My in-depth response to all the 'Will there be a second season of The Wolf Among Us?' threads
Interlude
Since so many people seem to want an answer and since Telltale seems reluctant to give any, I'd like to give my thoughts on the matter. Now may not be the right time for me to post this thread since Telltale seems to be doing some TWAU teasing. I may end up being proven completely wrong in the future but atm I'm willing to take the risk.
In short my answer is: it's unlikely but there is still a chance. In order to explain my reasoning, I'd like to explain everything in terms of business but I'm going to have to make a couple of comparisions to The Walking Dead in order to get my point across.
Also I'd like to add that nothing I say here is fact. It's mostly just theorising and extrapolation.
A Brief History
Telltale's biggest succes in recent year has been The Walking Dead. There are a number of reasons why it was successful. Most of the time people talk about the writing and the choices but I think what is overlooked is the fact that The Walking Dead is part of a larger franchise. One of the reasons why I think The Walking Dead sold so well was because the television series surged in popularity in 2012 acted as a great advertisement for the video game adaption.
The first episode of The Wolf Among Us was originally supposed to come around the same time as the first episode of The Walking Dead but Telltale delayed it because they wanted gain experience from the unexpected success of The Walking Dead. So The Wolf Among Us ended up being released over a year after it was originally supposed to. Telltale wanted to make it the best game they possibly could and they did do a good job. The Wolf Among Us was a critical success and did help get some people get into the comics.
The Difference
However there's one primary difference between how Telltale handled The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us and that difference is the release of sales figures.
About 1 - 2 months after the first season of The Walking Dead ended, Telltale announced the sales figures. They revealed that 8.5 million individual episodes have been sold and that they've generated $40 million in revenue.
Last year before the second season even ended, Telltale announced that the combined total of sold episodes for both seasons of The Walking Dead was 28 million episodes. This was about a month before the final episode of The Walking Dead Season 2 was released.
The Wolf Among Us' episodes were released alongside the episodes of The Walking Dead Season 2. However I don't think Telltale has revealed any sales figures for The Wolf Among Us. Whenever I type, 'How many episodes of The Wolf Among Us were sold?' into google, I don't find any answers. Why? It's been over 7 months since the last episode of The Wolf Among Us was released. Telltale seemed to be very confident about revealing the amount of sold episodes for The Walking Dead so why do they seem to be so quiet about The Wolf Among Us?
Often when companies don't sell as much as they hoped to, they tend to keep quiet about their sales figures. Microsoft did this with the Xbox One in the first couple of months after release. I think that kind of logic can apply to The Wolf Among Us as well. I think that despite being a critical success, The Wolf Among Us was not a commerical success. It's sales may not have met Telltale's expectations and that's why they seem to be quiet about the sales figures. This may also be why they seem reluctant about doing a sequel.
Some people may believe that the fact that The Wolf Among Us was well recieved and won a number of awards is enough reason for it to garner a sequel but that's not really how the corporate world works. In the corporate world, the most important thing is the money. It doesn't matter how ciritically acclaimed your product is, if it doesn't sell well then it's still considered unprofitable for the company and most of the time, that's enough to discontinue it. Awards and acclaims are just the icing on the cake and not the cake itself. The cake is the profit.
Telltale's Business Model
Before I go further, I think it's important to give my thoughts on what I believe Telltale's current business model to be and to analyse how well The Wolf Among Us worked with this business model. Remember these are all educated guesses so I may be wrong on some things. I also will only be talking about TWAU in the end here as I'll mostly be drawing examples from their other recent games.
Basically Telltale's games don't seem to have been designed to be successful independent entertainment products. By that I mean that the games don't seem to be designed to create their own audience but rather to tap off an already exisiting audience and hopefully help to expand it (I'm not saying this is always the case but I think it is most of the time). This can be seen most clearly with The Walking Dead.
Companies which own a franchise generally want to maximise profits from products of that particular franchise. That's how I explain the scheduling of the release of episodes of The Walking Dead TV series and The Walking Dead video game. Both are popular but if the two products are so popular then why not make them complementary products?
By complementary products I mean that each product can encourage fans to try out the other. For example, a fan of the TV series can become enthralled by the story and characters so they may decide to pick up the video game version of the series so they can try immersing themselves into that world. The opposite case is also true but in case of The Walking Dead, I think it was the former rather than the latter.
Anyway there's one big hurdle to double product consumption: time. Many people are busy working all day and come home to take care of their families. They may only have enough time to watch an episode of The Walking Dead TV series. They probably would want to try out the game as well but they won't be able to find the time.
