Today, I want
to tell you a story.
It’s about a video game studio that, was
at one point in time very important to me,
and who at this point, don’t really exist
anymore.
It’s a story about the rise and fall of
that studio, which started out with just a
handful of people but eventual grew to over
400 strong.
To some, they were single-handedly responsible
for revitalizing a once dormant genre.
They won Game of the Year awards up against
other studios with developers numbering in
the thousands and games with marketing budgets
measured in millions.
They had been one of gaming’s greatest success
stories, and within the span of one bad week,
it all just went away.
This story is both a tragedy and a parable,
an example of the highest highs and lowest
lows of game development, and a cautionary
tale for those us still around to hear it.
Today, I want to tell you the story about
the death of Telltale Games.
I’ve been playing video games for as long
as I can remember, so long in fact that I
can’t even recall what the first game I
ever played was.
Games are just something that have been ever-present
throughout my entire life, but they never
fully defined me either.
They were just one of many things I loved
as a kid.
And like I assume is true for a lot of us,
as we grow up, not all of our interests stick
with us forever.
Although I never really imagined myself living
in a world where I never played a video game
ever again, as I went to college and was approaching
my 20’s, that boyhood love was starting
to fade into the background a bit.
It was becoming a casualty of not enough time
and too many other interests.
But that all changed in 2012 when I played
the first episode of Telltale’s The Walking
Dead.
I hadn’t played a true adventure game since
the days of Freddi Fish or Pajama Sam, and
while I had played games with stories I truly
loved like the Mass Effect trilogy, I had
never played a game quite like this before.
The Walking Dead wasn’t just a game with
an emphasis on story and interesting choices,
it was a game only about story and choices.
Before The Walking Dead, I was beginning to
see myself as someone whose core interests,
didn’t really align with the kinds of games
studios wanted to make, and more importantly,
the kinds of games players wanted to play.
But now, after experiencing that first episode,
I didn’t feel so alone anymore.
If there were people somewhere who believed
in games as a medium for storytelling so much,
that they would make a game whose core mechanic
was nothing but the narrative, well then presumably
there might be even more people like me out
there who wanted to play a game like that
too.
So in that sense, the success of The Walking
Dead, in a very small way, felt like my success.
All of its many accolades and Game of the
Year Awards were validation for the way I
saw games.
It meant that there were hundreds, thousands,
maybe even millions of other people who felt
the same as me, who just wanted a good story
out of there games.
I had to play more games like this, and luckily
for me, Telltale was more than willing to
accommodate.
I moved on to Telltale’s next game, The
Wolf Among Us as soon as it was released.
As I had done with The Walking Dead before
it, after completing each episode, I made
a habit of running to the forums on Telltale’s
official website, to vote in the fan run poll
about when the next installment would be released.
This was mostly a well-meaning affair, with
only a few jerks in there to complain about
the devs, “taking too long”.
Sure we all would’ve loved more solid dates
for the next eagerly anticipated episode,
but we also understood these things took time.
More than anything, these forum posts were
another sign of just how invested we all were
with this type of storytelling.
The Wolf Among Us was never quite as successful
as The Walking Dead from either a critical
or financial perspective, but it was still
beloved by us, the die-hard fans.
And as our appetite for more story-driven
games grew, so did Telltale’s portfolio
of licensed IPs.
The next two years alone, from 2014 to 2016,
saw Telltale release full seasons of Game
of Thrones, Tales From the Borderlands, Minecraft,
and Batman, as well as a second season of
The Walking Dead and a mini-spinoff season
for that series which followed the character
Michone.
And let me tell you, I was dead set on playing
every single one of these games.
After all, this is what I had asked for, this
is what I had been craving, but as it turned
out, in this particular case, that old adage
of “be careful what you wish for” turned
out to be mostly true.
In going back to play some of these games
for this video, many of which I hadn’t played
since they were originally released, I’ve
gained a new appreciation for what Telltale
put out during this time.
While there were a couple series that still
felt like they either poorly fit into Telltale’s
house style, or just tried too hard to replicate
the formula that made the first season of
The Walking Dead so successful, there were
still a ton of games that were genuinely really
good.
But the truth is, back when I was in the middle
of devouring literally everything Telltale
released, I was starting to feel burned out
by the studio’s rapid output.
There was just so many episodes to play at
any given time, and after a while this started
to have a blurring effect on how you viewed
these games.
If you played enough of their games back to
back, the formulas and the structures they
were built on started to surface themselves,
and make the experiences feel more overtly
artificial than you would’ve liked.
And, while I was lucky enough to never experience
this first hand, there was the persistent
issue of episodes being released with all
sorts of bugs ranging from save files not
being carried over to just general poor performance
all around.
And I haven’t even mentioned another big
problem that, to be honest, I feel a bit embarrassed
to confess now, but there was always a bit
of disappointment when a new series would
come out and it never felt quite as revolutionary
as that first season of The Walking Dead,
especially that season’s direct sequel.
So eventually, over the course of playing
so many of Telltale’s games, I just sort
of lost a lot of that original passion I had
found back in 2012.
And if the studio’s consistently dwindling
sales figures were any indicator, I wasn’t
the only one.
For one reason or another, many of us just
fell off the bandwagon altogether.
The next two years after that saw even more
releases.
Guardians of the Galaxy, a second season for
Batman and Minecraft, a third season for The
Walking Dead.
As well as further announced plans for a second
season of Game of Thrones and The Wolf Among
Us, in addition to an adaptation of Netflix’s
Stranger Things.
It felt like Telltale had single-handedly
saturated its own market.
And so now, as a lapsed fan, I watched from
afar as this studio I once cherished slowly
declined.
I think at one point I had heard something
about layoffs at the studio, which was sad
to hear, but nothing I had heard about the
actual games they had been putting out made
me feel compelled to come back either, that
is until around August of 2018.
Telltale had just released the first episode
of what was supposed to be the final season
of The Walking Dead, and the reviews were
surprisingly pretty positive.
They gave the appearance of a studio that
was finally moving out from the shadow of
that first season of the series, and I was
actually looking forward to playing it.
That being said, partially due to still feeling
a bit burnt out, I had decided to play it
safe and wait until all the episodes were
finished before I jumped back in.
But I was genuinely excited at the prospect
of Telltale finishing up this series with
the care and quality both the game and that
studio deserved.
And then, about a month later everything went
very, very wrong.
On Friday September 21, 2018, a week before
the second episode of that final season was
to be released, Telltale employees showed
up to work, and by the time they left the
office, nearly all of them had lost their
jobs.
News spread to fans online first through social
media posts by employees and was soon thereafter
followed up by news outlets like Kotaku.
For a significant chunk of time there, everything
seemed pretty chaotic and up in the air.
Did the entire studio shut down, or was this
just another round of partial layoffs?
