The Tragic Tale of Telltale: Part II

Be sure to check out Part I here

Most everyone was taken aback when Telltale Games announced they would be closing their doors for good. People were even more surprised when it became apparent that it was a toxic work environment and questionable management that led to their downfall. How could such a thing take place in such a large and successful company? As it turns out, neither of those things are uncommon in the video game industry.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO TELLTALE GAMES

“Crunch Time” is a concept credited to Electronic Arts which refers to the period of time just before a video games intended release date, where developers and other staff are expected to work up to 100-hour weeks to ensure the game is fit and finished. On top of being expected to essentially live and work at the studio, crunch time workers seldom receive overtime-pay, instead being asked to work for “perks”, or even no extra incentives.

The practice was first exposed in an anonymous blog post by a user with the screen name “EA_Spouse”. The poster would later be identified as Erin Hoffman, whose husband was a game developer for EA. Soon after being hired, he found himself being stuck with eight-hour days, six days a week; that was later increased to twelve-hour days. The blog brought up California Senate Bill 88, which exempts businesses from having to pay “specialty” employees overtime. However, that bill also does not apply to the entertainment industry, specifically television, motion picture, and theatre companies. It can be argued that video games should be grouped in with those, with only outdated legislation preventing it.   

A survey by Venture Beat in 2017 found that 76-percent of game industry professionals had been forced to work weeks periodically exceeding 40 hours a week, with 65-percent indicating their job involved crunch time. 89-percent of those surveyed did not receive paid overtime. Incredibly, those numbers actually represent a decrease since Venture Beat started conducting surveys in 2004.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED TO ROCKSTAR GAMES

For example, in the lead-up to the highly anticipated Red Dead Redemption 2, Rockstar Games opted to add content to their cinematic cutscenes. Despite the game being in development for over eight years, that decision wasn’t made until the weeks before the game was released. Those seemingly simple additions created extra days and weekends of work, and with the studio unwilling to push back the release date, that meant the developers had to add that additional workload into their regular work weeks.  

While most like to think of the video game industry as progressive, the truth remains that it is still very much in its infancy and has a long way to go. The developers and staff that are responsible for creating the games still face unethical work environments, and the examples given are from some of the largest companies in the industry that know they will have eyes on their practices; smaller companies are more likely to test the limits.

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Alex Lough

Once described as “The perfect amount of straight forward”, Alex is a 2nd-year student in Algonquin College’s Professional Writing program, with hopes of becoming a screenwriter in the future.

The Tragic Tale of Telltale: Part I

For a while, they seemed unstoppable. The small indie company that could, formed from the ashes of LucasArts downsizing in their gaming department. Telltale Games and their familiar episodic platform were some of the most popular games on the market, relying on storytelling and big-name licenses to push them to the top. Then, on a cool September night, 90 per cent of the developing staff found themselves locked out of the studio without so much as a warning and Telltale Games announced they soon would be closing their doors for good.

So how did we get here? And what does it mean for the gaming industry as a whole?

Ironically, the founders of telltale now rely on actual poker games for funding // All rights reserved to telltale GameS

First, some backstory. As said, Telltale Games was started by a team of developers led by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors, and Troy Molander, who found themselves without work following LucasArts’ 2004 downsizing. They quickly agreed to a licensing deal with Jeff Smith’s Bone comic book series, and used the proceeds from their first release, 2005’s Telltale Texas Hold’em, to fund Bone: Out of Boneville—developed almost entirely to test out their idea of creating episodic video games. Not long afterwards, Steve Purcell offered the company the rights to his Sam & Max characters, of which the head developers at Telltale had become familiar with during their time at LucasArts. Sam & Max: Season One was the first example of an episodic game being a success, and gave credence to the idea that a company rooted in such games could be a realization.

They garnered so much success that Ubisoft recruited Telltale to co-develop their CSI properties, which at the time was one of the most popular series on television. That series ran for 4 games which, while developed using the episodic blueprint, were released as single collective games. This was the start of what would become a trademark for Telltale: buying up as many properties as they could get their hands on, and using that pre-existing fame to piggyback to prosperity.

Bigby and Colin are currently available for birthday parties and bar mitzvahs // all rights reserved to telltale games

Telltale soon found themselves with other major acquisitions, including Back to the Future and Jurassic Park as their 2007 acquisitions. In particular, Back to the Future: The Game was such a rousing triumph that the company was able to expand its staff from 90 to 140. With a larger roster on hand, Telltale wasted no time garnering even more franchises, from comic book series in The Walking Dead and Batman to fellow gaming titles Borderlands and Minecraft, and even coming into possession of the uber-popular Game of Thrones franchise. It was the Walking Dead titles that pushed Telltale from a small company into one of the most noteworthy developing companies; the first game, published in 2011, sold one million copies in only 20 days on its way to winning Spike’s 2012 Video Game of the Year award. The follow-up hit A Wolf Among Us (based on characters from the Fables comic book series) solidified the company’s place as a video game powerhouse.

From that point on, Telltale sat comfortably on top of the video game world…until 2016. It was then that rumours first started on the internet. Some said that the amount of capital that Telltale had to put down upfront in acquiring their licenses had handcuffed the company, and what they thought would be a sure fire hit in Batman: The Telltale Series was such a colossal flop that the developers were forced to work in “crunch time”— essentially overtime without all the perks — on all the other upcoming titles to push them out sooner and make up for the loss.

actual photo of a telltale developer’s reaction when asked to work 100-hour weeks for no extra benefits // all rights reserved to telltale games

In November 2017, the company laid off 90 of its 250 employees due to what they labelled as “mismanagement issues.” More reports would come out in early 2018 that some of the lead developers in the company grew tired of what they deemed a toxic work environment and announced their resignation. The effects of those walkouts—and the truth of the work environment—wouldn’t be known until September 21st, just under 14 years after the company started. It was then we learned the fate of Telltale: the last of their investors had pulled out and they are now facing a class-action lawsuit in regards to breaking labor laws, something the company founders have yet to address as they have gone on a total media blackout. All future projects, including the highly anticipated sequels to The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, have been cancelled, with a skeleton crew of 25 staff sticking around to finish a Minecraft project for Netflix before the company closes its doors for good.

Some may scoff at the claims and point to the fall of Telltale as a one-off, an isolated incident in an otherwise booming industry. But the truth is that the things that led to the debacle at Telltale, from the work environment to their business practices, are much more common than you would think.

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 Alex Lough

Once described as “The perfect amount of straight forward”, Alex is a 2nd-year student in Algonquin College’s Professional Writing program, with hopes of becoming a screenwriter in the future.

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