Companies want to maximise their profits as much as possible and in order to do tha they need as many people as possible to consume as many of their profits as possible. But many people of the working-class are short on time so companies have to take this into account. So how would a company like Skybound ensure that people still tuned into the episodes of The Walking Dead TV series and still buy the episodes for the video game series? By scheduling them apart.
Let's take a look at the release schedule for Season 2 and Season 3 of The Walking Dead tv series. Season 2 aired from 16 October 2011 - 18 March 2012 and Season 3 aired from 14 October 2012 to 31 March 2013. Now let's take a look at the release dates for the episodes of Season One of The Walking Dead video game series. They were released from 24 April 2012 - 20 November 2012.
See the pattern behind this schedule:
- 16 October 2011 to 27 November 2011 - First half of Season 2 of The Walking Dead TV series airs.
- 12 February 2012 to 18 March 2012 - Second half of Season 2 of The Walking Dead TV series airs.
- 24 April 2012 - Episode 1 of The Walking Dead video game series is released.
- 27 June 2012 - Episode 2 of The Walking Dead video game series is released.
- 28 August 2012 - Episode 3 of The Walking Dead video game series is released.
- 9 October 2012 - Episode 4 of The Walking Dead video game series is released.
- 14 October 2012 to 2 December 2012 - First half of Season 3 of The Walking Dead TV series airs , 20 November 2012 - Episode 5 of The Walking Dead video game series is released.
See how only 1 episode of the The Walking Dead video game series came out while the TV series was still airing? All the other episodes came out during the Post-Season 2/Pre-Season 3 break. I doubt this is a coincidence. I think this is a deliberate move by Telltale. I think Skybound or whoever asked Telltale to try and release the episodes of The Walking Dead video game when the TV series was not on air. Of course developing a video game can take an indefinite amount of time so it looks like Telltale wasn't perfectly able to follow up on this request as Episode 5 of the video game was released when the TV series' second season was still airing. But still for the most part, it looks like Telltale was able to follow this schedule.
You can even see this pattern for the latter episodes of The Walking Dead. The DLC 400 Days was released on 2 July 2013. This was during the Post-Season 3/Pre-Season 4 break of the TV series.
You can also see this with the release of the episodes of Season Two of The Walking Dead video game series and the airing of Season 4 and Season 5 of the TV series:
- 13 October 2013 to 1 December 2013 - First half of Season 4 of The Walking Dead TV series airs.
- 17 December 2013 - Episode 1 of The Walking Dead: Season Two video game series is released.
- 9 February 2014 to 30 March 2014 - Second half of Season 4 of The Walking Dead TV series airs, 4 March 2014 - Episode 2 of The Walking Dead: Season Two video game series is released.
- 13 May 2014 - Episode 3 of The Walking Dead: Season Two video game series is released.
- 22 July 2014 - Episode 4 of The Walking Dead: Season Two video game series is released.
- 26 August 2014 - Episode 5 of The Walking Dead: Season Two video game series is released.
- 12 October 2014 to 30 November 2014 - First half of Season 5 of The Walking Dead TV series airs.
So once again only 1 episode is released during the time the TV series is still airing while all the other ones are released in either the mid-season break or the Post-Season 4/Pre-Season 5 break. I think it's safe to presume that this is a deliberate move on Telltale's part.
Anyway the point of all this is by releasing the video game series and the TV series at different times, Skybound is able to keep people consuming their products. During the airing of the TV series, people will watch the TV series and during the off-season they can play the video game series. If the video game series' episodes had been released during the airing of the TV series then consumers, who have limited time, may have to make a choice on which product to consume. But since they are mostly released at different times, this isn't a problem.
This goes back into what I said earlier about Telltale's games not being designed to be independent entertainment products. They're not designed so Telltale can release them whenever. In order for them to make as much money as possible, their release dates need to strategically selected. The early days are important as that's when the hype is high and often when a lot if not most of the products are sold. That's why I think the first episode of The Walking Dead: Season Three will be released during the TV series' Mid-Season 6 break.
I think Telltale is doing this with Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones as well. Tales from the Borderlands was released about 1.5 months after Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel was released. So far the first 2 episodes of Game of Thrones have been released during the Post-Season 4/Pre-Season 5 break. I expect only 1 episode at most to be relased when Season 5 of the Game of Thrones TV series is airing.