What did this mean for the still incomplete
final season of The Walking Dead, or any of
Telltale’s other announced titles for that
matter?
And probably the most confounding question
of them all, how the hell did this even happen?
The answer to that last question wasn’t
immediate, it took days or even weeks to really
get the full picture of how exactly everything
had come to this.
In some ways, we’re still piecing together
the final details of this story.
But it’s a story that I, like I assume many
other fans, wanted know, and that’s the
next story I want to tell you now.
But, before I go any further, I should put
this disclaimer out there first.
I am not, by any means, an investigative journalist,
and I did not at any time ever work at Telltale
Games.
As I mentioned up top, I’m simply a fan,
and as a fan, all I’m really trying to do
is compile as much information as I can into
one succinct vision, to tell one complete
story as best I can.
My overall goal with this video is just to
try and answer a few simple questions about
the shutdown of Telltale Games, namely, what
happened, why did it happen, and, if possible,
how can we prevent this from happening in
the future.
So with that in mind, I will be needing to
rely on the work of many other people who
are professional journalist who have covered
this story and have talked to the people who
actually worked there.
I will be citing claims made by former employees,
some rather damning about certain members
of Telltale’s management.
It should be noted that many of these sources
remained anonymous, usually out of fear for
retaliation as presumably most, if not all
of them, were looking for new jobs at the
time.
And it is true employees that were already
unhappy with the working conditions at the
studio would be the most likely candidates
to come forward with these types of accusations.
But I trust the journalists that reported
on this story, and thus I trust their sources,
whether you choose to is, ultimately, out
of my hands.
So now, with all those necessary grains of
salt out of the way, let me take you back
in time to just a few years earlier.
There is a saying in games media that if you,
a player, find an issue with a game, in most
cases, the developers are already well aware
of it, and after reading what the people who
actually worked there had to say, it sounds
like that was exceedingly true about Telltale
Games.
In a lot of ways, it seems like the success
of the first season of The Walking Dead was
largely a double-edged sword for the studio,
in that it was both the catalyst that opened
the door for all the opportunities that were
to come, while simultaneously being seen by
management as a secret formula that, when
replicated, would lead the studio on to even
more success.
Or as one former employee put it: “The folks
at the very top never really understood what
made Walking Dead work.
They were given a recipe book, and they just
followed the recipe because they don’t really
understand why the recipe tastes good.”
After finishing The Wolf Among Us and releasing
a second season of The Walking Dead, the tail
end of 2014 saw the first instance of Telltale
shipping simultaneous releases of two different
series, Game of Thrones and Tales From the
Borderlands.
The increased release schedule was part of
the studio’s new strategy to put out more
episodes more often, but this plan also came
with some obvious drawbacks.
Primarily that, this not only risked overwhelming
their audience with too much content, but
it also essentially doubled the team’s normal
workload.
Not oblivious to this potential problem, the
studio tried to accommodate by hiring on more
employees to help with the higher demand,
but even that turned out to have unintended
consequences.
Because management was dead set on using Telltale’s
own proprietary engine, commonly referred
to as the Telltale Tool, most new employees
would have to be trained upon hiring, since
almost none of them would have any prior experience
working with the engine.
And the decision to stick with the engine
didn’t just add extra time investment up
front, but also throughout the development
of a project.
The Telltale Tool was originally created along
with the studio’s founding in 2004, and
by most accounts was more than capable of
handling the tasks it was originally created
to perform.
But as time wore on, the engine quickly started
to show its age.
One of the biggest issues being that, until
sometime around 2016, it didn’t even have
a physics engine.
This meant that something as simple as a bottle
rolling across the floor would need to be
hand animated, which of course translates
to needing more development time.
These poor management decisions alone would
make it hard to get a game out on time and
at an acceptable quality, but sadly this isn’t
the end of Telltale’s problems.
Along with the general stress of having to
work with outdated technology, there were
regular executive review meeting that where
described as adding even more stress to an
already tense situation.
These meetings with leadership were described
as being long drawn out arguments where shouting
and belittling comments were not unusual,
and often lead to rewrites and reworking significant
chunks of episodes.
“There was no warning.
You go into the executive review, and they
take a giant turd on you.
That was your feedback: ‘We hate this thing
that you made.’”
“I remember hearing one of my bosses say,
‘I love that we can just shout at each other
and curse at each other in a meeting.
It’s totally great,’ I didn’t feel that
way at all.
It sucks.
I don’t want to work every day where I have
to yell at people and scream to have my voice
heard…
I think a lot of people burned out that way.”
The obvious consequence to all these revisions
and poor management was that the staff was
often overworked.
Employees were reportedly spending anywhere
from 50 to 80 hours a week at the studio,
working on weekends, and forgoing vacations
or taking paid time off.
Once you start to stack all these issues together,
it begins to paint a picture that, if I can
insert myself back into the story again and
give my own outsider opinion, sounds like
absolute hell.
“Executives would often ask teams to rewrite,
redesign, recast, and reanimate up until the
very last minute without properly adjusting
the schedule.
The demands on production only became more
intense with each successful release, and
at some point, you just don’t have anything
left to give.”
Needless to say, Telltale had fallen into
a textbook example of what is commonly referred
to in the tech industry as “crunch culture”.
Unfortunately, for many game studios, crunch
is not an uncommon thing to experience, but
if there is one silver lining when compared
to Telltale in particular, it’s that, for
those other studios, crunch usually only happens
in the last few months leading up to a big
release.
But, for the employees at Telltale, because
of the company’s new, almost relentless,
release schedule, for them the crunch was
effectively never ending.
Unsurprisingly, this created serious levels
of burnout throughout the staff, and eventually
lead to people leaving the company altogether.
“You’d get a lot of people coming right
out of school, going, ‘Oh I really want
to prove myself, and I really want to make
sure that they see that I’m contributing.’
The thing that broke my heart the most was
seeing new team members that were just so
gung-ho and optimistic and excited to be at
Telltale get overused and abused because they
did not feel comfortable drawing the line
in the sand to say, ‘This is my limit.’
They either worked themselves out and would
get sick or would become bitter.”
Every time a senior staff member left, that
was valuable experience, leadership, and knowledge
walking out the door.
And every introductory level employee that
got burned out and quit meant spending even
more time hiring and training someone to replace
them.
That, or just trying to get by with being
constantly understaffed.
Either way, all the departures were starting
to add up.
Probably the highest profile departure was
that of Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman.
The duo had been co-leads on the first season
of The Walking Dead, and were regarded both
internally and externally as one of the biggest
reasons for that season’s success, primarily
because they were one of the few team members
with enough clout to push back against management.
But they were far from the only noteworthy
people to leave.
Along with Vanaman and Rodkin, who left to
found their own studio Campo Santo and release
the game Firewatch, Adam Hines left to co-found
Night School Studio which would later release
Oxenfree, and in 2017, four more members of
Telltale left to start recently announced
AdHoc Studio, and all of these studios have
released or are currently developing adventure
games in a similar vein to Telltale, in other
words creating even more competition in a
market Telltale themselves had already nearly
flooded.
