
Telltale Employees Left Stunned by Company Closure, No Severance - bspn
https://kotaku.com/telltale-employees-left-stunned-by-company-closure-no-1829272139
======
ta987654321
This studio closure hits a little close to me, since I know a few former
employees:

\- They really did not see a full studio closure coming so suddenly. Yes, they
were aware that they were struggling, but the 25% staff reduction was supposed
to keep the studio sustainable.

\- They were in the planning stages for an original IP, their new leadership
realized too late that expensive IP licenses were unsustainable.

\- Their frantic development pace meant that they their engine was a patchwork
of features cobbled together over the years, and not enough resources to
rework it, despite their audiences stating that they didn't care enough to fix
it. This made development a lot more painful than it should have been. They
finally ditched it for Unity, but again, much too late.

\- They were getting ready to move into a new office building. That's how in
the dark everyone at the company was kept.

\- All of these actions were caused by incompetent management, their staff was
and still is amazingly talented.

~~~
c3534l
There were people who moved to accept a job at that company a few months ago
who got fired. Imagine uprooting your entire life, moving across country for
your dream job, for the sole purpose that management can keep up appearances
that they're a functioning company so people won't jump ship. The company was
scummy and ran into the ground because of incompetence.

~~~
antisthenes
That's a more typically American phenomenon, I think.

Unless you live in an absolutely hopeless job market (e.g. small mid-west
towns with nothing for 50-60 miles around them), then relocating for a job
should come with absolutely mind-blowing perks and really be worth it for you
to uproot everything.

Or you're relocating within the same region where you can still commute back
every weekend or so (e.g. DC to NY or Boston to NY).

~~~
klodolph
There aren’t many cities with good jobs for the games industry. People don’t
just uproot because they’re hopeless but also for the opposite, because
they’re hopeful that the increased opportunities are worth it.

------
dogma1138
I wonder how much the closure was financial mismanagement vs their business
model simply catching up to them.

TTG shtick was essentially “emotional abuse simulators” all their games had
one trick get you attached to characters and see them die with very little
actual player control over it.

They were one trick pony and the novelty wore off rather quickly.

Their games also were based on expensive franchises and they often offered the
first chapter for free in order to hook people in.

They also never really developed their formula further the games didn’t became
more interactive the same quick time events over and over that never really
changed the overall story more than which one of these two will die and or
betray you later.

I’m actually surprised that they lasted this long given how expensive it is to
develop these games even if they weren’t technically impressive recording
hours and hours of voice acting is much more expensive than shiny coding
shaders.

~~~
kevinh
> TTG shtick was essentially “emotional abuse simulators” all their games had
> one trick get you attached to characters and see them die with very little
> actual player control over it.

Some of their games were like this, but others were not. The Tales from the
Borderlands series and Guardians of the Galaxy series were primarily vehicles
for comedy, and did not rely on the trope you're mentioning.

~~~
tomc1985
Their early work... Strongbad Episodes, and the Sam and Max series, were
really quite amazing. TTG's later franchises never really interested me; I had
assumed the games were just as good. To hear that their later franchises
resorted to these kinds of tactics makes me sad :(

~~~
WorldMaker
For the most part the franchises you expect to do these emotional harrowing
stuff were the ones that did: The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones.

For the most part the games are "nearly as good". TTG burnt through a lot of
great writers and craftsmen, and never quite replaced the folks that made the
early work particularly great. They wanted to be a television studio, and a
certain churn like that was inevitable, regardless of all the other
mismanagement problems they had.

Batman was more about presenting the different "faces" of Batman and letting
the player decide which fit best their playstyle/interest. The consequences of
"is Batman the mask or is Bruce Wayne?" and "does Batman care about Bruce
Wayne's friends/feelings?" There are some emotional highs, but nothing quite
as "abusive" as The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones at their worst.

Minecraft Story Mode was their next most profitable after The Walking Dead,
and just a silly joy/blast. Somewhat to par with Strongbad/Sam & Max.
Recommended, even if you aren't a big Minecraft fan.

The Fables game (The Wolf Among Us) was a strong detective novel with fantasy
elements. Playing to early work strengths when TTG was funding Sam & Max /
Strongbad with CSI games.

