Is TellTale Making Too Many Games?
I love Telltale games, TWD, TWAU, GOT, TFTBL, all great games. But of those four only one has had a continuation, two continuations actually. It just seems to me that Telltale has forgotten about these other great games, and now they're making a new Guardians game, before giving us one concrete conformation about these other titles. I'm not saying Telltale should stop making games and spreading their licenses, but I think they should slow down at least, maybe start up the second seasons of these other licenses before starting a brand new one. Just want to know peoples thoughts.
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Yeah, they are, and I hope they realize it's only causing more harm than good. Anyone who says it doesn't effect the quality because they have "different teams working on different games" is wrong and they're not as educated on the subject as they think they are.
To be honest this could be a possibility as to why quality seems to be decreasing. More teams = less people that can potentially be on a team. I'm sure if they had less projects with bigger teams, they could probably make more quality episodes and in even faster times.
The issue is not necessarily that they're possibly making too many games, considering how much Telltale has grown since TWD S1. The issue is they are completely clueless in how to manage them and the people working on them. Teams have become much bigger in recent years (we've gone from having 1-2 writers per episode to 6-8 writers per episode) and then, once people are contractually finished on those projects, even if the game is still going on, they jump to another one which is either in early development or also in the middle of being released. So yes, technically they are separate teams as you won't have one person working on two games at the same time, but all this jumping around is not good.
Teams should be much smaller in size, less people may mean less ideas, but also less conflict and fighting, which can lead to rewrites or inconsistencies in the writing. In economics, there is a law called the Law of Diminishing Returns, which basically says that, due to an increase in a certain input variable, there will eventually come a point where the output levels begin to decrease. Translation, too many writers or people on a certain project causes more problems, not less, and a much lower quality product. When teams are smaller but more condense, it can lead to a much higher quality product, such as Tales From the Borderlands or The Walking Dead Season 1. Too many people can cause a lot of problems or a lackluster product, as evident with Minecraft or A New Frontier (which I actually do like, but there are a lot of people that hate it). Less people on a certain project means there are more people available to work on the other games that are in development. It leads to less jumping around between projects, higher quality products, and (hopefully) less rewrites or inconsistencies in the narrative.
The thing is, there are no teams. People are constantly thrown around from project to project, which requires them to have to catch up to others who have already caught up. And just when they catch up and finish rushing, they're thrown to another project. Cycle restarts again. So it's rare for a single person to be working on a single game throughout the whole season. I don't see how a good quality game can be produced like this, which also possibly explains why there's so many writers for one episode.
Not true, as I point out in my own comment. As I mentioned, according to the Law of Diminishing Returns, more people can cause lower quality products and less people can cause higher quality products. It's all about finding that balance.
Yeah, that would make the most sense. However I don't think it's a problem of too many projects, considering they made TFTBL (which most people consider a high quality game of theirs) while they were working on TWD S3 (possibly Michonne as well) GoT, and Batman (which was unannounced while TFTBL was going on but almost certainly in the works). They seem to have less going on right now (TWD S3, Guardians, and GoT S2).
I think it's more a problem of disorganization honestly, rather than too many projects.
These threads always pop up whenever there are new series popping up, as well as announcements of future stuff. Don't worry about it. As I'm sure you'll see very soon, @Blind is going to come in here and explain the whole "Telltale has x number of people now so they are able to work on y number of projects. Keep in mind that TTG only had about 70 people when TWD Season 1 first announced."
Well i think some people have to realize not every game telltale does they intend to do future seasons or installments for. I do agree on the other hand that they do tend to work on too many games at once which does not go well granted Telltale has expanded since the days of wolf among us,etc. I'm personally ok with telltale doing one time series as i don't think most to all games they make need to keep making further ones especially if they don't want to or have any intention to.
Actually, I'm inclined to agree with Metallica's post; I don't think the problem is with the quantity of games, but rather, the problem seems to lie with the production of all of those games. I think I even previously brought up the same point about "Law of Diminishing Returns" that MetallicaRules also did. Telltale had periods of releasing/working on multiple titles at once, prior to Walking Dead, and they were still successful while releasing long episodes on a monthly schedule.
I think the rewrites are a deliberate problem that Telltale brings on themselves; they saw that people had positive responses to the live revisions of Walking Dead Season 1, but they then tried to take those levels of improvisation to an even higher extent with Walking Dead Season 2, Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, and Game of Thrones. All of those titles had moderate to large plot elements revised to fan feedback. Wolf had the rewrites, Tales introduced character shipping and even changed the identity of the Stranger due to fan feedback, Season 2 was previously setting up a Luke vs Kenny fight before the writers presumably changed it to Jane vs Kenny to make things less predictable, and people found game files in Game of Thrones suggesting that the traitor was originally a character that made more sense [not spoiling it here, but you know the one if you played it.]