And so, with all these people leaving, this
is where we need to talk about Co-Founder
and eventual CEO of the studio, Kevin Bruner.
According to some, as soon as Rodkin and Vanaman
left, Bruner tried to step into the power
vacuum that the two had left behind.
“He was hesitant to give anyone much credit
for having significant creative vision.
He thought they would leave and become a competitor
because he had a couple of strong examples
of people doing exactly that.
There was a dark period of time where if you
were in charge of a project, you are not getting
any interviews.
He’s going to be the one on the panel.
He’s going to be the one doing the interviews.
He’s going to be the one in the magazine.”
Around the office, he had earned the reputation
as a micromanager, although according to Bruner,
he was simply trying to make sure Telltale’s
games all had a consistent vision.
But regardless of his intentions, this approach
to management left a lot of people feeling
creatively stifled.
“He wanted to be consulted on everything
from the color of the walls to who they’ve
hired to write specific dialogue.”
“It often felt like we were building games
specifically for him.
We were tailoring the type of content we were
building — not just gameplay mechanics,
but tone, the types of characters we chose
to use — to his taste.
This was one of the biggest issues with him
as a CEO: he was pretty convinced that his
taste was everyone’s taste.”
And it’s at this point, that I feel like
we’ve basically reconstructed the other
side of the coin from my experience as a fan
of these games.
The stress and limitations of game development
under so many poor decisions and general misconduct
was resulting in games that felt at times
rushed, unpolished, and repetitive.
With this in mind, it’s hard not to assume
that the bright spots from this period in
the studio’s history were probably the games
that were getting less attention from the
leadership team overall, resulting in the
designers being given more freedom to experiment.
But all of this also leads me to wonder, even
though there were some that did end up leaving
the company, why did so many more decide to
stay?
Well, the simplest answer I could find seems
to be that, they just wanted to make good
games.
They knew the conditions they were working
in were egregiously unfair, but they also
had a passion for making game, especially
the kinds of games only Telltale made.
It’s important to remember, there is a reason
why when I first played The Walking Dead it
felt so original, that’s because there just
weren’t many other games out there like
it.
And although some of the people that had splintered
off from Telltale had begun creating their
own studios, those were still fairly small
enterprises, consisting of only a dozen or
so employees at most, and nowhere near the
size needed to be a legitimate alternative
source of employment for the now nearly 400
workers Telltale had ballooned to.
So, they put their head down and tried to
do the best they could working within a fundamentally
broken system, and they did it, at least partially,
for us, the fans.
And, to say I feel conflicted about this,
would be putting it mildly.
But, we’ll have to delve into that more
later on, for now, we still have a story to finish
Although it didn’t last forever, the now
ironic truth is that, even in the lead up
to the studio’s untimely demise, there was
actually a rising sense of hope among the
staff who had stuck with the company.
In early 2017 Bruner stepped down as CEO of
the company, although it was later reported
that he was actually voted out by the Board
of Directors instead of voluntarily leaving
of his own accord.
Bruner’s exit was the start of what was
supposed to be a rebound for the studio, and
in the Fall of that year they hired on a new
CEO, Pete Hawley.
Under the new leadership, Telltale was committing
to put out fewer and better games, and even
announced they would be moving on from the
Telltale Tool in favor of the much more ubiquitous
Unity engine.
All in all, it looked like things were headed
in the right direction.
But, these changes didn’t come without some
casualties.
In November of 2017 Telltale laid off 90 employees,
equating to roughly 25 percent of their staff.
While many who had survived the cuts where
sad to see their colleagues go, the move was
largely seen as a necessary evil, the end
result of years of poor decision making by
previous management.
Now leaner and more resilient than ever, Telltale
was ready to start over and get back to delivering
the types of games they believed only they
could make, and for a while there it seemed
like they just might do it.
But, unfortunately, we already know that isn’t
how this story ends.
To say that the people of Telltale felt blindsided
by their studio’s sudden closure in September
of 2018, doesn’t appear to even come close
to doing it justice.
What started off as just a regular Friday
quickly changed when employees were abruptly
notified there would be an emergency meeting
later that day.
“Immediately my thought was, this is either
really good that they had to call an emergency
meeting, or it’s really bad.”
“I’ve never heard that room so silent.
You could hear a pin drop.”
At the meeting, Hawley announced that the
company had run out of money and that, with
the exception of a small skeleton crew staying
on to oversee the final shutdown, everyone
was being laid off, effective immediately.
But the bad news didn’t stop there.
Because of the studio’s strained financial
situation, there would be no severance packages
and their health care would be running out
at the end of the month.
Everyone was handed folders with information
about unemployment and sent on there way.
Just like that, it was all over.
“The way that it was said was that it was
almost like an assurance.
‘Don’t worry, you have health care until
the end of the month.’
I just remember thinking, ‘Fuck, that’s
only nine days.
What the fuck am I gonna do after that happens?’
“I was living paycheck to paycheck.”
“It was over in half an hour.
Some loitered for a bit after to get their
immediate belongings and say goodbye, but
it was pretty quick.
It was like a ‘one and done’ sort of thing.”
Telltale was located in the San Francisco
Bay Area, which I can attest to from firsthand
experience, is not only one of the most expensive
places to live in the United States, but also
the world.
Some employees had reportedly just started
working at the studio that week, and anyone
who had been hired on as contractors would
be unable to file for unemployment altogether.
At least one new hire had been said to have
moved across the country to work there, while
another was only in the country because of
a work-visa that was conditional on their
job still existing.
And with next to no warning, in the span of
one 30-minute meeting, all of them were left
to put their life back together without any
help from the company they had uprooted their
lives to come work for.
And this is where our two perspectives, that
of the fan and that of the game maker, start
to intertwine, because from this point on,
no one really knew what the future of Telltale
would look like.
Now former employees, were left wondering
how they were going to pay their bills and
cover rent for next month, and fans were left
wondering when or even if they were going
to get to see the end of The Walking Dead.
Now, obviously, the severity of these two
situation aren’t really comparable, but
as I already attested to, these were games
that people really got invested in, which
unfortunately lead to…
I’ll just be nice and say “unnecessary
tension” being added to the whole situations.
Especially at the beginning Telltale, the
company, was being fairly tight-lipped about
what was going to happen with their already
announced titles, presumably because they
genuinely didn’t have those answers yet,
but this also left fans with no good place
to ask questions and vent their frustrations.
But plenty of the people who had worked at
Telltale were frequently posting to their
personal social media accounts about their
own frustrations with recent events, which
resulted in many of the former staff members
being inundated with questions from fans that
ranged from sincere but tone-deaf to frankly
lacking any sort of common human decency.
