception, maybe FF7 Rebirth.
My backlog is MASSIVE and I think that is the biggest problem in gaming right now. The games coming out don't separate themselves much from the games that are already out.
StreetsofBeige
Gold Member
Companies dont even need to be faced with unionization threats to go overseas. Most of my company's IT function has been outsourced to Indian companies, including the major stuff like ERP implementation. Mostly Indian people who can barely speak English (though their written/email English is fine). And what happens is when companies realize the work done is pretty darn good from my experience (compared to the stereotype that all foreigners do shit work so you should only trust locals), then what happens is companies will never come back to going local. When it can be done well and cost effective with ZERO attitude back, no company will give that up.
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Gamezone
Gold Member
And making their games EGS exclusive on top of that.
Scotty W
Member
The ai apocalypse. Prepare for death
Bridges
Member
I don't understand this. I don't want to be a dick and ever say that making games is "easy" because I know that it's not, no one ever sets out to make a bad game etc etc.
But of all the genres out there, I feel like what Telltale produces has to be some of the most cookie cutter stuff, how has all this time gone by and still no WAU2?
Such a shame to have the project killed, revived and now potentially dead again. It's the only thing of theirs that I was really looking forward to.
EDIT: just saw the above post, maybe it's still alive. We shall see...
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chromhound
Member
They're still alive ??
??