This is very saddening news. It came as big shock, but it also kinda makes sense.
Ever since TWD1 came out, the studio started taking on multiple projects at once when they were just a small size studio before. Never having proper release dates for upcoming episodes was always frustrating to people as well.
Finding out they had 300 people working there is pretty shocking, since that is about how many Big Triple A studios have like Naughty Dog, and Sony Santa Monica, and CDPR(although they might have even more?)
Crazy that it's from bankruptcy. Should have let go people earlier in the year to have had a chance to survive easier and buy more time maybe.
I'm surprised they never(or maybe they did) made an exclusive game for Xbox/Playstation/Nintendo. Or even attempted to get bought out by them.
Telltale as an exclusive company would have been great for MS who wants more exclusives.
Comment has been collapsed.
This news really bummed me the fuck out but this comment made me laugh. Thanks, Kratos.
Comment has been collapsed.
And yet we got 'companies' like EA running rampant, eh?
Comment has been collapsed.
well, i was already burned out it's linearity, simple gameplay and that dreadful engine, hopefully i will see these writers working with an equally talented team
Comment has been collapsed.
I enjoyed some of their earlier games like Wolf Among Us but then the formula got stale, and sales plummeted. I wonder if IGN will do a final Telltale bundle at Humble Bundle.
Comment has been collapsed.
i tought they are working on "The Wolf Among Us 2"
what happend with that information?
Comment has been collapsed.
Those were never my type of games. But then I enjoyed Puzzle Agent
Comment has been collapsed.
I think what I'm the most bummed out about is that we won't get a Poker Night 3.
Comment has been collapsed.
I noticed this "The rest were let go this week, reportedly without any severance, "
Comment has been collapsed.
That's really disappointing to learn. They were one of my favorite studios.
Comment has been collapsed.
NOOOO They were my favourite game development company. They did a killer job capturing Steve Purcel's art style when they made the Sam & Max series. I'm still anxiously awaiting season 4.
Comment has been collapsed.
Setting aside the illusion-of-choice criticisms for a moment, Telltale did a great job of gamifying popular IPs into a playable storyline. I have to admit, I haven't played many of their recent offerings, partially due to overwhelming numbers of other gaming choices, and partially due to Telltale's habit of keeping their prices fairly "high" (when you're on a small budget, $6.24 sale price is still high).
I hope Traveller's Tales catches wind of this and purchases the company. If not to keep it going, then at least to keep the games alive on Steam or other platforms for the foreseeable future.
Telltale was a good dev. (Still, 250-300 sounds like an untenable number of staff for their titles... I would have expected around 50-60.)
Comment has been collapsed.
They buy IPs, not studios. They're not going to buy these because Telltale doesn't own them, they just license them from the IP holders. Telltale and its games will die until a company purchases telltale with their agreements.
Comment has been collapsed.
Which is exactly what I'm talking about. Have you considered I perhaps know something you do not yet know?
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't particularly care about your thoughts on anything. This was just the only clean comment on THQ that could get attention from other readers.
Comment has been collapsed.
They buy IPs, not studios
not true
- Koch Media & Deep Silver
http://www.ign.com/articles/2018/02/14/thq-nordic-buys-saints-row-metro-dead-island-owner-koch-media - HandyGames
https://www.thqnordic.com/node/270 - Black Forest Games ( Spellbound Entertainment)
Comment has been collapsed.
Comment has been collapsed.
I read the USgamer article aloud to my girlfriend as we were driving home from dinner, then we listened to the song they played as the ship sank in Titanic ('Nearer My God To Thee'). The only thing that was fitting.
How absolutely awful. The Walking Dead Final Season's first episode was fantastic. It was a really strong comeback, and I was so excited to see Clementine's story end. It's just gutwrenching.
Comment has been collapsed.
I didn't realize until now that this included the Walking Dead. I thought they finished it up. I've been a fan of TWD since season 1, even when it took a huge dip in quality. I was excitedly waiting for all the episodes to come out before playing but now they never will :( Guess I won't ever start it, if it didn't get an ending.
Comment has been collapsed.
I firmly believe the first episode is worth playing - maybe, depending on how the second (now final) episode ends up, that might change. The pain might be too great.
What might have been is sometimes much harder to deal with than what never was.
Comment has been collapsed.
Such a shame. Should have made less games but made them more consistently.
Oh and so many missed opportunities... So much TWD content and all of it was just set in the States.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's a great point - one of the reasons why I found World War Z so affecting was its vignettes from all around the world, how different countries reacted to the apocalypse differently, the concerns w/zombies in a frigid climate is different than zombies in the tropics, etc.
