Telltale Games has laid off 25% of its staff, or roughly 90 employees. CEO Pete Hawley explained that he wants to make Telltale Games great again by focusing on smaller teams working on fewer but higher-quality games.
GamesIndustry.biz captured the quote from Hawley, who explained…
“Our industry has shifted in tremendous ways over the past few years. The realities of the environment we face moving forward demand we evolve, as well, reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team,”
Criticisms from gamers in recent years have indicated that Telltale has been producing too many games and the bar of quality has been lowered as Telltale chases after those easy dollar bills.
Well, Hawley is having none of that.
He wants to restore Telltale games when they were making games that made people’s eyes well up with emotion, and caused sales to skyrocket across game consoles and PC alike. Hawley, in practically no uncertain terms, is looking to emerge out of the locker room and grab success by the… pong paddle and bring home a victory for the team.
They’re also hoping to move toward more “proven technologies” and away from the busted up tech they’ve been recycling for the last half decade. Unfortunately no details on the technology were revealed.
Many prominent figures within the gaming industry took the opportunity to reach out to the affected staff, with legendary game designers like Ken Levine offering a helping hand for ex-Telltale writers.
We have nothing but respect for the team at TellTale. If any writers leaving there are interested in taking on a new challenge, plz DM.
— Ken Levine (@levine) November 7, 2017
Former GameJournoPros member, Social Justice Warrior and one of the writers on Star Wars: Battlefront II, Mitch Dyer, also extended condolences and working opportunities at Motive Studios. For those who don’t know, Motive is where EA moved the remnants of BioWare Montreal after Mass Effect: Andromeda tanked earlier this year.
Telltale fam: If you're interested in a job at Motive, contact me/send your CV for a referral. Montreal is beautiful https://t.co/rDv0xiGMw1
— Mitch Dyer (@MitchyD) November 7, 2017
One of the writers on Mass Effect: Andromeda and a frequen cosplayer, Sam Wallshlaeger, also reached out to affected parties who have been made to depart Telltale Games.
If you were affected by the Telltale layoffs and you’re interested inArenaNet or BioWare, please DM me. I want to help however I can
— Sam Wallschlaeger (@StillNotSam) November 7, 2017
And one of the developers working at Gearbox Software, Maarten Goldstein (who also happened to be one of the former co-owners of Shacknews), also gave former Telltale employees a heads-up about open positions at Gearbox Software.
Telltale folks, sorry to hear about the layoffs! We have all sorts of open positions at Gearbox – https://t.co/UAst8PSh2q #telltalejobs
— Maarten Goldstein (@maarten_g) November 7, 2017
While a bunch of job opportunities are being made available for the staff and a bunch of people are talking about how bad the layoffs are, Hawley also wanted to reassure fans that the previously announced games slated to launch in 2018 won’t be affected, which includes The Walking Dead’s final season, and the second season of The Wolf Among Us.
I do wonder how Batman: The Enemy Within will be affected by this? And it also makes me wonder if it will come back for a second season? I’m pretty sure Minecraft: Story Mode is finished, though.
