Telltale Put their Game ahead of their People

Telltale Games is effectively in full shut down, having laid off 250 employees this past week and cancelled almost all their current projects.

A skeleton crew of 25 people remain to fulfil a contract for Netflix, but every other developer was let go with 20 minutes notice and no severance.

The Walking Dead: The Final Season was cancelled before episode 2 of the 5 episode season was even released. But Telltale released a statement saying “multiple potential partners have stepped forward to express interest in helping see The Final Season through to completion.”

Many in the games industry were unimpressed and the backlash was fervourous:

It sucks when an audience invests 6 years in a story only to have it cut short at the last minute.

It sucks WAAAAAY more to fire the people who created that story, without severance, and then finish it without them.

— Walt Williams (@waltdwilliams) September 25, 2018

Save the people then the game, not the other way around https://t.co/vsM6my5iL2

— Rami Ismail (رامي) (@tha_rami) September 25, 2018

If this Telltale stuff has taught me anything, it's that a lot of gamers believe their games come from the farting everlasting gobstopper machine from Willy Wonka

— Lucy O'Brien (@Luceobrien) September 25, 2018

https://twitter.com/9_volt_/status/1044425207514050560

https://twitter.com/corybarlog/status/1044390546695872512

This is disgusting. Pay your 250+ previous employees' severance. https://t.co/VscGNrKWi0

— Game Workers Unite ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏾 (@GameWorkers) September 25, 2018

Pay your team severance. https://t.co/Irrjo4621u

— austin walker (@austin_walker) September 25, 2018

“We laid off 250 people with no severance but don’t worry we’re absolutely dedicated to making sure we finish our zombie game with other developers instead” belies the mindset of studio management: product delivery at any human cost.

— Chris Franklin (@Campster) September 25, 2018

Honestly, this just makes things even more fucked up. https://t.co/DE9HMZyl2U

— Harper Jay (@transgamerthink) September 25, 2018

Most outlets are treating this news as celebratory and that's it.

They fail to point out that Telltale abruptly fired 90% of the staff, and that a lot of them wont receive severance for their time worked on the company. Treating these people right is more important than the game https://t.co/aJXVYxXWJv

— Felipe Mesquita – OUÇA ''MOLHADO'' NO SPOTIFY (@felipe_mgm) September 25, 2018

The greatest trick this industry ever pulled was making its audience loyal to logos, capital, and products instead of the people behind them.

— David Milner (@DaveMilbo) September 25, 2018

Fuck the Telltale bosses that knew the studio was going under and kept developers working into the night.

— Commander Stephanie Sterling (@JimSterling) September 25, 2018

There are two groups of people: those who were panicking because The Walking Dead wasn’t going to be finished and ghose panicking because hundreds of people lost their jobs and those two groups don’t overlap at all

— LOFTY QUEST AVAILABLE NOW 💙 (@Devon_Wiersma) September 25, 2018

To put this even more bluntly: Clementine isn't real. The people who created her are. A 'canon' finale by scabs while the original team get fucked over is worth no more than you writing 'everything worked out fine' on a piece of paper and declaring that the ending. https://t.co/9nfE3Gioxi

— James O'Connor (@Jickle) September 25, 2018

Over 200 people got laid off with no severance. Those people made this game series what it is. They are the only reason it has a dedicated fanbase. Their well being should be far more important than an episodic game season getting an ending. This is nothing to celebrate. https://t.co/IHdBHglhqo

— duckroll (@RollingPirahna) September 25, 2018

I would like to express my interest in 250 employees getting paid. Actively work on making that your solution. https://t.co/CfK6FKvIBM

— Chandana එක Ekanayake (@Ekanaut) September 25, 2018

Literally why I started Noclip. https://t.co/ZEzBpFpwKW

— danny o'dwyer (@dannyodwyer) September 25, 2018

Game devs are not interchangeable cogs in a vending machine that magically dispenses your favorite content

— Jane Ng (@thatJaneNg) September 25, 2018

https://twitter.com/eplerjc/status/1044407391280803840

While the major games publications were celebrating the announcement from Telltale Games, there was little to no discussion about what an insult this was to the hundreds of developers unceremoniously fired.

The videogame industry is an exploitative mess, and this Telltale story is just another example of how game studios, the gaming press and gamers value the games more than the lives of the people who pour their heart and souls into them.