The revisions in Season 1 clarified the story they wanted to tell instead of modifying it, but the way Telltale saw it, they thought that their titles would be more successful if they had live rewrites. I am just a volunteer fan, so some of this is anecdotal speculation, but I have followed Telltale for years before Walking Dead and I have a good feel of why they make the choices they do, through reading interviews of theirs and picking on cues in regards to how they treated fan feedback in the different eras of Telltale.
People blamed the long waits for Episodes of Wolf and Dead Season 2 on them working on four games at once, but in reality, it was a combination of Telltale's writers doing rewrites/revisions on a much larger scale than Season 1 because they thought that is what people liked. That, and the production issues others have mentioned too. My point is, it's not the quantity of games at fault here.
(Similarly, people also blamed things like 90 minute episodes with minimal interactivity on multiple games, but that is due to Telltale trying to go after the audience that they thought had made Season 1 successful. They viewed things like puzzles, hubs, etc, as fat to be cut from their old template. People like to think that Telltale changed only starting in 2013 with Dead Season 2 and Wolf Among Us, but Telltale have been going in this direction as far back as 2010 - years before Season 1.)
If they don't want to continue a series than they need to stop ending them all on cliffhangers to get you to buy the next season. I have no problem with cliffhangers if the story is continued, it feels kind of cheap for them to leave a story on a cliffhanger (GOT, TFTBL, TWAU) and never finish it.
And I'm sure all of that is a considerable factor as well, that's a very good point. But again, this can tie in to what I was saying. If they are going to insist on these live rewrites and production method, it's better to have a small, tight knit group of writers doing it then a huge team of them. When you look at Wolf or Tales, which had smaller writing staffs, the rewrites weren't that bad and (for the most part) actually improved the game. Games like S2 or Thrones, which had a considerably bigger team of writers, the rewrites were either much more noticeable or hurt the game (like in GOT, and yes, I know what you mean).
Well even though it made more sense, that character was a bit TOO obvious (like the murder mystery in MCSM E6), people were even guessing back in episode 1 that they had ill intent so I don't begrudge them for changing it, although the way they went about changing it was too far fetched.
I may be wrong but i do believe GOT is getting a sequel.
It is.
I still don't feel like that one was a cliffhanger, it felt more like an ending with a mysterious twist (especially since you can walk away).
Oh.
I spoke too soon.
"Telltale has x number of people now so they are able to work on y number of projects. Keep in mind that TTG only had about 70 people when TWD Season 1 first announced."
There, now you can be in the all clear.
Borderlands was a similar deal; I don't think that was a sequel hook as much as it was an ambiguous ending to imply that the story continues, just as Wolf's ending was a noir trope.
Ah HA! Called it! YEAH!!
True, especially since Telltale themselves don't have to continue the story, Gearbox can pick it up where they left off if they so choose to.
Too many?..No. Aside from the walking dead they are making the wrong ones .
Yeah, specially because they arent finishing 1 series before starting another. They should wrap up twau and twd (best yet series that gave lot of success) with as many seasons they wish and then continue with making new projects
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I don't know. I can respect that, but if I had to choose between a plot that was predictable but well written versus a plot that was unpredictable (for the sake of excitement) at the cost of a consistent and fully coherent story, I would choose the predictable but well written story.
Subverting player expectations just for the sake of not conforming to player speculation is a bit excessive. Why even foreshadow or leave clues behind if Telltale gets cold feet and changes the plot because players caught onto the clues you left behind. If anything, you think you would want to reward players for connecting the dots and picking up on your subtle cues.
(Only older series from Wolf to Thrones did this - it seems they ditched doing heavy rewrites for Minecraft, Batman, etc.)
3DO had this problem (The studio not the console). They decided to work on half a dozen Army Men games at one time, among other titles. Which ended up hurting the quality of most of them. It was so bad they started out sourcing games to other companies to make for them which you can guess also would eat into their profit. Then again that out sourcing did lead to Army Men RTS, perhaps the best Army Men game ever made. lol
That being said Telltale games are not AAA Titles, with top of the line graphics, open world environments, and other things like that, so in all respects they're just making cut scenes with multiple choice questions directed stories. They likely can get away with it better than anyone else. Even 3DO's Army Men games are more traditional video games than Telltale games.
Its probably a Mix of to many projects for small teams and management straight from hell.
When it comes to the wolf among us i may be wrong but i believe there was or is a comic series that continued after Wolf among us ended which could be the "continuation" of the story.
They're not hiring good writers, so that's why Telltale is going downhill
Yes they are making too many games and they have lost good writers along the way.