The Consumer-Company Communication Needs Improvement
A few days ago I decided to remove my discussion about the news drought, as I felt it attacked employees.
So I'm trying to do this again, let's see how we do boys
So, in "The Players Space" it is said multiple times that the forum members are telltales biggest fans. Issue is...
There is no staff-consumer communication on the forums.
I have no intention to personally attack employees, but I would like to make an example. Staff members who are regulars on the forum like _______ only made about 28 comments on the forums in March, and 7 in April (although I saw they were on break in April)
Telltale is in a news drought right now, so it would be great to get some more communication from staff.
I think Telltales PR needs to be more engaging with fans, it would be great to have more conversations with staff on the forums and on Twitter
The forums are slow these days with Batman and Minecraft concluded. But after all, we can wait. Patience is key. TWD will be running again soon!
Comments
They can't say anything.
It was PAX-exclusive, but it's not like they can't show footage on another Expo.
Probably at E3. They've been hinting at it.
Apparently there's gonna be another
gameout by late Q4.I can agree with the bit about GOT S2. It'd be nice to get an answer about that. But the rest... it seems harsh. Fans seem especially hard on Telltale lately. To put it harshly... people seem pretty entitled.
It's unfortunate in these times..
Yes, the wait between each titles is hard, but that's just how things go. Telltale's only just now shifting to provide quality work over a longer period of time, and perhaps hasn't had a chance to restructure community communication. It's always been like this, this feeling of boredom or sadness while we wait, but we just have to have patience. I'm sure they'll be talking either next month (E3) or in August (PAX).
Though I do think communication should be stronger, or we at least have some transparency into how things get made over there.
I do agree there is a bit of a small drought, but to be fair, it might also be a good thing that Telltale is able to breathe and slow down, since some people were going through Telltale fatigue over the constant episode releases around 2016-2017.
A good compromise would be a bit of a small heads up of what direction Telltale is going in, and maybe something like a small forum AMA or something. But, yeah, I do still think it's important that Telltale first gather their bearings all the same.
What if the only thing they have to say is they don't have anything to say? Why would I want to hear that? They said and showed a whole bunch before ANF, starting with a trailer before they even knew what the games story was. I'd much rather occupy myself with other things than be strung along for the sake of communication if they aren't ready for it again. Drought, that's what I talk about around this time of year in reference to the game releases in general. It seems a bit much to apply that to an individual developer, and that we're in this position may be indicative of why things have gone so downhill. They're pumping out so many games one after the other that a few months without one results in this.
This should not be a surprise for multiple reasons. Not only are those games old, but their fans have long since moved on.
Some have, some haven't
Telltale needs this. They really do. They wanted our thoughts and this was one of my main points I conveyed. They need to be able to build hype and media attention again. They need that "There's a new game coming!" excitement that you don't get with constant releases. They need to slow the machine down. This is good for them.
Just for what it's worth, I felt that even your last thread was fine and that it didn't attack employees or anything. I'd be open to restore it as there wasn't anything wrong with it, since you also name dropped a few questions that were perfectly fine to ask and didn't cross any "personal boundaries".
As for one of your points:
If you are talking about mostlypoptarts, she's actually been the most active out of all the past/present community managers. People probably see me vouch for her pretty often elsewhere, even. I agree that the communication is a bit on the lighter side currently, although I attribute that to a few things; not only the current drought of upcoming episodes but also the fact that I presume Telltale is regathering their bearings after their layoffs last year. Meaning, they are probably trying to figure out how to change things such as gameplay for the better in the long run.
Again, just to vouch for mostlypoptarts, she's actually been extremely active compared to previous Telltale community managers, and from my interactions with her from my experience as a volunteer moderator, she's a lot more involved in things than people might expect. I'd give her the benefit of the doubt due to the circumstances I described above.
Nothing but respect for my Telltale PR manager
It's definitely appreciated when staff decides to stop by and chat with us but while I do argue that consumers have a right to be entitled when it comes to the products they purchase, I don't believe we are entitled to casual communication from Telltale. The forums are for fans to chat with each other first and foremost. Telltale doesn't need to chat with us if they don't want to (or contractually can't) contribute to the discussion. They're always welcome if they choose to do so, but we shouldn't demand communication from them (unless of course it's regarding technical support.)
Even so, I'd say I'm satisfied with how often the staff stop by the forums. It's true that they've been a bit inactive lately but I don't have a problem with that honestly.
mostlypoptarts is amazing!
I view it as a good sign. They’re working hard on the game.
I think a lot of people make a lot of good points here. I agree, I think we can do better on talking with fans on the forums, on Twitter, etc... but we also don't want to put ourselves in a situation where the only thing we can say is "we can't say anything about that yet" (for whatever reason). April and May have been slow months in that regard for PR specifically.
THAT SAID, E3 is soon, so the tide may be starting to change...
Also, if you have ideas for BTS content, dev blogs, or ways to interact with staff I'm obviously open to hearing them! I'm just one lady so I can't make everything happen, but at the very least I can get an idea of what you guys would like to see/hear from us and can maybe tailor content towards that!
Thanks for stopping by! You probably saw I vouched for the amount of activity from you earlier, and I think that your off topic posts where you (or maybe other staff, if they fancy) stop by just to chat often are a good compromise for when you don't have much to say in the way of Telltale news. For some people, just that can be good enough of a compromise for when you don't have news to give.
Or, maybe a Summer AMA (around E3 or Comic Con) when you have more that you can say or hint at might also be cool.
The Walking Dead/Wolf Among Us feedback threads you had a hand in organizing were a good outlet for fans to articulate feedback and channel their criticism in a good manner, so maybe making a general Telltale-themed thread or AMA can also be a good idea for fans to feel like they are participating in staff/fan chat during this period of downtime.
Thank you poptarts
You’re legit too good of a PR person for our community. Thanks for being so understanding and commenting on this thread. Here’s hoping for a good e3!
Also you should give @Blind Sniper a promotion or something he’s a great mod
Thanks for stopping by! Seriously really appreciate how active you are with the community.
I think Blind Sniper has the right idea with AMAs. It'sa good way to express how we're feeling and then seeing some of the staff's take on it. Personally I loved and really miss the Players Space but I'm assuming that it's not likely for that to return. My point is it was just really cool to see Staff just play the game and talk about it as you really do learn a lot from it.
Something else I'd love to see more of is those blogs we saw a lot of with Batman: The Enemy Within's development. I remember really liking one of the ones @emilybuckshot did. I just love hearing about the staff's thoughts and thought process on certain scenes.
EDIT: It's also probably worth mentioning that a lot of Game of Thrones fans are pretty frustrated when it comes to the lack of communication on Season 2 ever since it was announced. Many feeling that it's been canceled and Telltale just aren't coming out and saying so. Perfectly understandable if you can't comment on that. Just thought it needed to be said.
We all look forward to the times when you guys can drop by and chat
Personally I don't mind the communication drought that's been going on lately. If there's no info that can be given out atm then I'm not going to be all that bothered by the lack of communication. Imo saying stuff like "We can't answer that right now" sounds more unapproachable than if you just didn't say anything at all. While of course we would love to get to hear from you guys more often, please don't feel pressured into responding to us if there's nothing you're allowed to share. We definitely would appreciate more casual conversations with Telltale staff but that's not something you guys should feel forced to do, not because we demand it anyways.
Have a good one
Dev blogs are definitely on the docket!
Those streams are a tricky balance... I've been thinking about bringing them back in some capacity on either Twitch or Mixer. Most of our YouTube subscribers are there for trailers, so we were seeing some drop-off posting streams on the channel. It'll take some time and experimentation, but I hope the streams return! I think it's a long-term goal, though.
That's really good to know! Love those dev blogs.
Well shucks, thank you. I like talking to you guys too. Just like what Caroline said- not much official to report at the moment
As others have said, thanks for stopping by! It's always nice to have some sort of acknowledgement that things are still going on backstage.
I'd always be down for more AMAs. There are always some good questions that may pop up about development or in-game events that I think of when playing. But, there aren't that many opportunities to ask about it.
It's probably hard to get certain people off of the continual episodic dev cycle, but it'd be nice for some contact with the people who bring these properties to life.
Echoing what others have said about just more casual banter. I've been around here a while (10+ years), and when Telltale was a much scrappier studio than it is now, it was pretty common for employees to just jump in to any old conversation. There was still just as much "We can't tell you yet, but you'll find out Sooooooooooooooooooon!", but that didn't stop other random activity. It would be nice to get back to that.
Thank you for stopping by! I understand that Staff may not always have the time to drop by and chat or disclose information regarding upcoming titles. And while it can be frustrating to go without any updates for a long period of time I know that Telltale are working hard to produce high quality titles!
But it is always a pleasure to see you and other staff members drop in to let us know that things are good and even get involved in off topic discussions.
As cringy as this may sound I want to thank you and everyone at Telltale for the hard work you put into each and every title.
I am honestly super excited for The Walking Dead: The Final Season and having the opportunity to experience the end of Clementine's journey (just don't kill her
) I am confident that you all will make me and everyone else who is rooting for you very proud. Much love 
And many thanks @emilybuckshot for dropping in. I love the work you put into Batman Season One and The Enemy Within. I know you will do a great job. I look forward to playing The Final Season very soon
Shucks thanks! We're excited to share it with y'all.
This again, as the staff has politely alluded to, there is no news because we are coming upon E3....and I am sure they are a little busy right now. That being said...I am down for an AMA....also how about Blog posts about behind the scenes from the art department and animation crew...how concept is grown into a game....that would be sweet.
Its not even been that long, so I don't see the issue. E3 is a month away and as others have said (including mostlypoptarts) they have plans. This doesn't have to be a daily lifestyle. Sometimes its fine to just take a break.
So this means we will most likely get news at E3 based of what Telltale Staff are saying. I hope it’s a Trailer/Teaser for TWD S4, I’ve been dying to see a cinematic or gameplay after the PAX leak.