What is Telltale's best-selling brands?
Knowing that the best selling brands will get the green go for another season, It's a intressting question.
Also it's granted that we got all the licenses back when asking this question.
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You can see estimated sales numbers for various Telltale games that count ONLY sales through Steam, without being logged in, at:
https://steamspy.com/dev/Telltale+Games
That site splits out different seasons/episodes, but it's pretty clear The Walking Dead beats everything else, even if you don't lump the seasons together. That license is probably not coming back.
The Wolf Among Us is #2, which is why they were looking at a Season 2 before Telltale's 2018 shutdown, and why everyone thinks that's what's going to be announced next.
Batman is a real disappointment on this list. Even Puzzle Agent beat that.
Games like Minecraft: Story Mode probably sold more outside of Steam than on Steam, so they're likely better off than what this list portrays.
Walking Dead Season 1 and Minecraft: Story Mode Season 1 were their only games that actually made a profit if I remember right.
I feel there is a lot of misinformation about that quote as sales numbers seem to indicate other wise with Minecraft. Its just kinda confusing, I mean Telltale called Tales a finical failure but it wasnt. It was a "failure" because it didnt make enough money for them to expand again or pay for IPs they already bought, but they didnt actually lose money in its budget. It lost money as a whole because Kevin Bruner didnt know how to run a company. Minecraft most likely made more money due to the fact it was cheaper to make.
So that would mean the Minecraft quote isnt necessarily wrong, but it isnt technically their most valued IP in terms of sales numbers. It was very much just a cheap cashgrab like many thought and season 2 nose dived hard. For the longest time Walking Dead stayed number 1 but Wolf was always their number 2 best seller, so it was kinda mind boggling they just ignored it for so long when it was obvious it would get sales. (which sadly makes me think a big reason why Wolf 2 was even announced in the first place was in a sad attempt to save face and get people interested again, and there wasnt really that much of a plan at all when it was announced.)
They should just start a new project. I feel that the company would be better off starting fresh. Then eventually bring back old titles like Wolf. Telltale has to start making gamea centered around popular trends. Star Wars side stories like The Mandalorian and Fallen Order are popping off. It'd be interesting to see a Telltale Star Wars. You're choices would lead you to becoming a Jedi or a Sith by the series finally.
If the formula stays the same even wolf s2 won't sell well, if they really want to succeed they have to innovative, but if they rush it too then history will repeat itself.
I got an information from an article.
Apparently, only Minecraft: Story Mode and 7 Days to Die were making a profit. The rest was investor money and the netflix deal, which dried up. — Joe Parlock (@joeparlock) September 21, 2018
According to the source, Batman t a n k e d and was one of the worst commercial failures for Telltale. — Joe Parlock (@joeparlock) September 21, 2018
Basically, only the first season of The Walking Dead made money. Everything between that and Minecraft was a financial failure - Wolf, everything post-Season 1 of TWD, Borderlands, Game of Thrones. All failures. — Joe Parlock (@joeparlock) September 21, 2018
I don't get why Wolf would be considered a financial failure. It sold a million copies.
They do need to make an original IP but they need to start with Wolf 2 to get started. They have an IP for a game that was asked for for years plus it being canceled then revived, it does generate an interest in the product. Hopefully their second game is an original IP, but they need to start strong with something people have been asking for before they can start risking original IPs.
But even then they need to take a big change in marketing their games. Realistically Wolf 2 probably wouldnt have sold that well if it was released. Im sure it would do better than their others but still, old Telltales marketing team sucked. Theres people who dont even know Wolf 2 was canceled right now, and people who dont even know it was ever announced, their marketing was that shit.
Might've been because of the massive rewrites the game went through causing all those delays and them having to retain the development team past their initial plans.
Again with this quote, I feel something isnt correct. I dont want to get super deep but if I remember that original source claims Batman season 1 tanked, but if it tanked they wouldnt have made a season 2.