Tales from the Borderlands was the closest to a Sam & Max in terms of humor of
recent output. I burnt out on the grind of the Borderlands FPS games, but
enjoyed a lot of the humor to them, and TTG knocked out of the some of what
was missing in the storylines of the FPS games, and very much brought the
humor. Even if the FPS games don't interest you, Tales from the Borderlands
may be worth playing just because they are funny/charming/weird.

I haven't gotten very far in Guardians of the Galaxy, so I'm not sure how it
stacks up.

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elvirs
"One employee, a source told Kotaku, had been working until 3 AM the night
before" Moral of the story, never work for any company until 3am.

~~~
dleslie
_Never_ work longer hours than you would be willing to be paid hourly for
given your salary. _Never_.

I've been interviewed at companies where it was evident from my questions that
I would make more working half time at my current employer than the hours
typically worked at the prospective employer.

Really, I don't see why overtime is so rare in our industry. Not having it is
more often an excuse to over utilize and under budget than to deal with
extreme situations.

~~~
vecter
_Never_ is a pretty bad rule. If you want to get ahead in life and advance
your career, sometimes working more is the only way to do it. Everyone should
decide at the end of the day how much they want to balance work vs. life, but
for many people, working hard is the right choice.

~~~
shady-lady
> working hard is the right choice

working long != working hard

~~~
CaptainJustin
&& working long != more done

------
ta201809
This sounds very similar to the layoffs that happened with ML and computer
vision staff at Shutterstock. I heard it was a super unprofessional sudden
thing, poor severance, no continuation of benefits, happening to teams that
just had been praised for being high performers for short term business
critical product deployments.

It’s not a gaming industry thing, and no job segments are safe from this kind
of thing. Just a reminder to insist on a clearly stated severance package when
you join, and walk away if an employer won’t offer that to you, no matter what
you think about your personal leverage in the situation or your seniority or
anything else. When it comes to generous severance that is stated in the
employment agreement, do not take no for an answer.

~~~
yodon
If the company burns through all its cash and craters in a financial implosion
of bankruptcy and debt like this it's unlikely to matter whether you had a
generous severance plan called out in your employment agreement. The best you
could hope to do is get in line with the other unsecured creditors for your
share of the tiny leavings left after the Aeron chairs are sold at auction.

------
paxys
People are blaming mismanagement, bad licensing terms etc., and while that all
may be true, it is also worth noting that Telltale has not released anything
_really_ worth playing since The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. No studio
will survive after releasing ~12 bad to average games in a row over 4 years.

~~~
Bartweiss
> _No studio will survive after releasing ~12 bad to average games in a row
> over 4 years._

And Telltale was vastly more at risk than most studios because of their
episodic games. They basically sold each game with a funnel, and one bad
episode jeopardized sales for everything after it.

If some studio like Supergiant (or perhaps some more-prolific equivalent)
released four years of bad-to-average games, I would still keep an eye on
their output in hopes that any one new release might be great. But Telltale
was putting out all of these big-license games and had everything past Episode
1 stymied by past weakness like a TV show with a bad opener. It was an almost
uniquely vulnerable situation for a studio.

------
ww520
I was fortunate (or unfortunate) in my career that the first company I work
for was acquired and a massive company wide layoff followed, which woke me up
from the Koolaid on dedicating my life to the companies I work for, and I
would never let any company determine my fate.

~~~
jarsin
Yup I actually only prefer to work with people that have been laid off before.
People that have never been laid off are more likely to be the "Look boss I
worked till 3am to finish your stupid project" types.

Can't stand working with "do anything for the company" types. They are naive.

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thedataangel
This sort of thing makes me very glad I live in a country with legally
guaranteed employee entitlements and public healthcare.

~~~
dmh2000
California does have some legally guaranteed entitlements if (edit) there is a
mass layoff. Apparently like this case if a company just goes under with no
money left that doesn't apply. What is the situation in Europe? The healthcare
continues, but if a company has no money who pays the entitlements? Do
employers have to fund a reserve? Or the govt pays?

~~~
thedataangel
In Australia (where I'm from) companies are legally obliged to keep enough
cash on hand to cover employee entitlements, which at minimum is pay for the
notice period + accrued leave + superannuation (may be more depending on your
contract and time served with the company).

Above that, employee entitlements get paid out first in the event of
bankruptcy/wind-up (i.e. before any investors or creditors see a cent).

Also, any director of a company that doesn't comply (i.e. keep enough cash on
hand) is likely to 1) get banned from being a director of a company, 2)
prosecuted, and worst of all 3) get reamed by the tax-office for the amount
owing.

Healthcare is almost entirely public here. Employer-provided private health
insurance is rare.

------
lquist
Is severance normal at a startup or a game studio? I would think first
priority would be contractual obligations (payroll, contractual severance,
vendors, etc.) and then only then severance.

