
The tragic end of Telltale Games - eaguyhn
https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/4/17934166/telltale-games-studio-closed-layoffs-end-the-walking-dead
======
tablethnuser
Don't work in the games industry. This is the par story for game companies.
Every little detail of this story I saw repeating on loop in a decade of
working in games. The artists grabbing assets to stuff into their portfolios
before two years of professional work disappears into a black hole, the ppl
moving families across country to be laid off months later, the crunch, the
over promising, it is all text book.

The games industry preys on young ppl who don't know what a healthy work/life
balance looks like. The pay is lower because employees are passionate. Passion
doesn't pay rent. It doesn't provide stability for your partner and children
who all will suffer because you chose to work in games.

Your passion will be compromised endlessly by marketing and management who can
air drop in and change a game's entire direction in one meeting. Because they
saw a Minecraft commercial and their kid responded to it. They'll make you
work weekend after weekend to fit their pivot into the original schedule and
stop in for an hour to drop off donuts. Oh good, eight hours of work for a
donut. Donuts also don't pay rent. They don't fix your marital problems.

Games is an industry stuck in a groundhog day loop of misery. This is my
warning to anyone who thinks they like games enough to make them. You won't
like them after making them. It isn't worth it.

~~~
gambiting
Just as a counterpoint - I've worked for 4 years now as a programmer at one of
the biggest publishers in the industry, and honestly, the work life balance is
great, the pay is ok for the region(plus I get decent amount of shares every
year), the work is varied, interesting and I like both what I do and people I
work with. I think the last time I did overtime was 2 years ago, and even then
it was only for a week around launch of the last project(in fact in every
studio meeting we are constantly reminded that managers can NOT demand us to
work overtime, if they do we need to report it higher up). Normally I get in
at 8am, leave by 4pm, never work weekends or anything like that. Plus the
usual for EU 25 paid days off(plus the studio is closed christmas to new
years), unlimited paid sick leave, private health insurance.....really, it's
pretty good.

But then again, I am aware that most studios are _not_ like that.

~~~
krinchan
> Plus the usual for EU 25 paid days off

Sometimes I really hate living in the US. -_-

~~~
skrebbel
Obviously we pay for it with lower salaries. Or, well, actually I don't know
what US gamedev salaries are like but for other programming jobs, the
difference is significant, also outside the SFBA.

------
aikah
Sometimes you simply got to let the data speak for themselves:

[https://imgur.com/a/2tR4WVX](https://imgur.com/a/2tR4WVX)

It's so strange how the prestige around the brand was not correlated to the
sells numbers. It so strange how their demise was so unexpected by the press
and gaming communities when the writing was on the wall long ago.

~~~
lmm
The gaming press is more press than gaming; they're often people with writing
degrees who are disproportionately fond of "literary" games compared to the
buying public.

~~~
screye
This is very true.

Gaming journos have very little influence inside the gaming community. Many of
them do not quite get that "fun" is the most central reason for playing a
game. Their articles often read like someone who is hoping for a regular media
house to notice and hire them, rather than a gamer writing for other gamers.

Gaming's biggest personalities are on YouTube and Twitch. ACG, Angry Joe, TB
(rip), Dunkey have a significantly better say on whether a game gets played or
not. Brothers a tale of sons, is one such game whose success can be in part
attributed to TB pushing it very hard, on his YT channel.

Among the younger generation, let's play and streamers are the bigger
influencers. At least that is what I feel like looking at my younger cousins.

There are a few good gaming review websites, but the likes of IGN, Polygon and
GameSpot feel like surrogate marketting agencies at this point.

~~~
Razengan
I have been gaming literally my entire life save for the first couple years,
spending thousands of dollars on games every year, and I have never watched
any of those “gaming personalities.”

~~~
michaelscott
If it helps add another data point to the mix, I can confirm parent's comment
on these personalities and their influence within the gaming community. A
number of them often provide in-depth critiques and unexpected insights on
game design that take the form of comedic video quasi-essays, and they rack up
huge subscriber counts.

~~~
Razengan
Skipping through a “No Commentary” playthrough usually tells me all I need to
know about a game before purchasing it, without any subjective opinions of
someone else.

------
JohnStrangeII
I feel sorry for the employees and apologize in advance if what I'm going to
say sounds too negative or blunt, but anyway here is one opinion. Telltale
games wasn't a very innovative company. It shouldn't surprise anyone when a
company goes bankrupt that primarily produces bad game adoptions of
blockbuster movies as a franchise.

Correct me if I'm wrong, I'm only a gamer and not an industry expert, but it
seems to me that too many managerial constraints on creativity and fear of
innovation are the #1 game company killers.

~~~
fsloth
"bad game adoptions"

At least their "Wolf among us" was an extremely enjoyable adaptation of an
existing comic book franchise with a novel story.

~~~
izacus
Batman series was also excellent and it surprised me how far it went away from
canon Batman representations.

Not to mention Tales from the Borderlands being one of the funniest games I've
ever played.

On the other hand, the new Walking Dead seasons and Game of Thrones were
exceedingly dull.

