Don't want to open a new thread that would rub salt in the wound, but this US Gamer paper with comments from (former?) Telltale employees is… more interesting:
How a Culture of Crunch Brought Telltale From Critical Darling to Layoffs
I guess many of fans here won't learn anything new but still. Some quotes (the entire article is still worth a read IMO):
At the heart of the matter is the repeated claim that for a period of time, Telltale suffered from harmful management practices. It was to a degree where it even became hostile for some employees. As one former Telltale employee told me, "The mentality was work harder, faster, and for as long as you can to hit your milestones. Churn and burn."
[…]
One source told USGamer that, "At one point, there was a quote (printed on paper) on one of the creative director's doors that read something to the tune of, 'It's not about how much time you need to make a good game, it's about how good … [view original content]
Personally, things that bugs me with todays telltales games:
-Too much scripted. TWD first season was good enough at not letting players being tied by the script. But since season two it as gone worse and worse, even when nothing force you storywise. Scenes ares too tiny, and there's less and less interractions. I sometimes feels litteraly jailed by the game.
-No more possibility to relay only one part of a chapter, when it was a very good failproof way to make sure players doesn't do the opposite of what they wants because the differents response aren't clear enough.
Found another interesting quote from that article.
In addition, according to several sources, Telltale handed down "heavy rewrites" that could account for as much as "80 percent" of a game. And these rewrites would sometimes come very last minute. "[Sometimes] team leadership would push through [with rewrites] anyway for one of many reasons—time, prestige, actual belief in subpar ideas," one source said. "And it would always come back on them in the end. We'd always eventually fix the product. But late fixes were deeply disruptive. [...] [These problems] could have been avoided by better decisions earlier in the process."
Not to beat a dead horse, but I think a lot of us saw just how bad this situation was with ANF and how that ended up.
Don't want to open a new thread that would rub salt in the wound, but this US Gamer paper with comments from (former?) Telltale employees is… more interesting:
How a Culture of Crunch Brought Telltale From Critical Darling to Layoffs
I guess many of fans here won't learn anything new but still. Some quotes (the entire article is still worth a read IMO):
At the heart of the matter is the repeated claim that for a period of time, Telltale suffered from harmful management practices. It was to a degree where it even became hostile for some employees. As one former Telltale employee told me, "The mentality was work harder, faster, and for as long as you can to hit your milestones. Churn and burn."
[…]
One source told USGamer that, "At one point, there was a quote (printed on paper) on one of the creative director's doors that read something to the tune of, 'It's not about how much time you need to make a good game, it's about how good … [view original content]
So according to this report...it seems a lot of this was to clear out the old guard and I am sure saving money...two birds one stone as they say. I hope this works for them...I am feeling better about this...and the new leadership....but only time will tell the tale.
Don't want to open a new thread that would rub salt in the wound, but this US Gamer paper with comments from (former?) Telltale employees is… more interesting:
How a Culture of Crunch Brought Telltale From Critical Darling to Layoffs
I guess many of fans here won't learn anything new but still. Some quotes (the entire article is still worth a read IMO):
At the heart of the matter is the repeated claim that for a period of time, Telltale suffered from harmful management practices. It was to a degree where it even became hostile for some employees. As one former Telltale employee told me, "The mentality was work harder, faster, and for as long as you can to hit your milestones. Churn and burn."
[…]
One source told USGamer that, "At one point, there was a quote (printed on paper) on one of the creative director's doors that read something to the tune of, 'It's not about how much time you need to make a good game, it's about how good … [view original content]
Found another interesting quote from that article.
In addition, according to several sources, Telltale handed down "heavy rewrites" th… moreat could account for as much as "80 percent" of a game. And these rewrites would sometimes come very last minute. "[Sometimes] team leadership would push through [with rewrites] anyway for one of many reasons—time, prestige, actual belief in subpar ideas," one source said. "And it would always come back on them in the end. We'd always eventually fix the product. But late fixes were deeply disruptive. [...] [These problems] could have been avoided by better decisions earlier in the process."
