Telltale Games closing shop

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Surefoot said:
A good example of a company that had good products, but poor management.
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I wouldn't necessarily blame management (at least not to full extent). Those were the ex-Lucas Arts guys, after all.

One of the leaders once said that they struggle all the time, because they do games THEY like, not the games that sell well. That they do games no big publishing house would make.
And let's be honest, although I love TT's games, and you do, too, they always were focused on just a very specific audience.

So I think they pretty much fell victim to their vision. It's really sad.
 

Jenner

I wish I was English like my hero Tj.
Jenner
Falling victim to their own success is apt I think. I dont know much about their current situation and I have not played much of theirs for years, but they were always super niche.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
Speedcuffs said:
What games are they well known for?
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They are basically point and click adventures in chosen franchise (they got Borderlands, Walking Dead, Batman, worked on other titles, Wolf Among Us was more of their own design, although based on written material), but with truly branching story line. Basically RPG story lines with truly impactful consequences.

I think their games were super niche, and that caused issues. There's lot of games who get amazing YouTube let's plays and reviews, but they are not really what common crowd wants to play. People already try to avoid decision making in regular games, why they would buy game which wears 'decisions are our bread and butter' on their sleeve.

Management mistake was growing too big without solid foundation from sales. Too many franchises at same time. Should have scale back, be more careful.
 

MTBFritz

MTBFritz
metatheurgist said:
Yep, if it's not a sucky FPS it doesn't sell now. Market economics can bite big ones.
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Thats how I identify myself as a "dinosaur in a digital world" nowadays because when I look around me and see whats successful I simply dont get the hype. When i recently saw the game trailer for Battlefield 5 my first thought was "all that computer performance wasted on a shooter....". Dont get me wrong I like good graphics and bombastic music/sound as well but there is a point at which pouring more and more into these things doesnt bring any benefits back...it just costs more and I always think "think what kind of GAME we could have if people would invest 120 million production cost into gameplay and not into graphics and fidelity instead".

Truth is many of the best games out there come from indi devs and are niche. It just appears that less and less companies are willing to risk it all and rather walk the safe path like the big publishers do. Its boring but as long as it sells.....
 

starman

starman
Playing a game where your actions influences the outcome. Where have I heard that before?

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Surefoot

S
Chris Simon said:
I wouldn't necessarily blame management (at least not to full extent). Those were the ex-Lucas Arts guys, after all.
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There were rumours of a toxic company culture, and management went overboard with too many licences instead of focusing on the ones that sell (Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead namely). Small indie developers have to stay focused, and keep a good healthy job culture for those devs who give away their social and family lives for you.
 

Chris Simon

Chris Simon
Surefoot said:
There were rumours of a toxic company culture, and management went overboard with too many licences instead of focusing on the ones that sell (Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead namely). Small indie developers have to stay focused, and keep a good healthy job culture for those devs who give away their social and family lives for you.
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I'm not saying you're wrong. I never understood why they went for the BL and GotG.
I was just saying that the major part of their downfall was more likely simply the type of games they were producing. Charming as they were, they're 20 years past the zenith.
 

Cmdr Eagleboy

Cmdr Eagleboy
Surefoot said:
There were rumours of a toxic company culture, and management went overboard with too many licences instead of focusing on the ones that sell (Wolf Among Us and Walking Dead namely). Small indie developers have to stay focused, and keep a good healthy job culture for those devs who give away their social and family lives for you.
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There were big signs of overstretching resources.

As for games being niche - well, many are. As you point out, indies have to keep tight lid on their things, and not translate hype to actual reality. It seems management failed to do so.
 

jojon

J
Whoa! Didn't see that coming. Used to devour their classic-point-and-click style games: Their Sam and Max episodes, Wallace and Grommit, Their Monkey Island revival, (EDIT: ...the Homestar Runner thing...), even the Back to the Future one.

They entirely lost me as a somewhat fanatic customer, when they changed to the more Dragon's Lair-y format of their Jurassic Park, and Walking Dead, etc titles, but I was under the impression that format change had brought them droves of new customers, who don't usually play adventure games, which offset any classic format fans, such as myself, that it lost them, by several orders of magnitude...
 
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