This. Wolf 2's cancellation is still brought up every so often by gaming news outlets as an unfair tragedy; even Bloody Disgusting, a site that deals primarily with horror movies and games, had a retrospective article celebrating the first game's anniversary this year and reported on Telltale's reopening primarily because there was a chance they'd revive the brand. People are still actively putting out Let's Plays for it, and if the reaction to Bigby's "redesign" from a year ago is any indication, the fanbase is ravenous and much bigger than it looks.
If Telltale wants to make waves and get people talking, Wolf 2 is the way to go.
It's a shame that the games flopped; with better management Telltale could've dominated the cyoa genre.
They should've completely revamped the company after Walking Dead S1. Telltale could've been much bigger.
Batman Season 2 was only made because “there was a team ready to jump on it”
Telltale would rather have a team working on a season rather than working on literally nothing aside from doing busy work. This kinda implies that TTG might have had some trouble obtaining IP towards the end of their lifespan.
The only modern Telltale Games that made a profit were:
Back To The Future (original, the remake tanked)
Walking Dead Season 1
Minecraft Season One and it’s DLC
7 Days To Die
Walking Dead S2 barely broke even
Game Of Thrones wasn’t a flop, but it went way over budget. I heard from an employee that the shows voice actors like Kit and Emily costed them hundreds of thousands of dollars but that might be a bit of a hyperbole.
I'm sure Game of Thrones would've sold a lot more if they marketed it more. I would've had the voice actors from the actual show promote the game during commercials for the actual Game of Thrones show
The problem is obvious with these kind of games, they're mostly like stories with minimal gameplay so if the reviews or reception was not good people will just watch a Youtuber/streamer play it, this hurted TT and will still do unless they really start making games like Detroit become human.
So this dont really mean shit because its Marcus Sellars (video game """""insider""""" who gets things wrong 19 out of 20 times, and mostly focuses on Nintendo stuff) but he posted this and I dont know why he would tweet this seeing how its not really in his realm.
Just noticed I posted this on the wrong thread OOF
On VGA night, Bigby's gonna open that door and say hi, Poogers. Heed my warning.
Yeah some employees got paid way too much for what they did (not naming names but you know who) while others didn't get paid enough, and there were like 400 employees at the time which they didn't need. Low amount of employees + 1 great game every year is the way to go.
Rumor is he is wearing nothing but Rhys socks too
When you get paid around 1 million a year and get all paid for vacations abroad and your job is very easy to been seen from outside the company never being done but say you are worked to death
I'd like to believe that Kevin Bruner was a problem during development in season 1 and with him gone, Pete Howl gave the Green light for a season 2 (that ultimatly had better sales figures then the first season). I mean it's frecking Batman! There is no excuse. That IP should sell well.
The problem is there's a ton of Batman games out already. Whenever anyone thinks of the character, they think of the Arkham games. A big chunk of the fanbase for those are casual gamers; they're not looking for a text based CYOA game, they're looking for a beat em up button masher with bosses and actual gameplay. Something like Telltale Batman only appeals to a niche subset of gamers, and unfortunately Telltale burned their bridges with all but the most loyal of those fans.
Not trusting this. Marcus takes in baseless claims from ANYONE and posts them as his own. Do you guys remember when ConnorEatsPants fooled him a while ago? Next to 0 credibility at this point.
https://mobile.twitter.com/ConnorEatsPants/status/980101911587192833
I would say he has 0 credibility as well I just found it weird he would even mention it. But this does seem like the classic Marcus Sellars moment of "Thing that is highly likely to happen that most people are expecting anyway I will say and claim I have inside sources when easy to predict thing happens."
Pretty sure the one thing he ever got correct that wasnt incredibly obvious or piggybacking was a Nintendo Direct date lmao
That would’ve been a great start it they did that I would’ve been an Sith Lord before the option came up.
Not entirely true. I know a few casual gamers and I recommended the games to them and they enjoyed them. A lot. But they watched on youtube. See, the thing with Telltale is that you only really buy their games if you want to go out of your way to support them. Most people just see it as smarter and more beneficial to them to watch on youtube. With Telltale back from the dead it's going to be different now, because quite a few people still appreciate the games and don't want to see them go away again.