Not to beat a dead horse, but I think a lot of us saw just how bad this situation was with ANF and how that ended up.
It really is - especially loot boxes (e.g Shadow of War, the Star Wars Battlefront 2 mess, etc). Sad... I assume we'll get another 1983 situation very soon - possibly in the next few years.
It really is - especially loot boxes (e.g Shadow of War, the Star Wars Battlefront 2 mess, etc). Sad... I assume we'll get another 1983 situation very soon - possibly in the next few years.
Adventure...excitement....a Jedi craves not these things....but paying customers do. It is simple really. Give us more exploration and hubs that actually mean something to the game. Give us a reason to care about characters....you just cannot dump new characters on us and expect us to care(ANF...Javi and Kate and the kids...if you wanted us to care...you should have made a season with just them trying to survive the outbreak...let Kate and Javi's feelings for each other grow naturally and not be forced on the player)
The feels train....It is sad that a company that produced TWD has fallen behind in this department....Life is Strange and BtS may have clunky dialogue...but they absolutely kick Telltale's ass when it comes from earning feels. In S1 of TWD...we had time to get to know the characters...so when things happened(Not you Larry) we felt bad and even cried. But Telltale gave that up and others are running with it...TELLTALE YOU NEED TO REMEMBER WHAT TRUE FEELS ARE!
I agree mostly, although many got feels for episode 4 especially of GotG. But apart from that, I'm missing the feels, especially from ANF, where I had zero feels for anyone (probably because 90% of the characters sucked.)
Not to say that the last 5 episodes of everything that Telltale's produced (since Episode 2 of MCSM S2 really)(and not this new forum-layout counted) has really stepped up, now more hubs and more feels, and it'll be superb once again.
Adventure...excitement....a Jedi craves not these things....but paying customers do. It is simple really. Give us more exploration and hub… mores that actually mean something to the game. Give us a reason to care about characters....you just cannot dump new characters on us and expect us to care(ANF...Javi and Kate and the kids...if you wanted us to care...you should have made a season with just them trying to survive the outbreak...let Kate and Javi's feelings for each other grow naturally and not be forced on the player)
The feels train....It is sad that a company that produced TWD has fallen behind in this department....Life is Strange and BtS may have clunky dialogue...but they absolutely kick Telltale's ass when it comes from earning feels. In S1 of TWD...we had time to get to know the characters...so when things happened(Not you Larry) we felt bad and even cried. But Telltale gave that up and others are running with it...TELLTALE YOU NEED TO REMEMBER WHAT TRUE FEELS ARE!
Welp, Scott Butterworth has taken over the job of Creative Communications. He was the announcement representative for Telltale in the recent Minecraft stream.
Welp, Scott Butterworth has taken over the job of Creative Communications. He was the announcement representative for Telltale in the recent Minecraft stream.
Sure!
His twitter bio mentions his position
https://twitter.com/Butterwomp?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
And here's the… more general time as to when he shows up. Guy on far right. (Okay... the time link isn't working so well for me. He's after the lego segment if that's when it starts for you.)
Welp, Scott Butterworth has taken over the job of Creative Communications. He was the announcement representative for Telltale in the recent Minecraft stream.
Yeah, I think he needs to clean up his page from now on. Too many retweets about too many things, and way too hard to find comments by him not others. There wasn't any tweets from him about his new position (at least none that I can find), but there was one tweet from him concerning the layoffs.
*shrugs*
It's a personal account, not a business one. He can post what he wants(and no, he's not a staff member I know. Never even talked to the guy).
If he was running the telltale account and retweeting other topics, I'd be against that.
Creative Communications..what does that really mean? I mean we deal with @mostlypoptarts here...and from what I saw of Job's work...it was doing things that she could have done...well I guess congrats.