------
k__
_" years of nonstop crunch culture, toxic management, and frustration from
developers who believed the company’s refusal to diversify gameplay had led to
creative stagnation"_

I don't understand why the people who were let go didn't leave in the first
place...

~~~
crispyambulance

        > I don't understand why the people who were let go didn't leave in the first place...
    

I feel the same way. One often hears the statistic that the games industry
revenue (~36 Billion) exceeds that of the film (hollywood) industry.

It makes me wonder, given that there's probably fewer workers in games, who is
making the lionshare of the money? Is it just a tiny sliver of investors? How
did it get that way? One would think that talent could just walk away from
toxic workplaces and be paid handsomely elsewhere.

~~~
tablethnuser
Once a game company has a hit they become their own angel investor and try to
find the next hit. The odds are really low though so most die before finding
it. It doesn't help that most companies have no idea why the first game was a
hit.

It's easy to hide for a long time because a hit can be so profitable. Look at
Riot Games. League of Legends remains their only product even after trying to
find another one for a decade. Zynga is still around because in a few short
years they got a couple billion in the bank.

------
coldcode
Having been in this exact situation before, its very hard to deal with. One of
my employers died at 4:30 on a Thursday, we had 30 minutes to get out of the
office before the building management locked the doors, there was no health
insurance or severance for anyone (in fact as a contractor I was owed $8000 I
never got). At least we all had some idea things were bad so it wasn't a
complete surprise. This of course was during the Dotcom collapse so finding
another job took me a long time. I've been in company ending situations since
then but no matter how many you never feel good. It's easy to feel like you
didn't do enough to keep things running (of course its not true) which doesn't
help your attitude much. Your job is almost like a family sometimes and that
makes it harder. If the employment market is hot its much easier to get over
the shock but if its hard to find another job then its much more depressing.

------
gerardnll
I can not understand how it is legal to dismiss a worker with less than 14
days notice. Those are great workers rights! Thanks god we still have some of
them here in Spain (although some have already been diminished).

~~~
gaius
If the company ceases to exist, then many of its usual responsibilities don’t
exist either

~~~
falcolas
The company didn't cease to exist; they still had (have?) employees finishing
existing contracts. They also tried to raise money to staff back up and finish
off the Walking Dead games.

~~~
gaius
It sucks but if there is literally no money left then the company is simply
not able to fulfill its obligations. Like if pay is owed where will that money
come from?

I don’t excuse management for a second; they must have known the coffers were
bare while they were still hiring.

~~~
Insanity
If I'm not mistaken, here in Belgium first the assets of the company are sold
off and from that money, first the employees are paid out their contracts.

After that the money goes to other instances (like the loan by the bank etc).

EDIT: They are paid out their outstanding wage for their performed work, not
to the end of their contracts _

------
Entalpi
“/../ hundreds still tumbled into unemployment with no safety net from their
company.“

To be honest a company that can “barely keep its head above water” wont be in
shape to provide a lot of support. That is kind of the point, if they could do
that then maybe they could keep the company afloat which is a bit paradoxical.

It would be nice situations like these to have some form of safety net in form
of financial aid or something. I have no idea what they do in the US but in
Sweden you can get a lot of help since these things happen with companies from
time to time.

~~~
wafflesraccoon
Typically most states will let you file for unemployment benefits if you are
laid off, these vary from state to state.

------
erikb
> These sources [...] paint a consistent picture of a company desperately
> struggling to keep its head above water.

No? Manager start doing this when their profits dwindle, not when the company
has no cash left. The basic idea is to get one or two more bonus checks while
the others lose their homes. You can be sure that some people still made a
profit.

> “[Hawley] came into a situation where the staff needed a strong leader with
> a clear vision,” says a former employee.

Does anybody remember how Dunder Miflin tried to pursuade the stockholders by
presenting Michael Scott as the hero who would turn things around?

And one thing I don't really get is why one brings oneself in a situation
where one works ones ass off in exchange for living paycheck-to-paycheck. You
should have a decent amount of spare time (or time for personal projects at
least) and turn a profit, otherwise why work this job at all? I mean gaming
industry is not a career you work in because you need to feed 3 children and
don't have another choice.

------
sxp62000
You can tell a lot about how a game is doing when you pay attention to the
"let's play" videos on Youtube. People have been complaining about how short
telltale games were, how they always look the same etc. for a while now. I'm
surprised the company didn't try to do things even a little bit differently.

The gaming industry is a tough place to be. I have so much respect for game
designers, 3D artists, animators. Because it takes a lot of time, skill,
rendering and sleepless nights to get something good out. Unfortunately, most
game companies are controlled by mediocre people at the top, who run things
like a sweatshop.

------
beerlord
Ultimately most of these game studios are working for Nintendo, Sony,
Microsoft, Google, Apple and Valve.

More pressure should be put on those mega-corporations to reduce the
commissions they charge developers who release games on their platforms -
currently 30%.

The consoles are not supercomputers anymore like the PS3, they mostly use off
the shelf (AMD) hardware and x86 architecture. Soon they will just stream the
game directly to a thin client which will only handle time-sensitive
calculations like input and collision. On PC this 30% commission is even less
justifiable since the platform is open and there is no hardware for Valve to
get involved with.

Cutting this commission would immediately put money into the hands of games
studios and improve conditions for workers, whilst still leaving the platform
holders ridiculously profitable. Its a shame no one has been first to move on
this - Microsoft with Xbox would seem a good candidate given their desperation
to attract devs to the platform and away from PS4/Sony.

I think Telltale is just classic bad management. Not much different from other
industries. I think the industry can make for a good career - find a small-ish
studio with a string of successful releases and low overhead (no crappy legacy
engine to maintain, cheap location).

------
the_mitsuhiko
I don't get how there is not a general insurance system for people losing
their jobs unexpectedly which pays out three months of similar or something
similar.

