How this happened is bizarre.
The more I look into this and think about it, the more confused I get as to how this happened.
As others have pointed out, Telltale had already confirmed a physical release of TFS for later this month, it was set to come out on Switch. We just had the Episode 2 trailer released on Monday, and earlier today, Telltale's social media was busy either tweeting about Arby's sandwiches or releasing gifs about Episode 2.
And looking through the twitter feed of Emily Buck (who has been trying desperately to get her former colleagues jobs with other companies and retweeting people/companies looking to hire such as Ubisoft and Naughty Dog, so good for her), mentioned at one point that Telltale was hiring just last week. People were brought on board, they relocated across the country to work for Telltale, only to be told today that they're out of a job.
How could a company who, today, released 90% of their staff (250 people) and is in such dire financial trouble that they had to cancel all their upcoming games, be acting for the last couple of weeks as if everything was fine, hiring people the week before firing damn near everyone, releasing trailers, being active on social media, and hyping up the release for Episode 2.
Whatever happened must have happened quickly, but what it is, I just don't know. Why else have everyone come into work, act like nothing is happening, just to tell everyone during the work day that they have 30 minutes to leave the building, you're fired, and you get no severance. There's a lot here that they aren't telling us, stuff that just isn't adding up. And maybe, even with Hawley as CEO, there was still rampant corruption, lies, and greed within the company.
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Yes, that's what makes it all confusing. Telltale's been acting like all is going great; Physical release for TFS, Switch ports for their recent titles, heck even Season One was getting a remaster for PC, then suddenly an article posted by Gamasutra was shared around and then it was all spiral downhill from there.
I'm heartbroken, angry, sad and anxious for the future. Telltale has been a big part of my life (7 years, sigh) and every second, every damn minute I'm wishing this was all a bad dream or Telltale playing a prank on us. I pre-ordered TFS on PS4 and Steam because I had faith in Telltale to deliver, and I'm so fucking happy that they did but now I'm just left here in the dust because of something that everybody's just not aware of.
I hope more details are revealed to clarify everything because I can't take all this in right now.
it is strange, to demolish a company in 1 day, somethings must've happened!
We will have to wait and see what happened when they release the official statement.
Someone withheld info about their financial problems, I'm sure.
Learning that your company has gone bankrupt and you have to leave in 30 minutes in a single day just isn't right.
Why would one of the higher ups wait until was seems to be the last moment and then spring everything upon the employes?? Why do that to the public who is anticipating the release of the newest episode in a beloved franchise?
They shouldn't have taken all those deals 3 months ago. It didn't do anything.
They should have given word that this was going to happen and had people prepare.
None of this feels fair to anyone.
I don't think its easy for a company to go bankrupt overnight. (maybe it is I don't know) but I highly doubt all these financial troubles happened in the span of a day... A few weeks maybe, but it should have been communicated to employees.
They even announced a bunch of new projects from the publishing perspective, and an early report said those were canned too.
...Maybe the company was looking for an investment, or looking for someone to buy them out? And to convince the potential buyer/investor they acted like everything was fantastic, 'hey look at all the games we're announcing, hey we're hiring a TON of people. There is so much going right at this company. Please buy us'
If the rumors are true that Netflix pulled the plug on the stranger things game, then it makes some tragic sense how quick this happened.
Mainly that it's been an open secret that Telltale has been struggling and overwhelmed for a while now.
But the new CEO was claiming "Everything is fine! Onwards and upwards! Look we have a big deal with Netflix! We're all good!"
When in reality, it's highly likely that Walking Dead final season and the stranger things title were the ONLY things in active development (or at least the only revenue sources)
If Netflix abruptly pulled the plug, then it's highly likely that that necessitated an immediate dissolution of the employees.
As much as people love it, a final walking dead season was unlikely to generate any cash on it's own. And former big name IPs like Warner Brothers and Marvel can't have been happy that their own Telltale products underperformed financially.
At this green energy centre near me, the people there weren’t told they’d be losing their jobs until they finished work that day. Despite knowing weeks in advance the centre would be closing, they said NOTHING to the employees because they quote ‘didn’t want to upset the mood’ when that valuable time could’ve been spent finding alternative employment.
This sort of practice disgusts me. I feel only sympathy for those in a similar situation. And to lose your job after relocating, and after only a week of employment, I can’t begin to imagine what they’re feeling right now.
Yeah I was once only told by my employer after I left a half day (which suspiciously hald been shifted from an afternoon to a morning) that I was out, on the phone, for petty reasons I knew were excuses for actual reasons. They even had someone else supposedly come in a week or so early to train for another site and they had run an errand away from the store so they could likely tell her she was replacing me. It is always bull crap when this nonsense happens.
Shit. I’m so sorry you went through that Derek. God they think we’re stupid. I was doing work somewhere to cover for somebody, but when it was clear they weren’t coming back, they told me the job was being advertised again and that I was allowed to apply again, but I could just tell by the way she told me and their overall treatment of me [I wasn’t ever really treated as part of the team, constantly left on my own and without training] that I wasn’t going to get it. What confirmed it was when I came in one day and they’d brought in a new girl who’d worked for them prior, and had much more experience.