Of course, it's his account and he can do with it what he likes. It's not what he tweets about that I don't like, everyone's entitled to their opinions, but what he sometimes accompanies with it, along with some of the retweets, make him come across as a bit...dickish, at least to those who may disagree with him.
*shrugs*
It's a personal account, not a business one. He can post what he wants(and no, he's not a staff member I know. Never even talked to the guy).
If he was running the telltale account and retweeting other topics, I'd be against that.
Let's please try to be respectful of personal boundaries towards staff members:
Forum Guideline 2.2 says:
Be respectful of personal boundaries towards Telltale Staff members (past and present) and do not personally insult, harass, or scapegoat them - whether or not they post on the forums. Keep all game discussions focused on the content and not the creators. Avoid posting social media content from staff members that is not related to official and intentional game promotion.
Fixation on what staff members tweet on their personal accounts has led to some issues with toxic forum culture in the past, so I'd like to ask that discussion stay relevant to what is on topic.
As for Scott, yeah - he joined a while back earlier this year. He was another person on the PR team, but with Job having been laid off and Laura/Nathan leaving a while earlier back, I guess that leaves Scott and Caroline on the PR team. As you guys know, Caroline is the one manning the Twitter/Facebook accounts as well as the forum posts, so I guess that means Scott is taking on some of Job's old tasks.
Yeah, we don't even know if he's replacing Job for sure. He's been a member of Creative Communication since April. So why even discuss that? Why be bothered by it? He does have a linkedin profile if you'd like to know more about the skills he brings to Telltale.
Good for him for getting to be a part of Minecon. Must have been exciting for him.
Well, yeah. He can have his own opinions and he can post what he likes.
It's just a different from what we've seen from Job. Again, not in a bad way.
He's been a member of Creative Communication since April.
Good to know. Maybe he isn't completely taking over Job's position (Job was the Head of CC) but good for him for landing that position. I hope he represents Telltale well.
I'm just getting used to this whole change.
*shrugs*
It's a personal account, not a business one. He can post what he wants(and no, he's not a staff member I know. Never even talked to the guy).
If he was running the telltale account and retweeting other topics, I'd be against that.
Well, yeah. He can have his own opinions and he can post what he likes.
It's just a different from what we've seen from Job. Again, not in a bad way.
Call it a hunch, but I think the days of relying on cryptic "SOON" teasers from Twitter are gone - and not just for the obvious reason of Job being gone now. I think Telltale might be making some changes for the better in a few particular areas like that, in the time ahead.
(Meaning, we probably don't need to follow personal Twitter accounts for news/teasers/etc anymore - just check the main Telltale Twitter, Caroline's forum posts, etc. Their personal staff profiles on Twitter will just be that - personal profiles.)
Well, yeah. He can have his own opinions and he can post what he likes.
It's just a different from what we've seen from Job. Again, not in … morea bad way.
He's been a member of Creative Communication since April.
Good to know. Maybe he isn't completely taking over Job's position (Job was the Head of CC) but good for him for landing that position. I hope he represents Telltale well.
I'm just getting used to this whole change.
Well, yeah. He can have his own opinions and he can post what he likes.
It's just a different from what we've seen from Job. Again, not i… moren a bad way.
Call it a hunch, but I think the days of relying on cryptic "SOON" teasers from Twitter are gone - and not just for the obvious reason of Job being gone now. I think Telltale might be making some changes for the better in a few particular areas like that, in the time ahead.
(Meaning, we probably don't need to follow personal Twitter accounts for news/teasers/etc anymore - just check the main Telltale Twitter, Caroline's forum posts, etc. Their personal staff profiles on Twitter will just be that - personal profiles.)
That, I am hopeful for. Telltale seems to have really stepped up their game recently in planning large amounts of each game while sticking to it. Things are a lot more high-quality now and seem to foreshadow and fit into each other nicely.
Hopefully that planning bleeds into release scheduling.
