Telltale Games. A company that was once really passionate about delivering great stories with simple choice-based games. Many titles have come from these games but recently those games have fallen short. And as of Friday, September 21^st, it looks like those games are no more.

On Friday, September 21st Telltale Games released a public statement on Twitter. The statement revealed that Telltale Games was immediately shutting its doors. All production on games both current and upcoming are canceled. For even non-video game readers, this is very unheard of. A company just completely going out of business out of nowhere. It is like Disney going out of business and canceling all their programming and closing all their theme parks. But this announcement by Telltale Games is only the tip of the iceberg. What about the employees who just lost their jobs? What about the gamers who paid $60 for a full multi-part episodic game? What was management really like at Telltale Games?

Telltale Games is located in the bay area in California. A beautiful location where many prominent video game studios are located. Telltale Games has been around for decades producing choice-based narrative games. Some of their titles include their award-winning "The Walking Dead" series, "Game of Thrones", "The Wolf Among Us", "Tales of the Borderlands" and "Batman: The Telltale Series". Telltale Games has produced some fantastic stories with these IPs and gamers have loved these franchises have received new interpretations of beloved characters and worlds. However, when one thinks of a game studio, they tend to forget about the employees behind the games. Emily Grace Buck was a narrative writer at Telltale Games. In the studio's initial press release, not much was dived into about the employees and their situation. Emily broke the shocking news (Via https://twitter.com/emilybuckshot) about how the employees were treated the day of the announcement. To paraphrase, two hundred and fifty Telltale employees were told they were laid off the same day as the announcement was made on Twitter. Emily revealed that she and other employees were initially told they had thirty minutes to collect their belongings and vacate the premises. Emily also revealed that some employees were being hired as recently as last week! She and her colleagues have no severance pay (Due to the employees being forced to be under a contract.) and their health care only lasts till the end of the week. This is honestly ludicrous. These two hundred and fifty people were not told about this terrible situation that could arise. Not six months in advance or three, or even two weeks. They were told the day of that they were out of the job with no financial pay. I mentioned earlier that Telltale Games were hiring people as recently as last week. How does a company continue to hire individuals when they know they are going under?

KindaFunny Games' podcast on September 25^th, 2018 discussed Telltale Games co-founders' statement on the issue. Dan Connors talked with news outlets on Monday and stated he was "saddened and shocked" by the news on Telltale closing. However, he revealed some eyebrow-raising details on how management was being conducted at Telltale Games with the higher-ups. Dan revealed that Telltale Games recently had a "failed round of financing". Telltale Games was holding out until their last potential partner backed out. Keyword potentialpartner. Once that partner backed out, the higher-ups were forced to close. Now I am not an expert in management or business, but I know that a company should not risk all their assets on a single financial backer. There was no contingency plan for if this deal did not go through? You have the livelihoods of two hundred and fifty people under you. Employees who are already in harsh work environments. As Emily Grace Buck described the management and work as extremely laborious. Quote: "Yes, it's true we usually worked 50+ hr weeks. Sometimes 70-80. Weekends were often expected. We were constantly "understaffed". Deadlines were ludicrously tight. Our schedules were so close we went from one crunch directly into another." And again, some people started to work at Telltale as recently as last week! That is horrible. According to other Telltale Game employees, some individuals have traveled cross country for this job and living in the Bay area is not cheap. Average rent is somewhere in the $2,000+ price range (Zillow.com). Imagine having no job and having to support your family, with no healthcare and no severance pay from a company that messed up at the top and trickled down to the bottom.

So, what is going on as recently as the week of September 26, 2018? Well for one, there is a job fair going on, on Thursday, September 27^th, 2018 where the CEO Pete Hawley (Current CEO of Telltale Games) can assist with ex-employees' LinkedIn accounts. The same person who helped cause this mess, to begin with. Just pointing that out there, kind of like a slap to the face to employees. Employees were also given more time to collect their belongings due to public outcry. It should be mentioned that a skeleton crew of twenty-five employees remain at the game studio to continue to work on a contracted Minecraft Netflix deal. Many gamers are furious with this idea. Currently "The Walking Dead" is halfway through a release of episodic content. Two more episodes need to be written and made for this game, especially since this is the final installment of the series. And to stop production in the middle of development is some bull. Because many gamers paid for a season pass. This purchase is usually a cheaper option than buying every episode released at the same price. With purchasing the season pass, gamers are technically promised those final two episodes. They cannot obtain a refund due to online services like the PlayStation Network terms and conditions stating no refunds are available digitally. The whole situation is a stupid mess.

I am going, to be honest, I only own the "Batman: Telltale Series" video games by Telltale and I didn't purchase them right away. I wait for a price drop with a lot of games I want unless it's a highly anticipated game. But all this blame on poor financials cannot go to the consumer. How does a company, that knows it is having financial troubles for the past year, purchase so many IPs at once and develop them all around the same time? When they still overwork their employees and publish poor quality games due to fatigue. IPs like Batman and Stranger Things cost a lot of money and to obtain them all at the same time? That's just stupid management. I don't know how to feel about it all because I want "The Walking Dead" to conclude that story. The writer in me cannot be unsatisfied with an incomplete tale, even for a series I am not interested in. But those employees need financial help. It's the sad truth of life, the higher-ups cause the problems and we all have to suffer the consequences.