It turned out that, due to Telltale’s relative
silence on the matter, they had done one last
disservice to their employees, as now, even
after being laid off by the company, many
of them were being unwillingly forced into
the role of PR for their now former employer.
Even being barraged with well-meaning questions
would be bad enough, but what was by far the
worst part of this mess was some fans who
were brazened enough to suggest that the developers
should be willing to work on the game for
free if need be, to finish the final season
of The Walking Dead, so the fans could get
the game they felt they were owed.
This notion, rightfully so, did not go over
very well.
Now, all this being said, there were also
many fans that flocked to social media to
show their support for the workers of Telltale
and the games they had made.
Eventually Telltale proper did announced they
were in negotiations to have The Walking Dead’s
final season be completed by another studio,
which ultimately lead to Skybound Entertainment
agreeing to finish production of the game
with a team made up of mostly ex-Telltale
employees.
As of the writing of this video, the fourth
and final episode of the season has just recently
been released.
Many former Telltale employees have moved
on and found other employment, and hopefully
all of the 250 people that lost their jobs
by now have landed on their feet in one way
or another.
It appears that, with the conclusion of the
last season of The Walking Dead, the story
of Telltale, with all of its ups and downs,
is in many ways, finally complete.
And so far, I feel like I’ve done a pretty
good job of covering most of the what’s
in this story, but I haven’t really properly
touched on a lot of the why’s, and there
is a reason for that.
The problem is, if we’re going to understand
why Telltale ultimately shut down, well then
we need to start talking about money, which
is yet another thing I am absolutely not an
expert on.
But I have done what research I can to at
least try and understand how money effected
this particular situation.
So I’m going to do my best, at the risk
of overgeneralization, to explain what I do
know, and yet again, put it as simply as I
can.
So, games cost money to make, I think we all
know at least that much, but I doubt many
of us on the fan side of things ever actually
spend much time thinking about where exactly
that money comes from.
When we break it down, it’s obvious that
to make a game, you need to be able to pay
the people who are actually going to end up
developing it, but when we go to the store,
whether that be in person or digitally to
buy a game, we aren’t really paying for
that labor.
Unless you’re supporting a game that is
being crowdfunded ahead of time, that work
has largely already been done.
Yes, you’re paying for the finished product,
but what that studio will actually far more
likely use your money for, assuming they have
been paying their employee’s properly up
until this point, will be funding the development
of their next game.
So, with this in mind, it stands to reason
that, if you’re starting a game studio like
Telltale was back in 2004, and you haven’t
released a game yet, but still need to pay
designers to actually make that initial release,
well then, that money needs to come from somewhere.
And since Telltale was founded as an independent
studio, not owned by a larger publisher or
console manufacturer, the usual place to find
that kind of funding was from outside investors,
which changes up this equation a bit.
Now, with this new mindset, making a successful
game that brings in lots of money is no longer
about being able to pay current employees
to make future games, it’s now instead about
paying back that initial loan you got as well
as making the studio look more profitable
so you can attract new, and even bigger investors.
And here’s the unfortunate thing about relying
on investors, they’re usually not content
with just making enough money to cover salaries
and get the next project off the ground, what
they’re looking for a return on their investment,
often with a hefty amount of interest.
Super Bunnyhop already made a video that goes
into much greater detail about where exactly
Telltale drew their multiple rounds of funding
from, so if that’s something that interests
you, that’s the direction I’d point you
in.
But suffice it to say.
Telltale started off with investments from
fairly smaller venture capital firms, but
as the studio’s scope and scale of operation
started to grow, they began courting larger
and more prominent investors.
Making deals in the single millions wasn’t
really going to cut it anymore, now they needed
financing in the tens, if not hundreds, of
millions of dollars, and the studio’s livelihood
was very much riding on management’s ability
to get those kinds of deals done.
And well, to be blunt about it, they didn’t
do that.
What seemed to be the final nail in the coffin
for Telltale was just before the studio’s
closure last September, when both of two potential
investors pulled their money at the last second.
The studio’s executives had made all their
future plans based on the assumption they
were absolutely going to get that money, and
for a while there, they were feeling pretty
good about their chances.
After all, even if say, one of their new partners
were to get cold feet and changed their mind,
well they always had that second investor
lined up as a backup plan, but when both of
them decided to pull out within a matter of
hours of each other, well they had no backup
plan for the backup plan.
So that basically covers the no severance
and no healthcare part of the studio’s closing,
because this all happened very last minute
and there just wasn’t any money left to
pay for those kinds of benefits.
Well, that last part is probably, more than
a bit debatable.
I’m sure there were at least a few golden
parachutes for the executives that could’ve
been downgraded to bronze-class parachutes
to allow them to do right by their employees,
but that bit of editorializing will have to
wait until later in the video.
The last thing we need to figure out is, why
no one was given any real kind of advanced
warning about how close to financial collapse
the studio really was.
And to be clear, it’s not like the people
working at Telltale were completely oblivious.
Even from an outsider’s perspective, it
was obvious the studio was still on some shaky
ground as they continued to rehab from the
years of mismanagement, but the widespread
feeling seems to be that most employees were
generally left in the dark about just how
dire the company’s financial situation really
was.
This part can vary depending on interpretation,
but the simplest answer seems to be that executives
were trying to play things as close to the
vest as possible when making deals with investors.
After all, if you’re trying to convince
someone to give you a lot of money, well then
conventional wisdom says, regardless of how
many things behind the scenes are being held
together by scotch tape and string, you need
to keep up the public appearance of everything
being business as usual.
Which in turn, explains why the company would
do something like, say hiring new employees
the same week they ended up going under.
And the best reasoning I could find about
why executives would be so tight lipped about
the studio’s dire financials, even with
the people that already worked there, is that
they were afraid if they let everyone in on
the secret, then that information would go
far beyond the walls of just their own office
building, which subsequently, would make the
company look less attractive to potential
partners.
And so that, more or less, is how you end
up in a situation where 250 people lose their
jobs with no notice, no severance, and health
insurance that expires in nine days.
But as evidenced by that last part there,
we’re really starting to run out of the
“just the facts” part of this story.
If we’re going to talk any further about
what happened to Telltale as a studio, and
maybe even find some potential ways to avoid
something like this happening again, well
then we’re going to need to get a bit more
philosophical.
Because, the facts of the matter seem to be,
if those latest investors hadn’t pulled
out at the last minute, Telltale would probably
still be around.
But after everything we’ve learned up until
this point, I can’t help but ask the question,
would that really be a good thing?
While it’s a bit unclear as to how much
better things got at Telltale once Kevin Bruner
was gone, some people said things improved
quite noticeably, while other stated it was
still mostly more of the same, the thing I
am definitely sure of is, I don’t think
anyone should have to go through the kind
of treatment the employees at Telltale were
subjected to.