~~~
cloakandswagger
I don't think severance is normal or expected of any business teetering on
insolvency.

~~~
ryandrake
In my experience, severance (as part of your employment agreement) is not
normal or expected for any job in the USA. I’ve been working for decades and
have never seen even a hint of it in any employer’s benefits info. Severance
is something only big shot executives get.

~~~
hellogoodbyeeee
I got a severance package from a part time bank teller job after they closed
the branch I worked at. I also got a severance package when a small business I
worked at went under. I'd say severance packages are a lot more common than
you think they are.

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thrower123
Adventure games seems to be a segment that is especially prone to boom and
bust cycles. This has to be at least the third major collapse, following
Infocom and LucasArts.

Even when well executed, the formula is hard to keep fresh, and the emphasis
on story and writing leads to generally poor replayability. Particularly now,
in the youtube/twitch age - most of the enjoyment of these kinds of games is
watching the story play out, rather than actually playing the game.

~~~
reboog711
We share different views of the world...

First, Infocom was arguably supplanted by Sierra and other graphical games.
They died during an oncoming boom. Sierra's reign [and LucasArts earlier
titles] in the late 80's to mid-to-late 90s were very much the golden age of
adventure games.

Second, LucasArts went on for about 15 years after they stopped creating /
releasing adventure games. Their last Adventure game was Grim Fandango in
1998, and the closed in 2013. I can't see how LucasArts closure is unrelated
to boom or bust cycles in adventure games.

Third, there are a huge number of adventure games coming out all the time. It
surprises me honestly. While a few companies--like Wadjet Eye Games and
Daedalic--seem to be doing okay, the bulk of them close up shop after one or
two games. To me--as a lover of these type of games and a reviewer for
JustAdventure--The market seems overly saturated for such a niche audience.
There is the occasional big event such as the Double Fine Adventure
Kickstarter, but the community doesn't seem to change size.

~~~
laputan_machine
Wadjet Eye, for me, have to make some of the best adventure games I have ever
played. Heartily recommend Technobabylon and Gemini Rue.

~~~
reboog711
I'm a huge Blackwell fan. I think they categorize their games as "Urban
Fantasy".

Unavowed is sitting in my review queue...

------
btilly
The point of severance is to give ex-employees a reason not to sue.

However there is left point in protecting from lawsuits when there will be
nothing left that can be sued.

However I suspect that not paying out owed PTO may be a different story...

~~~
vcanales
It's really interesting to read this perspective on what severance is in the
US, because in my country it definitely is just a right everyone has so that
they can land on their feet.

~~~
analog31
In the US, we have unemployment compensation insurance for that purpose. I
believe you can collect unemployment even if the employer is insolvent,
because it's pre-paid by the employer, and comes out of a collective fund.

As I understand it, a severance usually involves the employee signing some
sort of agreement.

~~~
chii
So who pays for this insurance? Is it usually the company, or the employee?

~~~
btilly
Employers. See
[https://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/uifactsheet.as...](https://workforcesecurity.doleta.gov/unemploy/uifactsheet.asp)
and
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_S...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment_benefits#United_States)
for more information about it.

Note that the caps are per state, but is sufficiently low that it doesn't
replace a professional level income. Therefore if your lifestyle is based on
an income of $50K+, you are strongly advised to acquire personal savings for
emergencies in case you lose your job. And C-level executives frequently have
contracts which specify severance packages that guarantee their income for an
extended time if they are fired. See
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_parachute)
for more on that.

This can lead to weirdly misaligned incentives, like C-level executives on a
failing company trying to get fired because their severance package will leave
them better off than staying with the sinking ship.

