Remembering Telltale Games

Most people love video games for their engaging and/or addictive gameplay. Besides this, I love them for the stories they tell.

Telltale Games is known for their narrative-style games that play like interactive movies in which the decisions that players make impact later outcomes in the stories. They brought back the point-and-click adventure style games from the 90's, modernizing them and skillfully weaving together engrossing stories filled with depth, nuance, and substance. I could tell from their games' characters, art direction, and well-written scripts that an immense amount of time, hard work, and love went into their games.

Which is why it is all the more shocking and tragic that this past week, Telltale Games officially announced that they will be closing down. How could this happen? It seemed like every year they were releasing new games in the Telltale-style format that many gamers love and have grown accustomed to, ever since the first season of The Walking Dead sold millions of copies and garnered multiple game of the year awards in 2012. Even the employees were given less than a day's notice with no severance, thus leading to a class-action lawsuit against the now, or soon-to-be, former game developer.

I did not see this coming. Apparently, not even most of the employees did either.  

Telltale Games found immense success with their first breakout game The Walking Dead, but following The Walking Dead's release, the company took on way too many projects over the span of six years: four total seasons of The Walking Dead (though only three are complete, and who knows what will happen to the final season following its cancellation), The Wolf Among Us, Tales from the Borderlands, Game of Thrones, Minecraft: Story Mode, Batman, Guardians of the Galaxy...

And with the swift closure of the company, many questions remain as to how such a prolific game developer could have found itself in such a dire situation. To simply say to your employees "We're closing; bye bye see ya; you have 30 minutes to leave. Oh tomorrow you have three hours to come back and get your things" is just... wtf?

This is the treatment that the creators of some of the most compelling story-driven games receive for their years of hard work and their loyalty to a company whose downfall can be attributed to poor leadership and management. Telltale Games forced their employees to work excessive hours ranging between 50-80 hours a week. That's insane but unfortunately quite common in the video game industry. And no matter how good Telltale Games' stories were, no matter how much love, effort, and overtime hours went into creating these games, they did not sell well. How could they? Every game was pretty much the same as the first in the eyes of most consumers, and there were simply way too many Telltale games to keep track of. Even if the stories were thoughtful, the gameplay mechanics failed to evolve due to the lack of time the creators had. A game developer cannot simply keep releasing the same game, even if the story is different, with the same mechanics and continue to expect good sales, unless of course the company is Activision, Ubisoft, 2K, or Nintendo. Even then, there are always efforts to further evolve and refine the gameplay for at least two, no, maybe one, of these companies.

This is what happens when a company grows too quickly and attempts to take on way too many projects within a short time span. Instead of spacing out their projects, or actually allow time to refine/evolve their gameplay mechanics versus simply rehashing the same package (every Telltale game essentially plays the same), the mentality was simply to keep churning out more of the same games, despite their great stories, and somehow expect them to sell well. This is what happens when a company devalues its own products. I believe the company executives failed to realize that when they devalue their products to such an extent by constantly having "new" releases of the same old game, to the point when gamers quickly develop the perception that every game is the same as the one they played, and perhaps loved, in 2012, then of course fewer and fewer people will continue to buy the same old game. There are exceptions, of course, such as Call of Duty, Assassin's Creed, 2K's sports games, and Pokemon, but releasing on average 2-3 games a year, which, again, are all pretty much the same, is still a bit much.

I sympathize with the developers, the creators, artists, and writers who put their hearts and souls into telling the best tales they could given the unreasonable deadlines and persistent pressure of "this game has to sell well." It is truly unfortunate that the games did not sell well, which led to Telltale Games' demise, but the truth is that the onus does not lie on the creators. They told captivating stories and made decent games. Their games' average metacritic score is 75, and if you understand metacritic scores, then you know that this is pretty good.

Making video games is difficult; this much I understand. I've seen stories in video games that are so well-written that they outclass many of the mundane, uninspired plots found in today's modern novels. Unfortunately, a good story alone is not the only requirement, and sometimes not even an important factor, for a game to sell well.

I appreciate all of the hard work that Telltale Games' developers put into crafting powerful narratives that deeply dive into character development and the process of making tough decisions (and experiencing the consequences). For The Walking Dead, I will always remember Clementine's growth from an innocent (and adorable) young girl into a hardened, disillusioned, yet nonetheless compassionate young adult, as well as the heart-wrenching feeling we experienced when we (spoiler warning) saw Lee die at the conclusion to season one. I enjoyed the creativity poured into Batman: The Telltale Series and how their depictions of Joker, Penguin, Two-Face, Catwoman, and Bruce Wayne himself are some of the best, if not the best takes on the characters in recent years.

Following the news of Telltale Games' closure, I realize how over the years, I have bought many of their games but haven't found the time to actually play through them completely. Though I have watched playthroughs of these games online, I think it's time for me to actually complete them myself.

Thank you to all of the creators, artists, and storytellers who used to work at Telltale games. Thank you for further proving to the world that video games are, arguably, the best medium for telling engaging and thought-provoking stories that help shed light on what and who we are as human beings.

Episode 1 for The Walking Dead and Batman: The Telltale Series are free on Google Play and the Apple App Store. Check them out if you're interested. But don't buy them; clearly the money won't be going to the actual creators since they were all unceremoniously released. I'm glad that others in the industry have reached out to Telltale Games' former employees, especially when their own former employer lacked the decency, foresight, and morality to treat the people who brought them success in the first place with some respect.