Regardless of how much I might enjoy the end
product, no game is worth anything close to
the kind of human toll that kind of development
demands, and so I’m left to wonder, say
Telltale was still around, what kind of studio
would it look like?
They’d still be relying on outside investors
to fund development, which as I already laid
out, is a process that can be dangeroulsy
cyclical.
On a long enough timeline, you either survive
long enough to just get bought wholesale by
a larger company, or keep playing a game of
financial Russian roulette by borrowing more
and more money until you eventually just can’t
pay back your loans anymore.
So much like how Telltale’s release schedule
had resulted in the studio existing in a perpetual
state of crunch, continuously relying on outside
financing means being constantly on the hook
to deliver that next big hit, which adds a
lot of extra pressure to the situation.
So while I’m happy that some people reported
improved working conditions under Telltale’s
new management, in the back of my mind, I
keep thinking, how long would it really have
taken for the studio to backslide into old
habits?
Well, I guess the answer to that question
depends a lot on how much you trust the executive
team that was in place at the time of Telltale’s
closing.
And based on how they handled that particular
situation, personally, I would say, not that
much.
Clearly, they valued their responsibilities
to their shareholders over their ability to
take care of their employees, otherwise they
wouldn’t have been willing to risk so many
people’s livelihoods on brokering these
high-level deals.
And this is, I suppose, where we start to
get into the trickier philosophical territory,
because, technically speaking, Pete Hawley
and the executive team at Telltale Games,
didn’t do anything legally wrong, or if
they did, it was at least in a legal grey-area.
So if you have an issue with how those executives
handled the studio’s shutdown, and for the
record I certainly do, what we have here at
least for the time being, is more an issue
of morality as opposed to legality.
Because as far as I’m aware, there was nothing
in their contracts that meant Telltale was
obligated to offer employees any of the benefits
I’ve listed so far upon termination, and
yet that is something that a lot of companies,
even in the gaming industry, do offer.
But the main difference between these two
scenarios is, in those other cases those benefits
are usually offered as a curtesy as opposed
to a requirement, and most of those other
companies are doing fairly well instead of
being in the middle of closing up shop altogether.
Now, this doesn’t mean Telltale couldn’t
have offered these benefits to their employees,
they just decided it wasn’t a priority.
I don’t know enough of the particulars of
how Telltale was run, I don’t know if they
were using every last dollar to keep the lights
on as long as possible to get that last minute
deal done, or if they were just saving a nice
chunk of cash to make sure the people at the
very top landed on their feet.
Either way, I whole-heartedly believe that,
if providing severance and health insurance
to those 250 people was important to them,
the executive team absolutely could’ve made
it happen, but they specifically chose not
to.
Now, we could certainly quibble about what
compels people in positions of power to make
such callus decisions like this.
But regardless of if you see this as a result
of engrained corporate apathy or just outright
malice on the part of executives, either way,
if you look at this from the perspective of
someone who lost their job because of this
mess, I would assume litigating these distinction
feels, in effect, pretty meaningless.
And when you take a step back even further,
it seems fairly clear to me that the root
of this problem is far more systemic than
it is interpersonal.
The issues that Telltale faced are issues
that most companies, big and small have to
deal with, and that’s an issue of power.
Okay.
So, this next point is something very important
that I need to make sure I’m clear about,
and I feel like I just need to be as blunt
as possible here.
If you are a CEO at a game company, at the
most basic level, your job is not to make
games, your job is to make money.
Yes, these CEOs might specifically have been
hired because they have a history of making
games, a love of playing games, and possess
firsthand knowledge of what the people who
play games actually want.
But ultimately, they do not answer to us,
and they do not answer to their employees,
they answer to the people that pay them, in
other words, they answer to the investors.
Fundamentally, their job is to make rich people
richer by selling a product, and the fact
that games are specifically what they are
selling is honestly, at that point, incidental.
And this is why I say this issue is largely
systemic.
I’m sure most of us are familiar with the
typical pyramid-like structure of corporate
hierarchies, and how on an individual level,
the people at the bottom have far less power
than the people at the top.
But the other half of this issue is that responsibility
is always something that flows upwards but
never downward.
If you’re an entry-level employee, then
you answer to your manager, who in turn answers
to the executives, who then have to answer
to their investors.
Which explains why, even if you take a studio
like Telltale, and change out the CEO, you
still haven’t fixed the real underlying
problem.
Sure, maybe the new boss is willing to improve
some of the bad working conditions, but that
is usually out of a desire for efficiency,
not empathy.
Telltale was a prime example of how badly
this system can let down so many people.
This is how you get a situation where someone
is willing to gamble with 250 people’s livelihood,
because if that is what is going to make the
board of directors more money, well then that
is exactly the kind of thing CEOs get paid
to do.
But the sad truth is, regardless of what I
think, to many, this is just seen as the way
things are, the cost of doing business.
“Sure, Telltale is certainly one of the
most egregious example of a studio mistreating
its employees, but they were an outlier, a
worst-case scenario.”
Well, I would counter that notion by saying,
if we zoom out, and take a broader look at
the landscape of game development as a whole,
we can see that in general this is a story
that, while certainly extreme, is far from
uncommon.
What happened to Telltale is just a small
piece of a much bigger story, and if we’re
going to figure out what we can learn from
this particular example, we need to start
looking at its broader context.
It’s probably worth mentioning, if you haven’t
already figured it out, this video stopped
being just about Telltale Games awhile ago,
but it also isn’t only about the video game
industry either.
While I’m going to keep talking about these
kinds of issues as they pertain to games specifically,
obviously they’re not symptoms solely isolated
to just this field, or even the tech industry
at large, but rather capitalism as a whole.
And, I know capitalism is one of those no-no
words that brings out all the angry comments,
but if you’ve made it this far, I’m assuming
you’re willing to go with me just a little
bit further.
So clearly, due to all the reasons I gave
at the beginning of this video, the story
of Telltale is something that has a lot of
personal significance to me, but there are
tons of other stories like this one out there.
The very same month Telltale shut down, two
other notable studios closed, Carbine Studios
and Capcom Vancouver, leaving approximately
50 and 150 more people out of a job respectably.
And while I am by no means happy about either
of those closings, I also have to sadly admit,
neither of them hit me anywhere near as hard
as Telltale did, primarily due to a lack of
that personal investment.
But I guarantee you there is someone out there
who was a huge fan of WildStar or Dead Rising,
someone that felt the same way about those
studios going away as I felt about Telltale.
But, I guess that’s the fickleness and privilege
of being a fan, it’s not our job we’re
losing, it’s not our paycheck that’s going
away.
It doesn’t mean we’re devoid of empathy,
but for it to really hit home, for it to really
stick with us, we also need to lose something
that we formed a deeper attachment to, something
we truly loved.
Because here’s another ugly truth, I had
to look up and remind myself who Carbine Studios
even was.
