Although it is something that occurs all too often in this industry, the closure of a development studio is a terrible thing and one that can stay with certain players. The shock of EA closing down Visceral Games almost a year ago still rings out among the gaming community, especially those who were fans of the Dead Space series.
But I never once thought the day would come that Telltale Games would close their doors.
Telltale Games, best known for their episodic narrative games such as The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands , made headlines last Friday when hundreds of employees were left jobless after they were informed about the closure and told to leave the building within thirty minutes.
Telltale were quick to issue a press release on the same day, taking to Twitter where they posted an image that read...
"Today Telltale Games made the difficult decision to begin a majority studio closure following a year marked by insurmountable challenges. A majority of the company's employees were dismissed earlier this morning, with a small group of 25 employees staying on to fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners. CEO Pete Hawley issued the following statement:
"Its been a incredibly difficult year for Telltale as we worked to set the company on a new course. Unfortunately, we ran out of time trying to get there. We released some of our best content this year and received a tremendous amount of positive feedback, but ultimately, that did not translate to sales. With a heavy heart, we watch our friends leave today to spread our brand of storytelling across the games industry."
Telltale will issue further comments regarding its product portfolio in the coming weeks."
250 employees, which is pretty much the entirety of Telltale's workforce have been laid off without severance pay. This information comes from Emily Grace Buck, a now former Telltale employee. Emily took to Twitter in the wake of the mass layoffs and here's what she had to say...
Her second tweet doesn't make things much better...
And for those of you wondering about the planned Stranger Things game and The Wolf Among Us: Season Two, Emily even provided some information on those...
Emily goes on to add a lot more and I would highly recommend swinging by her Twitter to get the full scope of the situation yourself.
Now a hashtag has been pushed to trending in hopes of getting these very talented developers into other jobs. #Telltalejobs has already managed to turn the heads of some of the biggest names in the industry such as Ubisoft, Blizzard and Niantic.
But this story doesn't end here. Another former Telltale employee is attempting to sue Telltale on the grounds that they have broken labor laws. Vernie Roberts submitted a class-action lawsuit against Telltale on behalf of himself and his fellow colleagues stating that they were let go "without cause" and were not given an "advanced written notice as required by the WARN Act".
Roberts complaint also states that the total number of layoffs is equal to 275 which would include the 250 employees let go on Friday and the remaining 25 mentioned in Telltales official statement.
I plan to update this story as more details emerge so for all your news on Telltale Games and the future for their now ex-employees...
Stick with Goin' All Gamer!
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