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A wave of layoffs has apparently hit the video game studio Telltale Games, responsible for popular branching-narrative games based on the Walking Dead franchise. According to online reports, those affected by the layoffs have alleged that the studio is either shutting down entirely or staying afloat as a meager skeleton crew, ahead of The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series' final season launch throughout this fall.
On Friday, independent reporter Andrea Ayres posted an allegation that the studio had shut down, based on feedback from a game-development Facebook community that simply said, "Telltale Games is closing their doors." Shortly afterward, Telltale narrative designer Emily Grace Buck confirmed that she does "not have a job anymore" and added that she was looking for job opening information for "a lot of other amazing people I love dearly."
After Gamasutra reported on the story by saying Telltale was "closing its doors," The Verge followed up to indicate that a team of 25 staffers will remain on board—perhaps to usher the company's remaining Walking Dead episodes to launch. USGamer separately reports that a new game in Telltale's The Wolf Among Us series, and a previously announced series based on the Netflix show Stranger Things, have been canceled.
Shortly after these stories went live, Forbes reporter Joe Parlock offered his own synthesis of today's Telltale news as follows. The studio's remaining crew of roughly 25 staffers will stay on board until this final season of The Walking Dead is complete, at which point the studio will shutter due to "bankruptcy." This will affect the studio's recent push into publishing other studios' games, Parlock writes. Part of the company's financial trouble, he says, is due to the previously unannounced news that the studio's deal with Netflix (and thus the Stranger Things license) fell through earlier this year.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...wave-of-layoffs-cancels-stranger-things-game/
It's sad to see another developer going bankrupt.
On Friday, independent reporter Andrea Ayres posted an allegation that the studio had shut down, based on feedback from a game-development Facebook community that simply said, "Telltale Games is closing their doors." Shortly afterward, Telltale narrative designer Emily Grace Buck confirmed that she does "not have a job anymore" and added that she was looking for job opening information for "a lot of other amazing people I love dearly."
After Gamasutra reported on the story by saying Telltale was "closing its doors," The Verge followed up to indicate that a team of 25 staffers will remain on board—perhaps to usher the company's remaining Walking Dead episodes to launch. USGamer separately reports that a new game in Telltale's The Wolf Among Us series, and a previously announced series based on the Netflix show Stranger Things, have been canceled.
Shortly after these stories went live, Forbes reporter Joe Parlock offered his own synthesis of today's Telltale news as follows. The studio's remaining crew of roughly 25 staffers will stay on board until this final season of The Walking Dead is complete, at which point the studio will shutter due to "bankruptcy." This will affect the studio's recent push into publishing other studios' games, Parlock writes. Part of the company's financial trouble, he says, is due to the previously unannounced news that the studio's deal with Netflix (and thus the Stranger Things license) fell through earlier this year.
https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2018...wave-of-layoffs-cancels-stranger-things-game/
It's sad to see another developer going bankrupt.
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