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RIP Telltale Games

Jetboogieman

Jetboogieman

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https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/21/17888258/telltale-games-layoffs

Telltale Games, developer of licensed adventure games such as the Walking Dead series, Game of Thrones andBatman, has laid off most of its staff, with the intention of closing down the studio.
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snip

“Today Telltale Games made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges,” the message reads. “A majority of the company’s employees were dismissed earlier this morning, with a small group of 25 employees staying on to fulfill the company’s obligations to its board and partners.”
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Damn sad.

Seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Telltale seemed like one of those Studios that was going to be around forever...

I was waiting and hoping that perhaps one day they'd get their hands on Star Trek, Star Wars or another interesting property and I'm not exactly someone who's been a massive Telltale fan.

Played a few of the series and they were pretty solid overall, but the one thing was the engine they were using started to show its age near the end, stories of corrupted and lost saves in some of the newer games were not uncommon and they were really starting to look incredibly dated, looks like with the situation they were in, there wasn't the time or the money to invest in an upgraded or new engine.

Anyway, again, damn shame.
 
:( .
 
Jetboogieman said:
https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/21/17888258/telltale-games-layoffs



snip



Damn sad.

Seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Telltale seemed like one of those Studios that was going to be around forever...

I was waiting and hoping that perhaps one day they'd get their hands on Star Trek, Star Wars or another interesting property and I'm not exactly someone who's been a massive Telltale fan.

Played a few of the series and they were pretty solid overall, but the one thing was the engine they were using started to show its age near the end, stories of corrupted and lost saves in some of the newer games were not uncommon and they were really starting to look incredibly dated, looks like with the situation they were in, there wasn't the time or the money to invest in an upgraded or new engine.

Anyway, again, damn shame.
Click to expand...

It is not really a big surprise when you look at their recent titles, filled with bugs, outdated engine, the same formula every time. Their tools were aging and they turned into a one trick pony, they did not have the resources to improve.
 
Carjosse said:
It is not really a big surprise when you look at their recent titles, filled with bugs, outdated engine, the same formula every time. Their tools were aging and they turned into a one trick pony, they did not have the resources to improve.
Click to expand...

One thing that annoyed me a bit, was the Game of Thrones series and there's a simple reason for that.

My save file for whatever reason was wiped, so I played through the first couple of episodes a few times, it was great don't get me wrong.

But one thing I will say, was it was... It seemed no matter what you did, you were just ****ed, there was no "winning" and that's a pretty bad term to use in this context but it felt no matter what dialogue choice you picked, no matter what decisions you made, you were brutally ****ed every time for it, which I felt kind of destroys the entire purpose of a game like that.

And that was confirmed by the fact that in the very first episode you're forced to decide who your houses "sentinel" will be and that choice, no matter who you pick, makes them a traitor at the end of the game simply based on who you picked, that's a very ****ty design choice

I mean the story is still relatively compelling but again it seems like you're completely toast no matter what you do.

I haven't played completely through them, but from what people say the Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead Series are some of the finest stories ever put into a video game.
 
Yeah, saw this on FB a few days back. It sucks. I really liked their GoT game and was looking forward to playing season 2. I thought their Borderlands game was the best they ever did.
 
Jetboogieman said:
I mean the story is still relatively compelling but again it seems like you're completely toast no matter what you do.
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To be fair, isn’t that pretty much the moral of the entire Game of Thrones franchise though? ;)
 
Jetboogieman said:
One thing that annoyed me a bit, was the Game of Thrones series and there's a simple reason for that.

My save file for whatever reason was wiped, so I played through the first couple of episodes a few times, it was great don't get me wrong.

But one thing I will say, was it was... It seemed no matter what you did, you were just ****ed, there was no "winning" and that's a pretty bad term to use in this context but it felt no matter what dialogue choice you picked, no matter what decisions you made, you were brutally ****ed every time for it, which I felt kind of destroys the entire purpose of a game like that.

And that was confirmed by the fact that in the very first episode you're forced to decide who your houses "sentinel" will be and that choice, no matter who you pick, makes them a traitor at the end of the game simply based on who you picked, that's a very ****ty design choice

I mean the story is still relatively compelling but again it seems like you're completely toast no matter what you do.

I haven't played completely through them, but from what people say the Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead Series are some of the finest stories ever put into a video game.
Click to expand...

Well, that sounds like it was true to the Game of Thrones source material! ;) :lamo
 
That makes me sad, I really wanted to know how Clementine's story ends.
 
Jetboogieman said:
https://www.polygon.com/2018/9/21/17888258/telltale-games-layoffs



snip



Damn sad.

Seemed to have come out of nowhere.

Telltale seemed like one of those Studios that was going to be around forever...

I was waiting and hoping that perhaps one day they'd get their hands on Star Trek, Star Wars or another interesting property and I'm not exactly someone who's been a massive Telltale fan.

Played a few of the series and they were pretty solid overall, but the one thing was the engine they were using started to show its age near the end, stories of corrupted and lost saves in some of the newer games were not uncommon and they were really starting to look incredibly dated, looks like with the situation they were in, there wasn't the time or the money to invest in an upgraded or new engine.

