Recently, Telltale games had to let go over 200 of their workers and shut their doors.

Telltale is a gaming company, most known for their story driven games where the player makes choices that directly changes said story. In every game, they make sure of letting the players know that “the story is tailored by how you play”. Some of the games that they created were The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, and many others.

During September of last year, in an unexpect turn of events, the gaming company had layed off many of their employees to the point where only a skeleton crew of around 23 employees were left. Those employees were to continue working to “fufill the company’s obligations to its board and partners”. The reason behind this sudden forclosure was because of inadequate sales of their games; because of this, the much anticipated second season of The Wolf Among Us and any new seasons for their other games were to never come to fruition, and lost due to poor management.

All of the employees were not given any notice of the foreclosure. The idea of foreclosure was already in consideration. Employees also had been given no severance: money given upon dismissal/discharge. Those with health benefits were also going to expire by the end of the month, and that minus the severance, impacted many lives as they would not get the sufficient money for bills or to support their family. The employees were even given thirty minutes to pack up and leave the company.

Hearing this play out a few months ago, I was taken aback substancially. I thought this wasn’t real, honestly. At the time, I finished playing the second episode of the final season of The Walking Dead. That game is actually one of my favorite games of all time because of the story and characters with the game that gives me a long lasting bond with them. I was worried that they wouldn’t be able to finish the game at least, since they are still in the middle of the final season. So many other people were mad because they thought that they just waisted their money buying a game that wouldn’t be finished. Also, I was hoping to maybe work within Telltale. I really liked the games they made and even one of the employees (most likely EX employee) came to class one day to talk about the life of a game designer. I really wanted to be apart of that group.

Luckily, to some of the employees and the gamers that were anticipating the final season of the Walking Dead, the crew who worked on the game got picked up my the other company that worked hand in hand with Telltale: Skybound Entertainment. At the time of this blog post being made, they worked on the third part of the final season, while the fourth and final part is in production, and will release mid to late March.

After The Walking Dead is finished, Telltale will be no more. Luckily, some employees are given other jobs, as other gaming companies can use the time to potentially get more employees. I pray and hope that they get the help they need to get back on track.

Sources: Gach, Ethan. “Telltale Employees Left Stunned By Company Closure, No Severance [Update].” Kotaku, Kotaku.com, 25 Sept. 2018, kotaku.com/telltale-employees-left-stunned-by-company-closure-no-1829272139

Ghoshal, Abhimanyu. “Celebrated Studio Telltale Games Shuts down in the Messiest Way Possible.” The Next Web, 24 Sept. 2018, thenextweb.com/gaming/2018/09/24/celebrated-studio-telltale-games-shuts-down-in-the-messiest-way-possible/