Now let's get back to The Wolf Among Us. The Fables comic is a monthly series so I'm not exactly sure if Telltale consulted The Wolg Among Us' release schedule to not conflict with them. In fact, I'm not even sure if companies use this same methodology with book adaptions (never worked in that area).
However I did notice that the release of the episodes of The Wolg Among Us seemed to be kept quite apart from the release of the trade paperbacks and deluxe editions.
- 10 September 2013 - Deluxe Edition Volume 7 is released.
- 11 October 2013 - Episode 1 of The Wolf Among Us is released.
- 24 December 2013 - Trade Paperback #19 is released.
- 4 February 2014 - Episode 2 of The Wolf Among Us is released.
- 5 February 2014 - Deluxe Edition Volume 8 is released.
- 8 April 2014 - Episode 3 of The Wolf Among Us is released.
- 27 May 2014 - Episode 4 of The Wolf Among Us is released.
- 8 July 2014 - Episode 5 of The Wolf Among Us is released.
- 2 September 2014 - Trade Paperback #20 is released.
So other than Episode 2 and Volume 8, all of these products are released a good 1-2 months away from each other. So I think Telltale may have done their scheduling in such a way to not allow it to conflict with other products of the Fable comics.
So it looks like Telltale really did put as much effort into scheduling The Wolg Among Us as they did with The Walking Dead. Normally this would maximise profits. However Telltale still hasn't released any sales figures so I can't help but think that the sales weren't as high as they hoped they would be.
Recently Telltale has been teasing something about The Wolf Among Us. I don't think it will be a full fledged Season 2 but I think there's a chance it may be DLC or an action figure or something like that. Whatever it is, I think it will most likely be released during the second half of the year if it's not released immediately. The reason being is that the final Trade Paperbacks and the latest Deluxe Edition of the Fables comic will be released from April - June of this year and I doubt Telltale would put out another product during that time.
Chances of a Sequel
So yeah I guess the lack of monetary success may be why Telltale is hesitant about developing a sequel to The Wolf Among Us. However there is still a chance for a sequel to happen but in order to consider that we have to figure out what went wrong. If The Wolf Among Us really didn't sell well then what was the reason behind it? It wasn't a bad game by any means.
When I compare it with The Walking Dead, the primary difference is obvious: The Wolf Among Us just doesn't have as much of a strong media presence. The Walking Dead has one of the most successful and widely vewied television adaptions ever. On theo ther hand, the Fables comics have mostly been restricted to the traditional comic format for all their life until The Wolf Among Us. There was a TV series planned for Fables but that has been in development hell for years.
The Wolf Among Us was the first successful adaption of the Fables comics. However since the comics weren't very popular (they were popular but not too much), Telltale had to rely alot on their good name to sell The Wolf Among Us but I don't think that was enough. The Fables comics are also ending early this year and this doesn't increase the chances of a sequel to The Wolf Among Us at all.
When I think about it, it does make sense for Telltale to prefer to develop Minecraft: Story Mode rather than a sequel to The Wolf Among Us. Minecraft has a huge media presence. The franchise is still alive and well and has no ending in sight. If The Wolf Among Us didn't sell as much as they hoped then it's obvious why they would prefer something more commercial as their next title. I'm not saying Telltale only cares about money here but whether you like it or not, money is what keeps a business alive. Financial priorities almost always come before creative priorities. I wouldn't even be surprised if Telltale has other different games lined up after Minecraft: Story Mode. There are plenty of franchises that can be argued to be more financially capable than the Fables franchise.
So it doesn't look like we'll be getting a sequel to The Wolf Among Us any time soon so is there any chance in the future? I think there is but I think the main obstacle to overcome is to determine if a second season to The Wolf Among Us can become financially successful. The primary problem here seems to be a lack of media presence rather than lack of talent. So how can The Wolf Among Us and the Fable comics gain a stronger media presence? Well a comic adaption of The Wolf Amon Us is being released but I don't think another comic adaption is enough. In the modern world, one of the best ways to advertise is through on-screen means whether it be YouTube, cinemas etc.
Does the Fables comic have anything like that going for it other than that TV series that has been stuck in development hell for years? Yes, they do. There's a currently a live action adaption of the Fables comic planned. It's still in its early stages but there is a good team behind this film. I think it has a good chance of being a critical success but I think what's more important is if it can become a financial success. If this film becomes such a financial success that it spawns a Fables film series, then I can see the Fables comic get a stronger media presence. That'll cause more people to buy its products. In that case, I can see Telltale decide that a sequel to The Wolf Among Us may become financially successful. Since there'll be a larger audience, Telltale would have more customers and thus more profit.