Edit:
Meaning, we probably don't need to follow personal Twitter accounts for news/teasers/etc anymore
That's good. That would really simplify things in terms of where to find news updates.
Well, yeah. He can have his own opinions and he can post what he likes.
It's just a different from what we've seen from Job. Again, not i… moren a bad way.
Call it a hunch, but I think the days of relying on cryptic "SOON" teasers from Twitter are gone - and not just for the obvious reason of Job being gone now. I think Telltale might be making some changes for the better in a few particular areas like that, in the time ahead.
(Meaning, we probably don't need to follow personal Twitter accounts for news/teasers/etc anymore - just check the main Telltale Twitter, Caroline's forum posts, etc. Their personal staff profiles on Twitter will just be that - personal profiles.)
I don't know if that's just a meme reply to reference "restructuring" or not, but actually, yeah - something to that extent might be happening for real in certain areas from what (very little) I know from picking up on particular bits of information.
I think I can say that Telltale might also try to do a lot more in terms of forum participation with stuff like AMA's or forum posts going into the future. For example, you've probably noticed staff members for The Walking Dead: The Final Season and The Wolf Among Us Season 2 making feedback threads.
Part of the reason our moderation has become more strict in a few areas (such as making people be nicer to staff when giving feedback) is because we are trying to help facilitate a push for more staff interaction on the forums, as well as making staff feel more welcome to check the forums for feedback.
(Even if staff don't apply the feedback to the degree you would like in some cases, I can confirm they do read the forums more than some would think.)
Nah, I was serious. I just have a feeling. When change starts, it doesn't usually end there. With how uncertain the fans have become about releases, I think it might be time. I wouldn't doubt if they start going to the usual teaser/trailer/date method. Social media may remain lighthearted through this.
(Even if staff don't apply the feedback to the degree you would like in some cases, I can confirm they do read the forums more than some would think.)
Definitely. I know some developers and they all tell me that it's impossible to not look at your feedback from fans. All of them.
Well, yeah. He can have his own opinions and he can post what he likes.
It's just a different from what we've seen from Job. Again, not i… moren a bad way.
Call it a hunch, but I think the days of relying on cryptic "SOON" teasers from Twitter are gone - and not just for the obvious reason of Job being gone now. I think Telltale might be making some changes for the better in a few particular areas like that, in the time ahead.
(Meaning, we probably don't need to follow personal Twitter accounts for news/teasers/etc anymore - just check the main Telltale Twitter, Caroline's forum posts, etc. Their personal staff profiles on Twitter will just be that - personal profiles.)
I think they want to be more active and transparent in areas, so yeah. For example, mostlypoptarts mentioned in another thread that they hope to do more AMA's in the future on the forums. I also think that might extend to general staff participation on the forums.
Generic disclaimer(s): This is not an official comment/promise, this is just me piecing together anecdotal observations from my role as a community volunteer moderator who is not a Telltale Staff member.
this is not surprising,yet it's still shocking,i don't often post on other topics other than WD,but with the quality suffering so much it's not hard to see where the wheels started to come off.
There always seemed to be multiple of differing messages being put out there by TT,some had there head in the sand,some tried to fix issues where as some tried to appeal to a new audience entirely if things didnt go as planned. never been a fan of TT PR department on social media but wouldn't wish anyone to lose there job either.
Comments
Uh... More like they lost their jobs.
"Telltale games just fired..." hmm (thinking emoji)
I wish I could be surprised. The sad thing is: I am not.
More than 8 years ago I wrote this, back when we were talking about the old Telltale.
https://telltale.com/community/discussion/10938/slow-down-telltale/p1
Some things never changed, but I still hope the team members who are still there will be able to recover.
Personally, things that bugs me with todays telltales games:
-Too much scripted. TWD first season was good enough at not letting players being tied by the script. But since season two it as gone worse and worse, even when nothing force you storywise. Scenes ares too tiny, and there's less and less interractions. I sometimes feels litteraly jailed by the game.
