Telltale Games has hired Leah Hoyer as VP of creative
Leah Hoyer has joined Telltale Games as vice president of creative, following other high-profile roles at The Walt Disney Company, Microsoft and ArenaNet.
The new role will put Hoyer in charge of writing, design and voiceover teams across the entire company. Given the number of episodic series Telltale now produces that's no small task. The California-based studio is working with a broad range of IP, including The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Minecraft, Borderlands and Batman, with a series based on Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy still to come.
Hoyer will bring considerable experience to the role, including almost nine years as director of original programming for The Disney Channel. She switched to games in 2012, joining Microsoft as a director of narrative design where she worked on Quantum Break and Sunset Overdrive, among other projects. Immediately prior to joining Telltale she spent two years as head of narrative on Guild Wars 2 at ArenaNet.
Pretty interesting.
Comments
Is TT aiming at kids now? I can't see Minecraft and superheroes as examples of reaching out to adult franchise. Those are clearly popular topics swimming in the spotlight and money is practically glued to them. I would say it is a bad road to take. If the incoming games will adapt trashy and silly style of current Disney Channel sitcoms, I won't be interested in them.
Remember that Quantum Break had episodes of real movie you had to watch in order to progress, which completely took over the gameplay for me. It was like they didn't have any creative idea to show the story so they filmed couple of clips which explained it for them. Telltale's games are slowly becoming their own movies, in which you have slightly any impact (brought to you by Illusion of Choice) and if it stays like this, we won't have entertainment other than QTE.
What? Just because she worked there doesn't mean that she will turn the company into some kids show company.
To be fair, Quantum Break was in development when Don Mattrick was at Microsoft. His Vision was to make the Xbox One an all in one Entertainment System. It didn't work.
It's good, that Telltale hires some experienced staff.
Lol no? Just because someone has had experience working on formats suitable for children doesn't mean that's all they can do. The article literally lists off two M Rated games (Sunset Overdrive and Quantum Break) right after, she even she even worked on the new Killer Instinct (according to another article).
Also Quantum Break was made to be a television series/video game hybrid (regardless of the final products quality). They didn't just decide to film several hours of live action footage because "they didn't have any creative idea to show the story".
well that's a promising change.
It's a managerial position. It's not like she's the new head writer of TWD.
Those are just my personal worries, not predictions of apocalypse.
How she organises the writing teams has to be her top priority surely. Design and voiceover teams seem to have little to no problems, as design keeps on innovating and voiceover work seems to get better. Stop this multiple episode writer nonsense for a start to avoid the crumpled mess of episodes we end up getting. It's also how they go into new games with no clear plan from the beginning as evidenced by season 3 of TWD.
All these changes happening mid-season so I'm panicking.
Actually I see it as a good thing long term, I do not think anyone here will deny that they have needed someone to herd those departments. Yeah some of them do great...but some of them are a mess. If she can at least bring a structure to them, and if (BIG IF) she can run interference between the Top management and the actual talent..that can be nothing but a good thing.
I hope they can turn around season3 I like it so far but I am not blind to it's glaring issues...if they can't...well then season 3 will be that season the fans don't talk about and then wait for season 4. Hell Star Trek Fans still are in denial over the episode Spock's Brain.
I'm sure Rodkin and Vanaman would work for less.
Yeah they would. But they also could charge way more though. :P
Only time will tell if all these changes do something for telltale's walking dead sake
They said during a promotional podcast discussion for Firewatch that they left Telltale as they wanted to try new ideas and they wanted to go back to creating things instead of leading other people after the success of Walking Dead Season 1. They straight up said that they were not as excited about new projects as they used to be because of that, and that they wanted to leave positions on new Telltale projects open for people would be more excited. I think all the people who want Rodkin and Vanaman are basically holding out on a pipe dream.
I think the article says she joined in October, and it's not as if this change only affects TWD.
Work for less but bring more in terms of a great story
Well they only got 3 episodes of that left and hopefully they end the series for good.
Do you really believe that? TWD s1 was a huge success and they've left because weren't excited about "The Wolf Among Us" and other titles they didn't even dream about before? I don't get it.
Imo they are talented guys, with good ideas ("Firewatch") and there still can be a chance for a return. It's not impossible.
They probably didn't like the way, where Telltale is headed after S1.
Did anybody know the way? Imo Telltale doesn't have a general plan, episodes are written when season is on.
I don't "believe it" - I know it because they directly said so themselves - they wanted to go back to learning new things and creating stuff instead of leading other people after their success from TWD Season 1. They start talking about this around 6 or 7 minutes into the linked video below.
Exactly.