So what I'm basically saying is that I believe the continual success of the upcoming Fables film may play a significant role in whether a sequel to The Wolf Among Us will ever be released. If it's successful enough to spawn a film series then I think the chances for more Telltale video game adaptions are high but if the film flops then I think the chances are quite low.
Remember guys nothing I said here is a fact. It's just theories, speculation and extrapolation.
TLDR
I think The Wolf Among Us wasn't financially successful and that's why Telltale hasn't released any sales figures for it. I think the primary reason behind this is because the Fables comics don't have a strong media presence like The Walking Dead and Minecraft. However if the upcoming film adaption is successful enough to spawn a franchise, I can see the media presense for the Fables comic increase and this may be enough to convince Telltale to determine that a sequel to The Wolf Among Us would probably be financially successful and worth investing their time into creating.
Comments
So in-depth, you really put a lot of effort in this
Thanks for sharing your opinion
I guess we will see if you're right in the near future.
Wow! This must've taken you ages :O
I'm reading this all and I'm actually agreeing with you. I know that companies survive on profit, and not what the fans want; because the whims of their consumers does not pay the bill etc.
TWAU comic is being released weekly, but it will finish long after Fables does, so the potential for it to be discovered and leading to the game is there. I was under the impression that Ep.2 took so long to make because the plot of the game had to be re-written after Ep.1 in order to fit the canon of the Fables comics.
I had never heard of Fables before I played TWAU, but I think it's one of the best comics out there right now! Bill Willingham has teased the concept of returning to writing the Fables comics in the future if: a) the fans want more (which judging by Willingham's Twitter, they do) b) if he thinks up more stories...
But TWD Season 2 wasn't as well-received as the first Season (that's what I've heard,and I do agree) it had a promising start but just went downhill until the final moments of the last Episode.
I guess I'm just trying to convince myself that a Season 2 or a DLC of TWAU will be made; we are loyal fans to the game.
Sad but true ;-;
It's all a theory Poogers
I hope TellTale do do something with TWAU and not just leave it as is
To be honest I think the real answer is just the money, the first thing that came to my mind was how well it sold, but telltale wont tell, so like he said, it makes assumptions that it didnt sell as well as expected, because in the end, its all down to money
True... but I will not give in unless TellTale publish their final answer of Yes or No to more TWAU...
A succesful film adaptation would certainly help Season 2's chances. But I think the state of the movie has been in a kinda limbo for a while, and basically have no idea when they'll get into production (also another adding concern I have is that they will basically butcher the film).
That could be a long wait, not sure that is something I'll still be waiting for (movie could be released like years after the main series ends, for all we know).
I guess the potential for TWAU comic to be discovered is there but I don't think it's that likely. The Fables comics themselves have been around since 2002 but they still have a pretty niche fanbase.
I think Willingham is a talented writer and would be glad to see him return. However I really think he needs to find a way to get his work adapted for TV or cinema. They're basically the most popular forms of advertisement nowadays. Even Game of Thrones wasn't that popular until its TV series began in 2011.
Yeah TWD Season 2 is probably not as good as TWAU in terms of quality but there's no doubt it sold well so there's little surprise that its sequel was greenlit immediately.
Judging by how the Fables comic already has a pretty niche fanbase, I think they would try to release the movie as soon as they can. If the movie takes too many years then they may think that fans have moved on from the series and would no longer be invested in watching a film adaption. Hopefully the film goes into pre-production soon.
The Fables comics are actually quite consistent sellers for an indie franchise in the comic industry. No TWD by any means; but, they aren't poor sellers otherwise it wouldn't have lasted 150 issues (VERY rare for any comic run these days).
Shame they don't get enough attention, as I personally think Fables blows anything the big two (Marvel, DC) publish currently.
Funny you mention DC as Vertigo (who publish the comics) are owned by DC, so Fables is technically a DC Comic :P
My one concern for the film is that it's director has only directed 4 movies in the past.
All of them are foreign language (Danish) the recent one he did (A Royal Affair) did win some big awards; but I don't feel that Nikolaj Arcel is the right man to make this type of movie
I wouldn't worry about the game having "sold poorly" just because they didn't announce how many episodes were sold. They only ever do that for the extremely high selling titles that set a new trend for Telltale. Out of all of Telltale's releases, I only ever recall announcements being made for Tales of Monkey Island, Back to the Future, and The Walking Dead - each title having been Telltale's "highest selling title" at the time each game was released. I don't openly recall the same being said of Sam and Max, but that series ended up getting three Seasons.