Anyway, again, damn shame.
Click to expand...

Really surprising. Their games seem to have been very successful. I honestly wonder if, once they started having some success with some major titles, they tried to expand significantly and that ended up being unsustainable?
 
Jetboogieman said:
But one thing I will say, was it was... It seemed no matter what you did, you were just ****ed, there was no "winning" and that's a pretty bad term to use in this context but it felt no matter what dialogue choice you picked, no matter what decisions you made, you were brutally ****ed every time for it, which I felt kind of destroys the entire purpose of a game like that.
Click to expand...

So it was accurate to the source material. :D
 
Telltale was a fun company that was trying to revive the golden era of adventure games. But it seems to have gone the way of Sierra.

Adventure games seem to be the realm of Indi developers now, as they are light on coding and heavy on writing and art. The problem has been for a very long time now that games with a rather discrete play through model just don't rake in the money. I always wondered how a company could exist in the current market given the current client base with a product line that was entirely adventure games.

Turns out you can't.
 
Zyphlin said:
Really surprising. Their games seem to have been very successful. I honestly wonder if, once they started having some success with some major titles, they tried to expand significantly and that ended up being unsustainable?
Click to expand...

That's what I thought, too. But they apparently only made net profit on a few.

https://comicbook.com/gaming/2018/09/22/telltale-closure-the-walking-dead-minecraft-batman/

I think they certainly over-extended themselves with their niche market. And the fact that they used the same buggy engine for all their games didn't help.
 
jmotivator said:
Telltale was a fun company that was trying to revive the golden era of adventure games. But it seems to have gone the way of Sierra.

Adventure games seem to be the realm of Indi developers now, as they are light on coding and heavy on writing and art. The problem has been for a very long time now that games with a rather discrete play through model just don't rake in the money. I always wondered how a company could exist in the current market given the current client base with a product line that was entirely adventure games.

Turns out you can't.
Click to expand...

Thumbs up for the Sierra adventure game reference! I lost too many hours to King's Quest.
 
Redress said:
Thumbs up for the Sierra adventure game reference! I lost too many hours to King's Quest.
Click to expand...

I once had a short stint... like months... where I considered writing a comedy blog. One of my prouder pieces was "How to Change a Tire" but was written as if you were in a Gabriel Knight game.

I wonder if that blog is still around...
 
Jetboogieman said:
One thing that annoyed me a bit, was the Game of Thrones series and there's a simple reason for that.

My save file for whatever reason was wiped, so I played through the first couple of episodes a few times, it was great don't get me wrong.

But one thing I will say, was it was... It seemed no matter what you did, you were just ****ed, there was no "winning" and that's a pretty bad term to use in this context but it felt no matter what dialogue choice you picked, no matter what decisions you made, you were brutally ****ed every time for it, which I felt kind of destroys the entire purpose of a game like that.

And that was confirmed by the fact that in the very first episode you're forced to decide who your houses "sentinel" will be and that choice, no matter who you pick, makes them a traitor at the end of the game simply based on who you picked, that's a very ****ty design choice

I mean the story is still relatively compelling but again it seems like you're completely toast no matter what you do.

I haven't played completely through them, but from what people say the Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead Series are some of the finest stories ever put into a video game.
Click to expand...

Why did you buy the game if you’ve never watched the show
 
Deuce said:
Why did you buy the game if you’ve never watched the show
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Or read the books.

As a reader of the books I must ask: Were there sufficient references to boiled leather?
 
PoS said:
Off topic: I keep mistaking you for Redress, since both your avatars are very similar... :mrgreen:
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Do you think all blond girls look alike? Her avatar is of a sweet, keyboard playing ojou-san, mine is of a psychotic, blood loving, evil super-villain. They are not at all alike. Compare:



 
Zyphlin said:
So it was accurate to the source material. :D
Click to expand...

jmotivator said:
Well, that sounds like it was true to the Game of Thrones source material! ;) :lamo
Click to expand...

HonestJoe said:
To be fair, isn’t that pretty much the moral of the entire Game of Thrones franchise though? ;)
Click to expand...

Deuce said:
Why did you buy the game if you’ve never watched the show
Click to expand...

giphy.gif


Okay, Okay, I get what ya'll are saying.

But my point is for a game where there's 6 episodes in a season and each episode is ball park around 2 hours to complete, its brutal that Every. Single. Option that you pick, brutalizes you for it, there's seldom a moment of levity or even a glimmer that you might come out on top and on top of that, if you re-read the spoiler section you'll see one of the biggest problems with the entire series that presents you with a bull****, false choice.
 
Spartacus FPV said:
There are talks to have other devs finish the game:
https://variety.com/2018/gaming/new...ers-to-finish-walking-dead-season-1202955785/

I don't like it, will likely been a paint by numbers lead up to a predictable Clem death, but at least it'll be "finished"
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I'm weary about it, because it's not gonna be the same without the original dev team. You can't just replace that passion. Now I know some of the devs are suing Telltale, so maybe that might further complicate things.
 
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