An Open Letter to Telltale: To be honest, I guess I'm kind of responsible for your demise.
To be honest, I guess I'm kind of responsible for Telltale’s demise, along with the hundreds of thousands of other people who simply stopped playing Telltale games. In the early ages of Telltale's Renaissance, TWD S1, TWAU…wow. It was so awesome on the forums, people were so invested in these stories and the sky was the limit. When I joined in 2014 the atmosphere was so great, even up to MCSM Season 2 I'd say…then, well, the CEO left, lead writer left, deals fell through, all because, simply, no one was buying the games. And to be fair, I don't think people really had any reason to—Telltale just lost its magic. I think its story potential was lost a while back when Sean Vanaman left. It just slowly got worse and worse. These forums and website servers will likely shut down in the coming months as well, as no one's going to pay for hosting. I can't really tag any specific people as I haven't really been active here for a while due to not playing any TT games. However, I've been registered here for four years, sucks it went out this way, but it's been a pleasure discussing with you all.
Comments
You're just one of the many reasons they shutdown.
Oh come on folks, you're not "responsible" for a developer's demise just because the developer stopped delivering the stuff you loved about their games. Telltale basically (though unintendedly!) swapped out most of their fanbase in 2012 with The Walking Dead, it was a risk that they took, and in retrospect, one must say that this was decidedly the defining moment for the company. This game got them through six more years even though sales of their future games were lacking.
When Jake and Sean left, they had only just given the company their greatest gift. But treating this gift like a fixed blueprint has proven to be detrimental. I strongly believe that Telltale was on their path to actual innovation again with Stranger Things. Which will never happen.
If anyone is responsible in terms of the public it’s the people who ended up watching the games on YouTube and not supporting them. I don’t hate people like Pewdiepie or Swingpoint for steaming themselves having fun but they honestly should have tried to encourage people to buy the games along the way...
Bigger responsibility goes to Telltale's higher-ups, especially Bruner. The decision to prioritize quantity over quality really hurt both the company's reputation and the ability of devs to produce the games that they wanted.
Nah, the only people at fault here are Telltale themselves. They grew too fast and bit off more than they could chew, staff members themselves have said that it was still run like an indie developer despite having 300 employees and working on several projects at once, and not to mention the obvious lack of communication. Seems like they were back on track recently but it was simply too little too late. I hope all of the employees find work elsewhere and continue on to do great things.
The only one responsible for this mess is Bruner.
Couldn't agree more.
I think Youtuber comments influenced very badly and strongly Telltale's reputation. Don't wanna make names but a lot of them seemed to just say bad things about the games and not focusing on the good things that they had to offer, which is in part right obviously, but they exaggerated imho, Pewdiepie included.
It's not a total blame on youtubers and streamers ofc, but it played a big role such as other factors as well.
Who is responsible for Telltales demise?
The people, who didn't bought the games? No.
The people, who just watched the games on Youtube? No.
The Youtubers who played the game on Youtube? No.
It's the management including the old CEO. No one else is to blame, period.
I think many people are interpreting the title wrong and running with it—it’s supposed to be a lighthearted jab at people who really do feel responsible, as you can see with my next sentence right after that.
I hope Microsoft buys this company.
The point about Youtubers is interesting tho. They're not to blame of course.
However streaming video games has always been a legal grey area. Technically it's copyright infringement especially if done commercially. However games companies turn a blind eye to it or openly allow people to do it. This is due to:
1) They have bigger problems like pirating the actual software.
2) They see that it is a form of advertising that might/does make them some extra sales of obscure titles.
3)They don't want the bad press if they do get fussy over it (like Nintendo who take it to the extreme and abuse legitimate 'fair use'. NOTE: 'Fair use' does not allow you to stream the entirety of the game with commentary.
For many games, streaming doesn't matter as much because you can buy/play the game a different way. With the narrative Telltale games, you can watch a stream and see the entire game. There's virtually no reason to play it you're own way. So no reason to buy it and hence a lost sale.
It's not an action RPG where it'll be different for each person playing. It's not the old point-and-click adventure games that Telltale used to make and you might find funny/extra dialogues you didn't see on stream.
Story based games are a problem when it comes to streaming. Have to make the game have lots of branching paths so that choices really do matter and the story is different for many people so that people would want to buy/play the game themselves.
Your point is amplified by the totally no commentary videos that stop at each major choice and have different playthroughs for each choice. It's a lot of work for the uploader, but those easily get 1M+ views each video. That basically lets you experience everything in the game except choosing dialogue.
I hadn't thought about those kind of videos. As a company.. that's a damned if you do, damned if you don't situation. You could with every legal right DCMA those videos and then risk a harsh backlash from the community and all the drama that all those kinds of things generate.
You also then have to decide when is there not enough commentary.. what if someone does commentate but very rarely.
But is that any different from someone who is commentating and also just going through every option.
Then have to have someone constantly policing videos and time is money. It's back to the point of they have bigger things to worry about like pirate/warez/torrent sites.
I don't think youtube can be blamed for Telltale's demise, every video game is on youtube, they still sell and they're companies don't go bankrupt. It feels like like shifting blame, a lot of people where disappointed in the Telltale's games and lost interest.
This is stupid. We need confirmed information.
we're talking about games that are essentially just interactive movies. There's a difference between that and watching someone play Super Mario Bros Wii.
This also applies to those, Life Is Strange, the David Cage games, and Until Dawn seem to be doing fine. This is something that seems be just an issue with Telltale.
Yes, those games have sold EXTREMELY well and all had extensive playthroughs posted at each branching choice. The thing about TT games recently is, people find it sufficient to just watch the videos—they just don't interest people enough. And that's Telltale management's fault. Also, I believe the studio overall was significantly more talented in the TWD S1 /Wolf era than recently.
It’s not our fault, it’s Kevin Bruner. Should’ve been fired immediately when things started going to poop in terms of sales and for treating staff so poorly. And then him slapping Telltale a lawsuit on top of everything else probably didn’t help matters.
He should never work in the gaming industry, little less a manager role with power over others again.
Maybe because Telltale style games didn’t have much variation. You have one play through and you’ve basically seen it all. The game mechanics stayed the same for each title with little actual gameplay, while Life is Strange and David Cage games have more going on.
The original TWDG has far more exploration and objects and characters you could go interact with. If things retained the level of quality while expanding on the QTE’s and other game mechanics they’d of probably been in a better off state in terms of sales. But sadly quantity over quality forced that out the door ?
Well, they lost me as a regular customer the day The Walking Dead was a success. I already hated Jurassic Park, but I really liked Tales of Monkey Island, Sam&Max, Back to the Future. You know, adventure games. Walking Dead, Tales from Borderlands, Game of Thrones I got from various bundles, and I activated them in Steam, but never played them. I played the first episode of The Wolf Among Us and the first season of The Walking Dead. That's it. Before that I preordered their collector's editions of games. I wanted adventure games with puzzles, they went into a different direction. I always thought I was in the minority. I guess not ....
The choices mattered in season 1, it annoys me that people act like fans just got tired of Telltale, there was a level of quality in that game that none of the other games had.
The thing about Youtube is its the games as well. Many people bought Telltale games after watching on Youtube because they wanted to experience the game themselves. The only problem was Telltales started to become so much more linear and overall quality dropped, so there wasnt a real incentive to get it yourself anymore when the games started to become so linear that watching on youtube would give you about the same experience as if you were playing it yourself.
It was thanks to watching YouTubers Gameover Et and JackSepticEye that I bought The Walking Dead game series after seeing them play both Season 1 and 2 on their channels.