By the end of the week the news was broken to me by a letter in work that I had two weeks left, and it took all the willpower not to leave that day. I was really getting depressed at the time since the one guy I was stuck didn’t like me and kept being condescending towards me, to where I was even scared to ask for help.
The only saving grace was that new girl I worked with was the best. She treated me with kindness and support and taught me things the others didn’t even bother to. I honestly wished I’d worked with her from the beginning as things might’ve been different.
To add salt of insult on the wounds, the company was having a Christmas party shortly after I left. A guy who left a month before was invited, the new girl who’d been there two weeks was invited, but I never received an invite despite working for them for 4 months.
Whole thing really knocked my confidence in the job department.
A lot of game studios shut down don't make sense. For example, EA said they shut down Visceral Games because single player games are dead and everyone knows they are retarded and lied, 2 games that prove it are God of War and Spider-Man. It would have been less upsetting if this happened after TFS. Now Clementine has the same fate as Gordon Freeman from Half Life.
I agree, me personally I love single player games way more than multiplayer games. Especially if they have a great story such as telltales games. I’m more hurt because we won’t see season 3 to batman.
Hawley decided to cut his losses and liquidate the company. It's very clear that this decision was only discussed at the very top. This decline happened far too fast with little to no indication. While the studio wasn't immensely profitable they were by no means completely broke. I refuse to believe that. Once again, Hawley and management probably decided to scuttle the ship before it completely sank, which they perceived as inevitable.
Theres a chance Pete wasnt a good CEO but I personally think its the law suit.
Companies like you said dont do all of this and then just fucking die. Sure Telltale wasnt doing well, but they werent at that stage of "pack it the fuck up boys" out of the blue with no one knowing at Telltale themselves. I really think they had to lose the lawsuit because we all kinda knew if they lost this would happen. Immediate bankruptcy. If this is the case Kevin Bruner will go down as such a complete shithead. Started the sinking ship of Telltale, finally got booted off the ship, then decided to sue them to sink it as they finally started fixing things up.
I agree with Poogers, lawsuit was definitely a kick to the groin for the company no questions asked. There are a lot of other factors which may have added more fuel to that fire which inevitably resulted in what has happened yesterday.
At this point Bruner is going to go down as one of the most hated former CEOs in the gaming industry. Seriously, if he wouldn't be so greedy and lead that toxic management focusing on milking the biggest IPs instead of giving fans what they were begging for over 3-4 years, maybe things would've been different. He put the company on this downhill road and on top of that he had the nerve to put a lawsuit after all of that... I just can't fucking find words to describe how much I despise that guy...
And yeah the way this whole thing came to light is really weird. A week ago they were still hiring, few days ago they have announced their plans to publish Stranded Deep, people were hyped for TFS and TWAU2 coming next year... This is all really really shady looking and I hope we will get more clarification as to what exactly went down as soon as possible.
No. I don't see anything about the case going to trial yet. The lawsuit was just filed in June. However, if you file for bankruptcy, you don't owe a payout to a former CEO, since the money gets used to repay creditors.
Bad management is the answer, I imagine. How many CEOs has TellTale gone through in the past 6 years?
Edit: Poogers already said this.
It's not a surprise they went out of business after everything that transpired last year, but it's rather odd how sudden this occurred and how the company has went about it.
I do believe telltale had anticipated this to happen which explains why they pushed TWAU S2 to 2019 and reduced the final season to 4 episodes. I just hope they can finish the final season as good as it started.
No official word from Telltale yet but considering the entire dev team for Final Season were laid off and the skeleton crew left over are confirmed by Netflix themselves to be working on the Minecraft Story Mode for Netflix chances are that episode 2 is the final episode of Final Season. Imagine the shitstorm coming when they announce that on Monday...
I dunno what just happened to this gaming studio but i just wanna play complete season of TWD TFS and not anything more.
I don't care about anythin' else.
I was wondering if there is a possibility it also had something to do with the Kevin Bruner court case hanging over them.
I would be surprised if at least some of their properties weren't acquired and licenses rejigged by a new studio (that didn't have so many problems), or a new division of an existing one.
It just seems way too sudden not to be part of someone's overarching plan.
Unless whatever happened was last second unforeseen which is possible, I'd assume they'd finish the final season since they've probably anticipated this for quite some time and figure they could only finish 4 episodes.
I could be completely wrong in my reasoning, but it is a slim possibility.
If you look on Twitter there is nobody left in the building to finish it. The entire TFS dev team was laid off. It's sad but the shitstorm when Monday rolls around and they announce their closure plans officially is going to be insane.
First Doug Walker turns out to be a scumbag, then Ralph Sepe announces that he's ending his RalphtheMovieMaker series, and now Telltale Games is shutting down. 2018 fucking blows.
To my knowledge, I don't believe a decision has been reached in the lawsuit, I thought it was still ongoing. Still doesn't make Bruner any less of a scumbag, and I'm sure the lawsuit itself didn't help matters and may have forced Telltale to pay a lot in legal fees. But as to the matter of the lawsuit, I'm not sure if that's been settled.
I'm pretty sure it was still ongoing, but even that may have hit TTG financially pretty bad, especially since they brushed-off with bankruptcy as soon as Spring 2018. In the end all of this shit falls on one person.