~~~
otoburb
>> _This can lead to weirdly misaligned incentives, like C-level executives on
a failing company trying to get fired because their severance package will
leave them better off than staying with the sinking ship._

If anybody is fired in the U.S. they are almost always never entitled to
severance. Severance is primarily available for employees who have been laid
off. Such companies would love to fire executives in the true sense of the
word _if they had cause_ to save on any costly packages.

~~~
btilly
A contract can say whatever it says. If it says that in event of your being
asked to leave the company that you get 6 months salary, then you get 6 months
salary upon being asked to leave. Regardless of why you're asked to leave the
company.

This kind of contract term is not given rank and file employees. But I
personally know executives who have been fired and kept a salary because it
was in their contract, including one who was fired in the last year, and
another who maneuvered to get fired a few years ago because the company was
going out of business.

~~~
analog31
There can be a lot of confusion about what "fired" means. Most US states have
"employment at will," meaning that there is no implied contract, and an
employee can be terminated without giving a cause. Yet in the common parlance,
"fired" means "terminated with cause." If an employee has been terminated with
cause, they know it.

Also, companies avoid the term "layoff" because it could imply that an
employee is entitled to be re-hired if business conditions improve. This can
be the case in union shops. The term I've heard for a permanent termination
without cause is "reduction of force."

Companies have to be careful about using "with cause" because they can get
sued over it unless they absolutely have all of their ducks in a row. They
will often pay the severance rather than expose themselves to a lawsuit and
discovery process. They may also wait until there's a downturn, and get rid of
the low performers all at once.

Of course like you say, if there's a contract, it can say anything.

------
fliesblackflags
I feel bad for the employees. Getting laid off sucks, I hope they all have
better jobs soon.

In terms of TTG as a company, they got what they asked for. It's too bad it
didn't happen before they hired their first non founders.

I'd been watching TTG since before they had a name. The rumors were that the
devs from the cancelled Sam & Max game left Lucas to make a Sam & Max game.
This was second only to Star Wars for me at the time.

I bought it as soon as a physical copy came out. (I don't remember if episodes
came on disc or if I had to wait for the season). TTG had built DRM into the
game that prevented you from using it in a virtual machine. TTG's website had
made it sound like the DRM wouldn't prevent anyone with a physical copy from
playing.

I contacted TTG. Their rep seemed to be reading of some BS script. He was
condescending. He treated me like I didn't know what I was talking about for
not wanting to use wine or dual boot. I returned the game to the store* and
acquired a copy that had been patched to repair the DRM. After that, if TTG
came up in a conversation I made sure to give the person a heads up that
they'd just need to pirate it anyway.

* This was a small store, their policy defined games rendered unplayable by DRM as defective. This policy caused them to not carry future TTG games.

------
anontechworker
I might be misreading/misinterpreting..what was the reason for the closure?
The article mentions it was financial but it didn’t seem absolute.

~~~
flavmartins
Another article states that only 2 games were actually profitable. Minecraft
Story Mode, and one of the Walking Dead games.

All others were failed financially and did not recoup costs.

~~~
BlackjackCF
I dunno why I was surprised by this. The company must have been super
mismanaged. I know that it's a lot of hard work to put together a game,
especially one with an outdated engine, but I'm really surprised that the
games Telltale was putting out required such a big crew.

~~~
baud147258
All the TT games had a lot of voice acting and motion capture, so that'll
drive costs up a lot.

------
maxxxxx
They have quite a few jobs open:
[https://telltale.com/jobs/](https://telltale.com/jobs/)

~~~
EADGBE
Their web developers are gone...

------
baud147258
This remind me that I've been meaning to pick up the Guardians of the Galaxy
TT game, because I like the comics and the movies, but each time I Watch a
gameplay video, I go completly meh, it just look so clunky and boring to play.
I understand the appeal of those game is not supposed to be in the gameplay
part of the game, but in that case, they should have done directly a visual
novel instead.

------
bradford
Anyone know what the unemployment benefits are like in CA?

In WA state, "Unemployment benefits are made available through taxes paid by
your former employer(s) to partially replace your regular earnings and help
you meet expenses while you look for another job."

Not sure what the situation is in CA but I'd hope that, in the absence of a
severance package, there's something else that can help them land cleanly
here...

~~~
Domenic_S
$450/week maximum. There's a waiting period (2 weeks?) as well.