Comment has been collapsed.
I still need to read that. Only ever seen the duff movie "version" sadly.
Comment has been collapsed.
I've heard only abysmal things about that move, but the book is fantastic. I'm a sucker for short, poignant interconnected vignettes, and that book does them impeccably well. A woman who goes down in the forests in the American South and is guided to safety by a mysterious voice on the radio, what happens to the man who's left alone on the International Space Station, an Indian Colonel who saves the lives of hundreds -
It's also done in an oral history format, which I love.
I've pulled out my copy and I had bookmarked my favorite stories. Oh my god I forgot about the one about the dog handler and the service dogs.
Comment has been collapsed.
it was an okay-ish hollywood zombie movie in some ways. but having been told about the books in comparison by friends, I see why there was the backlash.
i guess it was the book to film equivalent of DOOM.
Comment has been collapsed.
Feel free to share more book recommendations, please. Thank you. 🙇🏻
Stealth bump for Telltale awareness.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'll stealth bump for Telltale
You want'cher sci-fi that drops you in medias res into the human settlement right on the edge of an alien territory that is one of the few stories that make aliens seem actually genuinely alien? Embassytown, China Mieville.
You want'cher hard in the paint, 'Something's Not Right About That Town' Cosmic Horror American Southwest Gothic, a huge book that you devour in hours because it's so gripping? American Elsewhere, Robert Jackson Bennett.
You want'cher fantasy paradigm turned on its head where the gods are enslaved by humans, with some sweet ass romance in between? The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, N.K. Jemisin.
Finally, you want'cher post-Spanish Civil War magical realism poignant bittersweet poetic tale about a boy trying to track down a disappeared author, with some of the best twists and turns I've ever seen? In the Shadow of the Wind, Carlos Ruiz Zafón.
Other oral histories I loved:
The Good War (on WWII in America) and Hard Times (on the Depression), Studs Terkel.
You Must Remember This (on New York from 1880 - 1940), Jeff Kisseloff.
Making History (gay rights and gay history in America from 1945-1990), Eric Marcus.
Japan at War (on WWII in Japan), Haruko Taya Cook, Theodore F. Cook.
Comment has been collapsed.
Aw, ha, you're welcome c:
(the Divine Cities trilogy, also by Robert Jackson Bennett, are well worth it, too. If we're talkin' visual novels: the House in Fata Morgana is THE best VN of all time.)
(I haven't read novels in a long time so coming up with this list makes me miss them terribly. I want to make more of an effort to read them. Thank you.)
Comment has been collapsed.
You wouldn't happen to be into the fantasy genre too?
F for Telltale.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and the Divine Cities trilogy are fantasy, though I will admit I prefer sci-fi or modern fantasy over ol' sword n sorcery stuff.
Do you have any good suggestions?
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you (again). Nowadays I don't have time to read as much as I'd like to. But a classic sci-fi novel that I remember fondly is Neuromancer by Gibson, also the partial inspiration to it, Nova by Delany, is decent.
Comment has been collapsed.
Excuse me if I chime in here, but I wanted to leave a recommendation for you. I'd strongly suggest trying some Octavia E. Butler if you haven't already, namely the Xenogenesis trilogy, which also features some aliens that are truly alien, and The Parable of the Sower. Not only are these thrilling and greatly told stories, but they are also deeply philosophical and make you actually think, something I dig about books.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you for the recommendation! I've read and greatly enjoyed Octavia E. Butler. I think I read the Parable books when I was a tooouch too young for them, but I'd love to read them again.
What a stellar author. "So be it; see to it!"
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you much for those fantasy/sci-fi recommendations!
I've added all of them to my Book Depository wishlist. :)
with some sweet ass romance in between
Curious and hopeful for a talking point: What to you makes good, quality and "sweet-ass" romance?
Comment has been collapsed.
Same exact reasoning for me! Love that book.
My personal favorite idea (of my own creation) would be controversial but worth it: the zombie apocalypse starts and our Player Character happens to be an edgy and rebellious Jewish teen (from the States?) on vacation in Israel with his strict and orthodox family.
Then you can get a very deep and serious story with many, many novel themes like Religion vs Religion vs Religion, Religion vs Faith, Faith vs Atheism, Ethnic Conflict, Politics combined with all of the usual TWD elements (Human vs Monsters, Growing Up, Relationships).
Comment has been collapsed.
That would be an incredibly affecting story in the right hands!
Comment has been collapsed.
Yup; if done poorly it would look like a cheap attempt at gaining infamy.
If done right it could be awesome and the deepest and most complex Telltale story yet.