-No more possibility to relay only one part of a chapter, when it was a very good failproof way to make sure players doesn't do the opposite of what they wants because the differents response aren't clear enough.
Here's your emoji ?
This site uses ios emojies, but you can only import windows emojies... Hmmm ?
Found another interesting quote from that article.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I think a lot of us saw just how bad this situation was with ANF and how that ended up.
The Gaming Industry is falling apart.
So according to this report...it seems a lot of this was to clear out the old guard and I am sure saving money...two birds one stone as they say. I hope this works for them...I am feeling better about this...and the new leadership....but only time will tell the tale.
And Game of Thrones.
It really is - especially loot boxes (e.g Shadow of War, the Star Wars Battlefront 2 mess, etc). Sad... I assume we'll get another 1983 situation very soon - possibly in the next few years.
I'm barely excited for upcoming games right now. The only video games that I'm looking forward to 100% are Spider-Man PS4 and The Last of Us.
I've been avoiding this to avoid drama but man I'm really bumed out now. Particularly about Laura and Job. I love those guys.
On the bright side, now everyone has an excuse to play older games they glossed over or forgot about
It's finally time to blow the dust off all these games I bought on sales and never bothered playing
Too much of the same thing can be bad.
Please TT, go back to making some Point&Click Adventure games as well so you can do something new again, we want Sam and Max again.
Adventure...excitement....a Jedi craves not these things....but paying customers do. It is simple really. Give us more exploration and hubs that actually mean something to the game. Give us a reason to care about characters....you just cannot dump new characters on us and expect us to care(ANF...Javi and Kate and the kids...if you wanted us to care...you should have made a season with just them trying to survive the outbreak...let Kate and Javi's feelings for each other grow naturally and not be forced on the player)
The feels train....It is sad that a company that produced TWD has fallen behind in this department....Life is Strange and BtS may have clunky dialogue...but they absolutely kick Telltale's ass when it comes from earning feels. In S1 of TWD...we had time to get to know the characters...so when things happened(Not you Larry) we felt bad and even cried. But Telltale gave that up and others are running with it...TELLTALE YOU NEED TO REMEMBER WHAT TRUE FEELS ARE!
I agree mostly, although many got feels for episode 4 especially of GotG. But apart from that, I'm missing the feels, especially from ANF, where I had zero feels for anyone (probably because 90% of the characters sucked.)
Not to say that the last 5 episodes of everything that Telltale's produced (since Episode 2 of MCSM S2 really)(and not this new forum-layout counted) has really stepped up, now more hubs and more feels, and it'll be superb once again.
Welp, Scott Butterworth has taken over the job of Creative Communications. He was the announcement representative for Telltale in the recent Minecraft stream.
Good ole Butters.
He was doing the website news already. If it's not just interim, good for him.
Care to link to a video?
Sure!
His twitter bio mentions his position
https://twitter.com/Butterwomp?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author
And here's the general time as to when he shows up. Guy on far right. (Okay... the time link isn't working so well for me. He's after the lego segment if that's when it starts for you.)
Bonus points for Calvin & Hobbes.
Not a huge fan of him, judging by his tweets.
Yeah, I think he needs to clean up his page from now on. Too many retweets about too many things, and way too hard to find comments by him not others. There wasn't any tweets from him about his new position (at least none that I can find), but there was one tweet from him concerning the layoffs.
*shrugs*
It's a personal account, not a business one. He can post what he wants(and no, he's not a staff member I know. Never even talked to the guy).
If he was running the telltale account and retweeting other topics, I'd be against that.
Creative Communications..what does that really mean? I mean we deal with @mostlypoptarts here...and from what I saw of Job's work...it was doing things that she could have done...well I guess congrats.
Of course, it's his account and he can do with it what he likes. It's not what he tweets about that I don't like, everyone's entitled to their opinions, but what he sometimes accompanies with it, along with some of the retweets, make him come across as a bit...dickish, at least to those who may disagree with him.
