Telltale Games Explains Lay Offs – Provides Glimmer of Hope for Future
After laying off dozens of employees, Telltale Games, the game developer behind The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Tales from the Borderlands, Batman – The Telltale Series, The Wolf Among Us, Batman: The Enemy Within and more, released a statement explaining the layoffs.
Their statement reads:
“Today Telltale Games made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges. 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. CEO Pete Hawley issued the following statement:
‘It’s been an incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course. Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry.’
Telltale will issue further comments regarding its product portfolio in the coming weeks.”
— Telltale Games (@telltalegames) September 21, 2018
Just a few days later, they would make another announcement offering a bit of hope for everyone looking forward to their upcoming game, Walking Dead: The Final Season.
“Hi everyone, we have a Walking Dead update for you. Multiple potential partners have stepped forward to express interest in helping to see The Final Season through to completion. While we can’t make any promises today, we are actively working towards a solution that will allow episodes 3 and 4 to be completed and released in some form. In the meantime, episode 2 will release tomorrow across all platforms as planned. We hope to have answers for your other questions soon.”
— Telltale Games (@telltalegames) September 24, 2018
Telltale Games’ reduction in staff left a number of their games in limbo including The Wolf Among Us 2, Minecraft: Story Mode, and Stranger Things.
Both Minecraft: Story Mode and Stranger Things saw Telltale partner with Netflix in order to bring them to life.
Netflix announced that Minecraft: Story Mode would still continue to be made by the skeleton team at Telltale. Unfortunately, they will have to find a new home for the Stranger Things game.
“We are saddened by news about Telltale Games. They developed many great games in the past and left an indelible mark in the industry. Minecraft: Story Mode is still moving forward as planned. We are in the process of evaluating other options for bringing the Stranger Things universe to life in an interactive medium.”
Netflix and Telltale announced their partnership back in June where they described what the games would look like:
We’re delighted by the response we’re seeing to the idea of Minecraft: Story Mode coming to Netflix in the fall as an interactive adventure, and separately, we’re thrilled to confirm that Telltale is developing a game based on Stranger Things that we’ll publish to consoles and computers at a later date. Our partnership with Netflix is something we’re incredibly proud of, and while we don’t have anything more to share right now, we’re excited to reveal details on these projects later in the year.
It appears there is still some hope for Telltale Games’ projects that they had in the pipeline. It definitely appears they will be bringing to life a number of their The Walking Dead: The Final Season episodes and will also wrap up work on Minecraft: Story Mode.
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