~~~
JBlue42
Yup, without tacking out taxes. More like $410 I think when taxes are taken
out. Luckily, the State doesn't tax it as well. I learned when looking more
deeper into it that some states will do so. I think it's kind of shitty that
it is taxed, especially if you live in a high COL like CA, but so it goes.
That rate hasn't gone up in many years.

------
bb88
If you think about employment as a business transaction, then you should
insist on "Cash Up Front", e.g. signing bonus, higher salary, or immediate
stock ownership to offset your personal risk. Joining a company is more of a
risk to you as an employee than it is to them in hiring you.

Basically it comes down to asking for "Cash Up Front". Expecting a cash
settlement on the backend of a failed business transaction is fraught with
perils of not getting your investment back in the company. And asking for
severance is no different.

~~~
skh
In an ideal world this would be feasible. Few people have the pricing power
for their labor to do this. I'd classify what you call a failed business
transaction as a failure of government to enact necessary labor laws.

~~~
bb88
So in a world where there's a glut of labor, you're absolutely right. We,
however, are not in a glut of labor for software engineers and game designers.

And besides, if you explained to the employer the risks you forsee in joining
their company, they will most likely understand that reason for asking for a
higher salary than the norm.

~~~
pcwalton
There absolutely is far more labor than positions available for game
designers. Same for game programmers, many of whom have education and
background so specific to games that they are effectively unemployable outside
that industry. There are a bunch of schools that train hundreds of students on
nothing but how to build high-level game logic in Unity.

Almost everyone directly involved in production of game titles (i.e. not
middleware) would be financially much better off taking the skills they
already have and working in another industry—e.g. management for game
designers, tech for programmers—with the possible exceptions of artists and
musicians.

~~~
bb88
To some extent, you're right. Point taken, there is a glut of game engineers.
However, your comment about people being virtually unemployable outside the
game industry rings hollow.

In the course of my career, there have been many people from a variety of
backgrounds that became full fledged software engineers. One was a truck
driver who became a top Java coder at the company I used to work for.

And the game engineer has a step up on that guy, since he actually understands
how to code. He just needs to understand the way the web works.

------
qubax
This type of stuff happened a lot during the dotcom bust. It seemed like good
times would last forever. People would get hired with great salary, options,
benefits, etc and fly across the country to start their new jobs only to find
the business had shut down. It's insane. These companies would hold job
interviews and hire people knowing full well they are about to go close shop.

------
tdsamardzhiev
Man, the gaming industry is crazy.

------
slg
The worst part for many of these people is that our country still links health
insurance with your employer. It is bad enough to suddenly lose your job and
primary source of income, but that type of thing is often unavoidable when a
company goes belly up. However only getting a week's notice before all your
health insurance benefits disappear is the type of thing that just shouldn't
happen in this country.

~~~
avip
What happens in the US if you leave your employer when in a degraded health
state (let's say cancer)?

~~~
slg
You have a few options. Here they are in descending order of preference

* Hope your employer is compassionate and keeps you on their plan. I have no data on this, but anecdotally it is surprisingly common. Companies can be heartless when dealing with large groups of employees, but it is much harder to rip away Karen from accounting's health insurance as she is going through chemo.

* Hope your spouse (or parents if you are young enough) has insurance and they can add you to their plan.

* Buy in to your current insurance plan through various government programs (COBRA is one program that a lot of other comments are mentioning) . I don't have all the details on how this changed after Obamacare, but there were generally limits on how long you could do this and the costs were much higher than what your plan previously cost you and your employer.

* Buy a new insurance plan on the open market. This would have been obscenely expensive for someone with cancer before Obamacare's preexisting condition protections, but even with those reforms it still is a huge expense.

* Pay for your medical care out of pocket, which in the case of cancer will almost certainly result in you going bankrupt. Depending on where you get your statistics, there is something like 500,000 - 1 million bankruptcies in the US a year that are related to medical expenses.

~~~
badpun
> 500,000 - 1 million bankruptcies in the US a year

Really? So, assuming there's 125 million households in the US, a person has
~25-50% (derived with simple probabibility math) of becoming bankrupt over
medical bills at some point of their life? That sounds like BS.

~~~
AllegedAlec
[https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy-
statistics-415...](https://www.thebalance.com/medical-bankruptcy-
statistics-4154729)