Comment has been collapsed.
in the end it's about management and of course MONEY!!!
but i think it's more of miss management than money in the first place
the same thing with other bankrupted games dev, and yet many more joining it
Comment has been collapsed.
they died from their own ambition. it's a problem many mediocre business people make.
they were creating a few games that were quite successful, so they decided to double-down - > significantly increase the number of games, expecting them all to be equally profitable.
But (a) they weren't able to ramp up production as easily as they thought, so new games ended up costing more than before, and taking longer. and (b) they weren't able to sell as many games. They're pretty much in a niche with no competition ahem LIS, but that niche can only support so many games at a time. So they were actually competing with themselves, cannibalizing their own sales, so each game made less money,.
Now they faced the double-whammy of increased costs per game and decreased sales per game. Which put them in a bind, especially considering the timing and commitment issues of their business model (needing to fund development up-front, being committed to development even after sales prove financially nonviable, etc.)
Comment has been collapsed.
Although your analysis seems spot-on, I can't help but wonder how their big, licensed games did so poorly.
Comment has been collapsed.
It's easy to forget that Telltale's audience isn't the same of big AAA games. Combined a relatively low audience with even more niches caused by the licenses themselves and you'll have the big picture.
Besides, over 400 developers were working at Telltale. Tripwire Interactive, just to name a moderately successful indie developer, has 50.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh the employee count is definitely a big issue; that is some crazy Riot-esque number.
As far as the licenses go... I mean, I would imagine the point of the licenses would be to bridge that gap.
Don't know about Telltale? Here, play this Batman game!
Comment has been collapsed.
Exactly, but the Batman fan won't (probably) be interested in a Game Of Thrones game or Tales From The Borderlands and vice versa.
Comment has been collapsed.
Sure, but the games are supposed to be good enough and entertaining enough to make you interested in those games despite the lack of interest in the source material.
Not sure if that is not possible or if they failed.
Comment has been collapsed.
part of it is that it's a bit of a niche area. action games sell well; sports games sell well. interactive comic books not so much
let's not kid ourselves about what kind of "game" TT sold
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting, I'd think that it would be a popular genre for the modern core gamer demographic.
Comment has been collapsed.
They expected that every game after TWD would be equally successful, even though before it there were a dozen of mediocre licensed games.
Comment has been collapsed.
hopefully a power player comes in and buy them
or were they already shopping around? I mean, who wouldnt want them?
Comment has been collapsed.
Reports say every game in between the first Walking Dead and the first Minecraft were commercial failures. In addition the leases on the intellectual properties for the games I would imagine to be astronomical. If a publisher believes they could revolutionise the genre while also making it profitable it seems like a no brainier but its a matter of how hard is it going to be to make that happen.
Comment has been collapsed.
TWD season 1, Wolf among us and Tales from the Borderlands are some of the best video games I've played. But I guess it's not surprising when they started making generic crap and even stopped using the cell shaded style. I lost interest from Game of thrones, then they made so many forgettable titles like Guardians of the galaxy and Minecraft story mode (Really?). I would've loved to play The Wolf among us 2 someday, sucks that that's not happening.
Comment has been collapsed.
downloading all the games while the page is still up.....
Comment has been collapsed.
Good idea. Can I just download it like you normally do if you want to play a game. Or do I need to do something special to make it playable ofline? I did not finished all of them yet and I would hate to loose them.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think they removed the requeriment of loging it at some point it time, It has not asked my credentials to install nor play
Comment has been collapsed.
Unless it's from Telltale site, if you have a Steam copy, you shouldn't need to download it.
Comment has been collapsed.
I bought many series directly from telltale.
and now I find out I have the back to the future series I don't recall buying, probably was a promo at some time, or the me from the future drove a delorean at 88 mph to the past to buy it for me when he found out the company would be gone forever...
Comment has been collapsed.
So what do you think?! is it fake or it's for real?
Update : Sadly turned out it's REAL!
https://twitter.com/telltalegames/status/1043252010999410689
The official Telltale Games Twitter account has confirmed the studio's closure in a tweet with a statement from CEO Pete Hawley, who issued the following:
"It's been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course. Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry."
The tweet also confirms that a small group of 25 employees are staying on to fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners, and will issue comments regarding its product portfolio in the next few weeks.
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/327085/Report_The_Walking_Dead_developer_Telltale_Games_closing_down.php
Update 2 : Thanks to "KillingArts", here is a petition that might help to save the final season of WD :
https://www.change.org/p/netflix-save-the-walking-dead-the-final-season
Comment has been collapsed.