~~~
criley2
There is "Unemployment Insurance" in America, and companies have to pay into
it for their employees by law. Any employee who no-fault loses their job can
draw from it.

This company used a "cheat" in the legal system in America for labor where
they illegally labeled their employees as "independent contractors", which are
treated differently under the law. These contractors aren't "employees" and
aren't eligible for unemployment (because they were not 'employed', they were
contracted).

For example if you were to hire someone to work on your kitchen for 1 week,
you wouldn't pay unemployment insurance on their behalf. If they were self-
employed doing remodeling/contracting, they would be expected to pay their own
unemployment insurance.

It is unfortunate how the illegal abuse of "independent contracting" in
America has created these terrible situations though.

~~~
duxup
The employees had to have known they were contractors though.... at least in
my expense that is no mystery.

~~~
nkrisc
Well then you have to choose between turning down the job for the chance
you'll need unemployment insurance or taking the job because you need a job.
The rational choice is to take the job regardless.

~~~
duxup
Depends on your options.

The game industry seems pretty terrible to their workers.

Either way the employees had to know.

~~~
sleepybrett
This kind of 'be a contractor or gtfo' thing is not in any way limited to the
games industry.

------
pwaivers
> "These sources, who were granted anonymity in order to speak freely and
> without fear of retribution,..."

What retribution? They were fired with no severance or time to prepare. Why
don't they just speak out against the company that doesn't exist anymore and
left them on the street?

~~~
jccalhoun
Because then you seem like a complainer or a troublemaker. You get an
interview at another company (where there are dozens if not hundreds of other
people applying) and they google you. Would they hire the person who
complained about terrible work conditions or one of the other people who
hasn't?

------
mattlondon
I hear about game studios going under like this a lot.

Is it just that games companies suffering the same fate get more coverage in
the media, or is it something about game studios that seem to make them more
likely to crash and burn like this?

I know that games are quite consumer's-whim-driven and you're never really
sure if you've got a hit on your hands or not until you release. I guess it is
the same for movies, yet I've never heard of any movies spectacuarly just
going bust half-way through filming and just abandonning what they are doing
and packing it in (although I have heard of some near-misses). Yet it seems to
happen a lot for games comapanies?

What gives?

P.S. sucks for the people working on this. Hope you all find something new!

~~~
WorldMaker
The comparison to movies seems apt. Games industry has the same problems that
Early Hollywood had (high crash rate and a lot of employee anguish), and a lot
of these stories match early days histories of Hollywood. The solution to that
was strong unions. Film companies still have a high crash rate, though now it
is much more intentionally controlled (Hollywood has organized development
companies to very specifically be only for the scope of a single film
project), and more importantly employee anguish from the intentional turnover
is mitigated by strong union protections and safety nets.

The interesting part is that Hollywood is dealing with a cycle of this sort of
suffering currently with Special Effects houses. The CG special effects
companies are often contracted for only a single set piece at a time in a
movie, as companies they currently last about at most 2 years and involvement
in scenes in two and a half films, and there is a lot of employee anguish
because a lot of the artists involved have generally not been allowed to
unionize (or heavily discouraged from unionizing), especially in the smaller
contractors. Most of the Oscars presented for Best Special Effects in the last
few years have involved at least one firm that was dead by the time of the
Oscars award. It's not making the news as much as game studio suffering, but
it's a similar problem in that both industries feel that they can afford to
burn through talent cheaper than it takes to protect it, as there are always
excitable young kids happy to get their shot in Hollywood or Videogames.

------
tempodox
I can only hope that the call for a union takes hold. Although I‘m not overly
optimistic.

------
dang
Previous threads on this:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18061453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18061453)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18066920](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18066920)

------
mathattack
Absolutely sh!tty way to treat people. Won’t those left demand massive
retention bonuses?

How fungible are game dev skills? At least folks are getting released into a
hot tech market.

~~~
taneq
> How fungible are game dev skills?

That depends on the role taken. Artists are fairly fungible (probably
unfairly) because they can be shown a bunch of examples and told "make
something that fits with this". Coders are fungible only if you're comparing
wizard-level coders who can read, understand and fix / improve a game's
codebase.