Going off of some old tweets I found from Job's twitter account, I'd hardly worry about the game selling poorly if these tweets are any indication:
You are probably correct in that Telltale initially didn't sign on for more than one Season as the series was niche in comparison to Walking Dead or Game of Thrones - however, Telltale very rarely signs up for more than one Season up front. Most of you guys know Telltale for their massive success from Walking Dead, so I assume you guys think that second Seasons and announcements of how many episodes were sold are the norm and not the exception for when a series is the current best performing title for Telltale. Don't worry, Wolf Among Us isn't doomed and it seems to have done good for Telltale.
This man has rekindled my faith in TWAU!!!!
Are you ready for a miracle?
... Ok then :P
I actually quite enjoyed watching A Royal Affair - quite a sad story (and heartwarming in some parts), but I did enjoy it. It was also refreshing to see Mads Mikkelsen in a main (not supporting) role where he was not the villain (though I recently watched "Hannibal" from NBC, and Mads is so brilliant as Hannibal Lecter in that, I admit).
But you're right. the director does not seem like a good fit to direct the film a Fabes adaptation (I'd imagine someone more like Peter Jackson, or at least a director who has some experience in Fantasy films). Due to this, I am concerned he'll be easily swayed by studio influence regarding the production.
Well, normally, I'd say it's better for them to take their time, making a good adaptation (not just some rubbish, that has "Fables" attached in name only), but in this case, I don't know. It's been in limbo for so long that even Fables fans may have forgotten about it (I had completely about this film until somebody made a thread about it 2~3 months ago).
Even if they take their time to do it right, I wonder if it all will be worth it in the end?
Lol, until I actually see any announcements, I think I'll set my expectations to minimum (I don't wanna end up disappointed bigtime later should the worst possible scenario occur).
Check the dates of those tweets.
The first tweet was posted when Episode 2 was released and the second tweet was posted when Episode 1 was released. The initial sales are always high as many people as possible try to buy them. In most cases, financial success is reflected more by the long term sales rather than the short term sales.
For example, BioShock Infinite sold 3.7 million copies in its first 2 months. Sounds good right? But about a year later Irrational games closed down and most of the employees were laid off. According to the employees, one of the reasons why the company was shut down was due to lower than expected sales. We know BioShock Infinite sold very well in its first few months but it still wasn't considered a financial success in the long run.
What you said about Sam and Max is true but you have to bear in mind that Telltale isn't the same company it was 5+ years ago. It takes on more projects nowadays and has more employees. For example in 2010 to Early 2011, Telltale only had 90 employees but now it has 240 employees.
More employees = More projects = More profit needs to be generated from the products.
Games like Back to the Future may have been financially successful for their time but nowadays I'm not sure if the same amount of revenue would be considered a financial success for Telltale.
It's also true that I'm basing a lot of what I'm saying off what Telltale did with The Walking Dead but the reason I'm doing so is because I want to base my reasoning off Telltale's recent activity. Companies change over time. Just because they did something five years ago, doesn't mean that they'll do it today. I think the best way to judge Telltale now is based off what they've done ever since The Walking Dead rather than what they did with Sam and Max etc.
I feel it's hard to judge how successful The Wolf Among Us is without exact sales figures but i have read mostly positive things about it and there does seem to be some demand for another season or a DLC.
There are some stats available online about how many people played TWAU on Steam but they are only peak numbers (the amount of people playing at once) so won't reflect on the overall sales figures but they might give some insight to it's popularity.
http://steamcharts.com/app/250320#All
Episode 1: 2265 Peak Players
Episode 2: 7550 Peak Players
Episode 3: 5483 Peak Players
Episode 4: 6072 Peak Players
Episode 5: 14,130 Peak Players
For the purpose of comparison i also looked at The Walking Dead Season 2's stats.
http://steamcharts.com/app/261030#All
Episode 1: 11,950 Peak Players
Episode 2: 12,441 Peak Players
Episode 3: 9999 Peak Players
Episode 4: 14,255 Peak Players
Episode 5: 18,433 Peak Playes
Things are looking better than they did a few months ago. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Yeah, but keep in mind that there is a difference between a high budget AAA retail title and a $25 downloadable title. Telltale's titles are not as elaborate as BioShock Infinite, and I imagine they could get a quicker return on profits if their titles are not as expensive to make. Additionally, keep in mind that one of the benefits of Episodic gaming is that Telltale can get profits upfront from the first episode which can be used on later episodes in the Season.