The developer of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us is on the verge of closure. The studio fired most of the employees. It is reported that only about 25 people out of 250 will continue to work at Telltale Games. The rest lose their places even without severance pay.
UPDATE (09/22/2018, 01:21)
Telltale said it had started the closure procedure and laid off most of its employees. The remaining ones will have to fulfill the company’s obligations to the board of directors and partners. The current director of the company made the following statement:
“It has been a very difficult year for Telltale, as we have been working to steer the company on a new course. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to do it. We released some of the best games [in the company’s history] this year and received a huge amount of positive feedback, but ultimately it didn’t translate into sales. It’s with a heavy heart that we watch our friends leave today to spread our storytelling approach across the gaming industry.”
ORIGINAL PUBLICATION
Initially, numerous English-language resources reported with reference to their sources (only dismissed employees) that we are talking about closing altogether. However, according to The Verge, it hasn’t come to that yet. The company will close its doors only after the release of the last chapter to the currently coming out The Walking Dead: The Final Season. This means that neither The Wolf Among Us 2, expected by many, nor the game series based on Stranger Things announced this summer, will appear.
Telltale Games itself has not commented on the situation yet. But the event is at least unexpected. Previously, many of the studio’s problems were blamed on its former CEO and co-founder Kevin Bruner. They say that he creates unbearably toxic working conditions that force the most talented employees to leave (among them are the developers who later made Firewatch and Oxenfree).
Bruner left the studio a year and a half ago, handing over management to the board of directors. During this time, the company received a CEO from mobile Zynga — Pete Hawley, fired 25% of the studio, switched to Unity from its own engine (here, most likely, it was not without the influence of John Riccitello, who is CEO at Unity) and released three seasons for various series, two of which were received very discreetly.
Also on the topic: