Telltale Games: No Happy Ending

I had my first brush with a point-and-click action adventure game, when I got my hands on ‘The Walking Dead’, a survival horror game that was based on Robert Kirkman’s wildly popular comics. Till that time, I had not even heard of this studio called Telltale Games, but I remember one of my friends telling me that this game was good. And man, how good it was! This game made me look into the studio’s previous titles, while also waiting for the upcoming releases. The studio took birth in 2004 with the efforts of some former LucasArts developers (the studio behind Star Trek and Indiana Jones), and started with some niche IPs such as Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, and Jurassic Park a few years later. However, all this was set to take a backseat with the release of ‘The Walking Dead’ in 2012.

The game was set against the backdrop of a zombie apocalypse. Featuring a strong narrative and a talented cast, the game really blew my mind, in that I actually cared for the story. Every dialogue had weight. Every action had consequences. The game was released in five episodic chapters, each around two hours in length. This game set a future precedent for other studios who were willing to emulate this formula, while Telltale also got licencing from other popular franchisees such as Batman, Game of Thrones, and Borderlands, all of which they released in a similar manner.

Then came the restructuring, after which the wheels began to fall off. With the studio now acquiring titles left, right and centre, the development team ballooned to over 400 employees. Ironically, the company’s decline started the year it became a commercial success- 2012. In order that the company can run well, the management took the decision to cram as many games into its development schedule as possible. This meant that the relaxed environment that helped fuel the success of The Walking Dead, was now replaced by a suffocating one in the coming years. All of the studio’s games were based on the Telltale Engine, and the continuous shoving of games showed repercussions on the engine, which was used by the studio since 2005!! Glitches and bugs due to the engine were a frequent source of frustration, while the management’s idea of going forward with rewrites and ideas, however poor they were, at the last minute, threatened to frequently derail development.

A major announcement was made in November 2017, which detailed that the studio had laid off 90 of its employees due to restructuring, however the actual reason was cited to be leadership issues, which was crying out to be solved. Things again seemed to be on the up around mid-2018, when the studio announced its partnership with Netflix to bring out games based on ‘Stranger Things’ and ‘Minecraft’, which would be highly interactive. However, in September, there was a huge development, with around 220 employees being let go due to studio closure. When the last investor backed out, the end was brutal, with employees claiming that they had only half-an-hour to clear the premises. No severances were given to the employees, while health benefits would be available only for a limited time to them. The closure was swift. Remember, every action has consequences.