Let's please try to be respectful of personal boundaries towards staff members:
Forum Guideline 2.2 says:
Fixation on what staff members tweet on their personal accounts has led to some issues with toxic forum culture in the past, so I'd like to ask that discussion stay relevant to what is on topic.
As for Scott, yeah - he joined a while back earlier this year. He was another person on the PR team, but with Job having been laid off and Laura/Nathan leaving a while earlier back, I guess that leaves Scott and Caroline on the PR team. As you guys know, Caroline is the one manning the Twitter/Facebook accounts as well as the forum posts, so I guess that means Scott is taking on some of Job's old tasks.
Yeah, we don't even know if he's replacing Job for sure. He's been a member of Creative Communication since April. So why even discuss that? Why be bothered by it? He does have a linkedin profile if you'd like to know more about the skills he brings to Telltale.
Good for him for getting to be a part of Minecon. Must have been exciting for him.
Well, yeah. He can have his own opinions and he can post what he likes.
It's just a different from what we've seen from Job. Again, not in a bad way.
Good to know. Maybe he isn't completely taking over Job's position (Job was the Head of CC) but good for him for landing that position. I hope he represents Telltale well.
I'm just getting used to this whole change.
Call it a hunch, but I think the days of relying on cryptic "SOON" teasers from Twitter are gone - and not just for the obvious reason of Job being gone now. I think Telltale might be making some changes for the better in a few particular areas like that, in the time ahead.
(Meaning, we probably don't need to follow personal Twitter accounts for news/teasers/etc anymore - just check the main Telltale Twitter, Caroline's forum posts, etc. Their personal staff profiles on Twitter will just be that - personal profiles.)
I think we're going to be looking at a more structured approach.
That, I am hopeful for. Telltale seems to have really stepped up their game recently in planning large amounts of each game while sticking to it. Things are a lot more high-quality now and seem to foreshadow and fit into each other nicely.
Hopefully that planning bleeds into release scheduling.
Edit:
That's good. That would really simplify things in terms of where to find news updates.
I don't know if that's just a meme reply to reference "restructuring" or not, but actually, yeah - something to that extent might be happening for real in certain areas from what (very little) I know from picking up on particular bits of information.
I think I can say that Telltale might also try to do a lot more in terms of forum participation with stuff like AMA's or forum posts going into the future. For example, you've probably noticed staff members for The Walking Dead: The Final Season and The Wolf Among Us Season 2 making feedback threads.
Part of the reason our moderation has become more strict in a few areas (such as making people be nicer to staff when giving feedback) is because we are trying to help facilitate a push for more staff interaction on the forums, as well as making staff feel more welcome to check the forums for feedback.
(Even if staff don't apply the feedback to the degree you would like in some cases, I can confirm they do read the forums more than some would think.)
Nah, I was serious. I just have a feeling. When change starts, it doesn't usually end there. With how uncertain the fans have become about releases, I think it might be time. I wouldn't doubt if they start going to the usual teaser/trailer/date method. Social media may remain lighthearted through this.
Definitely. I know some developers and they all tell me that it's impossible to not look at your feedback from fans. All of them.
So basically better all around communication?
I think they want to be more active and transparent in areas, so yeah. For example, mostlypoptarts mentioned in another thread that they hope to do more AMA's in the future on the forums. I also think that might extend to general staff participation on the forums.
Generic disclaimer(s): This is not an official comment/promise, this is just me piecing together anecdotal observations from my role as a community volunteer moderator who is not a Telltale Staff member.
this is not surprising,yet it's still shocking,i don't often post on other topics other than WD,but with the quality suffering so much it's not hard to see where the wheels started to come off.
There always seemed to be multiple of differing messages being put out there by TT,some had there head in the sand,some tried to fix issues where as some tried to appeal to a new audience entirely if things didnt go as planned. never been a fan of TT PR department on social media but wouldn't wish anyone to lose there job either.