I remembered Capcom Vancouver closing, and
I was pretty sure I remembered there was a
third studio that closed that September, but
I couldn’t actually recall who they were.
It’s only been a matter of months and the
stories are already starting to blend together
or just be forgotten outright.
And this stuff, it’s just the tip of the
iceberg.
The final straw that inspired me to start
making this video was when Activision Blizzard,
despite claiming they quote, “once again
achieved record results in 2018", laid off
over 800 employees in February of this year,
double the amount of people that were laid
off from Telltale, Capcom, and Carbine combined.
And in the couple of months since I started
working on this video, even more closings
and layoffs have been reported on.
Also in February, ArenaNet closed its Bellevue
studio, another 150 people without employment.
The following month EA laid off 350 of their
own employees, and the month after that QC
Games shuttered, approximately 45 more jobs
gone.
Layoffs within the gaming industry have become
so frequent, that there is now a twitter account
whose sole function is to track just how often
people are losing their jobs in this industry.
So far in 2019 over 2000 game workers have
been laid off, and as of the writing of this
video, we have yet to go more than a full
month without some form of major job loss
or a studio closure.
The sad part is, these are mostly just the
major layoffs that hit the big new sites,
and the main reason they’re considered newsworthy
in the first place isn’t really even because
people lost their jobs, it’s because the
loss of jobs didn’t come when they usually
do, they were off-schedule for one reason
or another.
Game development, especially at big studios,
relies on a lot of contract work, and at the
end of most big projects, a significant chunk
of that work force is let go, and this is
all, once again, largely just accepted as
how the system works.
But those are all real people who are now
without jobs.
Even if, unlike the workers at Telltale, all
of them were given some form of a severance
package, even if losing they’re job was
an eventuality that they could, at least partially
plan for, that loss of work still has consequences,
and it causes many to abandon game development
all together.
Finding a new job in this field can often
mean relocating, and as you get older, and
it isn’t just you having to do the moving,
the stress can add up.
There’s only so many times you can ask a
partner to move to a new city and find a new
job, there’s only so many times you can
tell your kids they have to go to a new school
and make new friends.
I honestly try and put myself in those shoes
and, I hope I’m not being insensitive here,
but I can’t stop myself from wondering how
many times can you ask your loved ones to
uproot their lives for your career before
you start to feel like you’re just being
selfish, and before you start looking for
a job in a more stable industry.
And this is just how one of the many issues
that plagued Telltale Games which, at one
point, seemed like an isolated incident, was
actually a microcosm of an industry-wide problem.
Every time someone gets burned out by the
gaming industry, that’s valuable knowledge
you don’t get back.
That’s experience that isn’t easy to replace,
and usually isn’t.
This is why when members of the old guard
have finally had enough and move on, they
are often replaced with younger and more ambitious
workers that haven’t had the burden of changing
jobs four times over the last ten years weighing
them down.
And for so many of them, this cycle continues
until those new recruits eventually become
the weary veterans themselves and exit the
industry just like their predecessors did.
There are undoubtedly some who find this kind
of lifestyle agreeable for them, I certainly
did when I was younger and didn’t know any
better.
What is usually described in buzzwords as
a “fast-paced, upwardly mobile, and hyper-focused”
working environment can be attractive, especially
if you don’t have a family you need to support.
It can be cathartic, especially when you have
all that young energy to throw around, to
submerge yourself in your work, to put everything
you have into doing a “good job”, but
that isn’t something that is realistic for
everyone.
Just because someone values their time with
their family, or maybe has a health condition
that doesn’t allow them to work 80 hours
a week, doesn’t mean they can’t be a valuable
members of a studio.
And these are all just the problems that revolve
around people leaving the industry, but there
are just as many stories being reported about
the terrible working conditions for those
who are still employed at game companies as
well.
Over the past six months, reports have been
filed about rampant crunch culture at studios
such as Rockstar, BioWare, Epic, and NetherRealm.
Meanwhile, at Riot Games, over 100 employees
staged a walkout in protest against management’s
mishandling of workplace harassment allegations.
Gearbox CEO Randy Pitchford’s legal troubles
and numerous twitter meltdowns has largely
dominated Borderlands 3’s announcement,
essentially overshadowing all of his employee’s
hard work.
CD Project Red, another studio with a reputation
for relying heavily on crunch, even went so
far as to try and get out in front of any
potential stories by doing an interview with
Kotaku, stating that they quote, “would
like for us to also be known for treating
developers with respect” while at the same
time, not to committing to eliminate crunch
from their overall management strategy.
Clearly, at least as it pertains to crunch,
Telltale was not even an edge case, but instead
an example of what we should probably all
start assuming is the norm for every studio
unless explicitly reported otherwise.
So even as an outsider, I have to feel like
this bigger picture we’ve uncovered doesn’t
really look like that of a healthy industry.
At the very least, this looks like an industry
that could be so much better, that could be
so much more accommodating to so many more
people.
And look, obviously I’m just one yahoo with
a YouTube channel, and I don’t want to pretend
like I have the perfect solution to all these
many issues I’ve brought up so far.
But the truth is, I do know of one way the
world of game development, or really technology
in general, could at least start to make their
way down the path to improvement, but it’s
also something that is, to put it mildly,
rather contentious.
But you know what, screw it, we’re going
to talk about it anyway.
So I need to get one last disclaimer out of
the way before we dive into this topic, but
this time I’m not going out of my way to
clarify that I’m not an expert with firsthand
knowledge of how unions work.
For the record, I’m also not trying to insinuate
that I am an expert on unionization either,
it’s just more that, that’s not the point
I want to be sure I’m clarifying here.
I’m sure you could already feel this creeping
in around the edges of what I’ve already
had to say up until this point, but I definitely
have my own personal opinions about unions
and the effectiveness of them, and I’m not
going to try and hide that from you.
In fact, I would urge you to be wary of anyone
saying, they’re giving you the unbiased
and objective facts about how unions work,
because yes, whether intentional or not, everything
is political, including us.
We all have our own beliefs, ideologies, and
perspectives, and they effect the way we see
things and understand them.
They help us define what we think is important
information to include and what aspects are
ancillary and thus okay to leave out.
There is no such thing as an objective view
of this matter.
So, with this in mind, all I really want to
do is describe for you how I personally feel
about the process of unionization could make
games better by making their creators better.
And furthermore, I want to try and frame this
discussions from a fan’s perspective, because
while there is plenty of writing out there
about the positives and negatives as it relates
to game developers, I actually haven’t seen
a whole lot of conversation around how fans
specifically play a meaningful part in this
equation.
Okay, now that we have all of that established,
let’s talk about unions.
Alright, well first, since I just stated that
my target audience for this part of the video
is specifically other fans, I suppose I should
probably make sure we’re all on the same
page here and go over, on at least a very
basic level, how a union actually works first.
Apologies for any of you out there who already
know this stuff like the back of your hand,
but I do think it’s important I cover this
for anyone new to the topic.
If you feel like this is going to be redundant
information for you, there are timestamps
to skip to the next section in the description.
Alright, so, remember this diagram from earlier.
One of the key problems we pointed out with
this system, is that on a person by person
basis, there is an unequal amount of power
being distributed to those at the top of this
pyramid.
Thankfully, unions are a great way to try
and combat this kind of power imbalance by
allowing everyone at the bottom to pool their,
individually, relatively small amount of power
together.
But what does this actually look like in action?
Well, usually once a union is formed, then
that union, often represented by a few elected
memebers, will negotiate with one or multiple
companies to create what is essentially a
contract deeming what any company who hires
union workers can and cannot ask their employees
to do.
This process is commonly referred to as collective
bargaining.
Now, while these kinds of negotiations happen
all the time, if you are a person outside
that given industry, probably the only time
you will hear about a particular union is
when it goes on strike, which is the second
major way workers can exert their power.
In most cases, a union will go on strike during
the initial negotiations after a union has
been founded, or when the current labor agreement
between the union and the employer is about
to expire and a new deal has yet to be reached.
If we use game development again as our example,
and look at the dichotomy between worker and
manager, we can pretty easily see why going
on strike is the most effective way to achieve
any sort of lasting change.
If you’re a single developer at a big AAA
studio, more than likely, the only thing you
have much control or ownership over is your
ability to do your job.
In contrast, the executives often have a lot
more assets under their control.
They probably own or at least rent the office
space you work in, they provide the computers
and equipment you use to make games, and most
importantly they almost always own the rights
to the games you create.
They decide how it is marketed, where it is
sold, and they also are most definitely going
to be the ones who stand to profit if the
game actually sells well.
So really, as a worker, your skill at actually
making games is basically the only leverage
you have to bargain with, thus why unions
often choose to go on strike when companies
refuse to negotiate.
This is also why it is important that unions
are collectively made up of as many workers
as possible.
Going on strike is only an effective tactic
if everyone agrees to do it.
Even if the executive at a company have experience
actually making games, there is almost never
a situation where there are enough managers
on staff to operate the company by themselves.
So if the company wants to get back to business,
they either need to reach an agreement with
the union, or hire outside, non-union workers,
colloquially referred to as scabs or scab
labor.
Some common benefits unions provide for their
members are: restrictions on how long an employer
can ask someone to work and ensure that workers
are paid overtime if they work more than the
agreed upon limit, employer provided healthcare,
safer working conditions (both physically
and mentally), as well as other benefits like
paying severance upon termination and generally
higher pay and more regular raises.
In other words, a lot of the things the video
game industry is sorely lacking right now.
Okay, so now that we have all this established,
it’s time to go back and talk about how
exactly fans can factor into all of this,
for real this time.
There’s a quote from a former Telltale employee
that I haven’t been able to get out of my
head while working on this video.
“The things that you love
are made by people.
We’re people just like you.
We’re people that are living paycheck to
paycheck, working our asses off to make the
content that you love.
Enjoy the content that you have ... but don’t
forget the people that made it.”
And with all due respect to this employee,
I have to disagree with them.
Like, I understand what they mean when they
say, “we’re people just like you”.
Game developers are people too, and they deserve
just as much respect as anyone else, which
obviously, yes, I agree with, but unfortunately,
I think the thing they say after this is the
far more important part of that statement.
“We’re people that are living paycheck
to paycheck, working our asses off to make
the content that you love”, and for a lot
of fans, especially younger ones, that is
a life experience that is in most cases, pretty
unrelatable.
And I’m not trying to be judgmental here
or act like I’m speaking from a place of
moral superiority.
When I was 16, I absolutely wasn’t thinking
about where my favorite games came from or
how they were made.
And this didn’t mean I was incapable of
empathy, I was just lucky enough that I hadn’t
reached a point in my life yet where I knew
what it was like to worry about paying rent
or access to good health insurance.
And this disconnect between fans and creators
is a bit concerning to me, because it enables
a lot of what I’ll politely call naïve
perspectives on these kinds of matters.
The thing that frustrates me the most about
the fans that were demanding Telltale prioritize
finishing The Walking Dead over paying their
employees severance, is that I see this as
behavior that has largely been very carefully
and deliberately conditioned into us.
Think about it, how many times have you been
watching an E3 press conference and seen something
like this?
"I would like also to thank all the gamers. We are only here because of you."
"Thank you all, all our fans, all of you, for your support, and for making PlayStation one of the most
loved brands in the world."
"Thanks for being with us, and thanks for the incredible privilege of making games for all of you."
"Thank you."
"Thank you."
"Thank you, thank you so much."
It’s impossible to watch an E3 press conference
as a fan and not hear how special and important
we are.
How it is a “privilege” to make games
for us, how they simply couldn’t do it without
us.
And quite frankly, I can’t help but find
this more than a little bit patronizing.
I don’t know how to make a game, sure I’m
great at paying for the games I play, but
I don’t really consider myself a fundamental
part of the game making process.
And this is in no small part because, as we’ve
already laid out, in a lot of cases, the money
I’m providing is only in rare instances
paying for the direct development of the same
game I’m buying.
So really, it’s hard to feel like the statement,
“we couldn’t do this without you” is
anything more than pandering and disingenuous
marketing.
This strategy is a pretty blatant attempt
to make us as fans feel like an important
step in the development process.
I know this is a bit of a loaded term these
days, but it’s hard not to view this approach
to talking to your audience as anything other
than building consumer entitlement, and the
thing is, for the most part, this approach
works.
But whether it’s intentional or not, this
way of selling a product also benefits corporate
interests far more than it does the workers.
The truth is, even if we don’t know it yet,
fans are not an independent party in this
equation.
When I try and look at the future and envision
what the process of unionizing game development
would actually look like, it’s hard for
me not to imagine companies trying to fight
it tooth and nail, and one of the biggest
weapons they will likely try and use is us.
If game devs were to unionize, that more than
likely means there will almost certainly be
a workers strike, which in turn will result
in, serious delays for most, if not, all of
our most anticipated games.
And at that point, given the current state
of things, I have a pretty good idea who we
are going to blame for this.
I’ll give you a hint, it’s the people
who actually make the games, not the people
that just make money.
In this scenario, it’s easy for executives
to point the finger at developers, after all,
they’re the ones interrupting the status
quo, the talking points basically write themselves.
The executives will try to paint themselves
as the good guys here and try to turn the
fans against the newly unionized workers because
well, it’s undoubtedly a smart strategy.
While preserving the status quo will certainly
benefit the executive class in the long run,
I also can’t deny that in the short term
it benefits us as well.
And this is just the first thing that comes
to mind, another common rebuttal to unionization
I see is that unions will lead to games getting
more expensive.
If companies now have to take into account
paying for things like healthcare and other
benefits, well, that money does have to come
from somewhere.
This is why when someone who is anti-union
is trying to tell you that a unionized workforce
will lead to the costs being dumped onto us
the consumer, they are, most likely, absolutely
right, because that’s another tactic companies
can use to win the publicity war.
If we start having spend $70 or $80 for our
games, who do you think we’re going to send
angry tweets at?
But the important thing to remember is, things
don’t have to play out this way if we don’t
want them to.
We can choose a different ending, to walk
a different path.
If games do get more expensive, that extra
cost doesn’t have to be passed onto us,
it could instead come out of the wallets of
the executives of these companies that make
seven figure salaries.
If or when a game gets delayed because of
a strike,
we could blame the executives for not taking
care of their employees.
Whether it’s fair or not, our voices do
matter, and we get to decide how to use them.
I’m not going to lie to you, unions are
not an easy fix to all the problems I’ve
cited in this video.
Unions are not a cure-all, they’re not a
solution, they’re a tool, the starting point
to finding a solution, but not the endpoint.
But that being said, I truly believe, with
all my heart, this is something the gaming
industry needs.
We need more than just putting out job listings
every time a big studio decides hundreds of
employees aren’t in this year’s budget.
We need more than hashtags.
We need more than sobering Twitter accounts.
Unions aren’t perfect, and if they were
actually to be implemented in this industry,
it would undoubtedly be a messy process, but
I have to ask, after everything we’ve gone
over up to this point, how much worse could
unions really make things?
I know I already said this, but I think it
bares repeating, I’m not trying to tell
you how to think.
I’m sure there are plenty of people who,
even after making it this far in the video,
still don’t think unions are a worthwhile
effort, and while I’m not okay with that,
I’ve at least made peace with it.
I’m not trying to deceive anyone, and throughout
writing this, I tried my best to give an honest
perspective of why I think game workers unionizing
would be a beneficial thing for all of us.
If you still disagree with that, well then
fine, but I just hope you know why you disagree
with that.
Without a doubt, I’m going to miss Telltale,
Even though I wasn’t always in love with
everything they put out, it felt good knowing
they were out there as an advocate for story-centric
games.
In the process of making this video, I finally
got around to playing the final season of
The Walking Dead, and I could not be happier
to say it was better than I could’ve ever
hoped for.
It was certainly bittersweet to write my own
final chapter in my own story with Telltale
Games, but at the very least, I’m glad my
last memory with the studio was a positive
one.
But the good news is, Telltale is not entirely
gone either.
Sure, as a company, as a physical place where
the employees of the studio go to work every
day to make games as a group of creative individuals,
that version of Telltale is gone, but the
memories they created with each other and
with all of us still remain.
For the handful of talented people that did
make it out of Telltale to start their own
studios, and for the many more that have now
been scattered to the winds to hopefully find
better footing with new teams, they will continue
to carry that banner.
And that isn’t even mentioning how many
fans they made throughout the studio’s lifetime
as well.
Even with the most generous tallies, the number
of people that at some point worked at Telltale
Games over those 14 years, can’t be more
than a couple thousand.
But all of us, the fans, we number in at least
the hundreds of thousands.
I know it’s a bit corny to say this, but
just through sheer size, we have just as much
power to keep the memory of Telltale alive,
and to ultimately determine what its legacy
will be.
As I already mentioned earlier, Telltale was
maybe one of the most egregious and high-profile
collapses of a studio that we’ve seen in
recent memory, but they aren’t an anomaly.
I’ve already shown you that they weren’t
the last company to have massive layoffs,
or just go under altogether, and I’m not
naïve enough to believe story I mentioned
in this video will be the final endpoint in
this timeline before we see some real change
As much as I wish Telltale could’ve been
the final tipping point, as much as I feel
like it should’ve been, it wasn’t.
But the silver lining is, I am starting to
feel like that last straw is coming, and perhaps
faster than anyone could’ve guessed.
And when that time comes, we as fans have
one last important choice to make.
We have to decide, do we want to stand in
the way of progress, or do we want to get
behind the car and push.
Ultimately, we’re all going to have to decide
which side we’re on.
And just like in a Telltale game, not choosing
a side is a valid option, but please also
know, it isn’t a neutral one.
You need to ask yourself, who benefits from
your silence?
And you need to ask yourself, what is more
important to you, the games you play or the
people who make them?
I’m sure it’s abundantly clear by now
I already know which side I’m falling on,
and that is in no small part because of my
love for Telltale Games.
As a fan, there is nothing I could’ve done
to stop the closing of Telltale.
I couldn’t have prevented the poor decisions
that studio’s management made, that is an
arena where I have no power.
But I also choose to not stand in the way,
or be used as a tool to fight against those
that do have the power to effect real change.
And, it is my sincerest hope, from one fan
to another, when your time comes to make this
same decision, that you don’t sit on the
sidelines, that you make it count.
I know it is easy to feel like you don’t
factor into this equation, that your choice
doesn’t matter, but I promise you it does.
Don’t ever forget the power you wield.
Don’t ever forget you always have a choice.
Alright, that sure was a lot huh?
So this is the part of the video where you
would normally see the credits for all my
supporters on Patreon, but I don’t have
any of those yet, mostly because I just launched
it as of like right now.
But if that is something you would be interested
in, well there is a link in the description
and at the end of this video.
But what I really want to use this time for,
is to take a moment and give a formal thank
you to everyone who ever worked at Telltale.
If you ever worked at the studio, and this
video somehow reaches you, I wanted to personally
thank you for being apart of making games
that were not only a joy to play, but also
reignited my love for games altogether.
I know for some of you, these particular wounds
might still be fresh, and I tried my best
to use your story, not in an exploitative
nature, but as a potential teaching tool to,
with any luck, make the gaming world just
a little bit better.
Hopefully I did your story justice.
Also, I’d like to give a quick shoutout
to all my friends and colleagues that provided
voice-overs and read the quotes you heard.
The video absolutely would’ve been worse
without them, and links to their channels
can also be found in the description below.
And before I go, I usually feel uncomfortable
doing this because my videos are mostly just
me rambling about my feeling on a certain
piece of media for around 10-20 minutes, but
if you enjoyed the video, and it helped you
understand either, the disastrous effects
of crunch culture, the fraught nature of how
games are often financed, or just how unions
could potentially work, and you think it might
help someone else understand any of those
things too, then please consider sharing the
video anywhere you can.
This is by far the biggest video I’ve made
in every sense of the word, and for the first
time, I feel like a video of mine could actually
be a valuable resource for doing some actual
good in the world, so it’d be nice to see
it reach as many people as possible.
[Sighs] Alright, that’s pretty much all
I have for you, I’ll be back sometime in
the near future with a hopefully much shorter
video, but until then, I’ll just say my
name’s Drew and you’ve been watching Select
Screen.
