The downfall of Telltale Games reached an unfortunate conclusion last week when it announced that 275 employees were laid off without severance pay and all bar one of its projects were canceled, including the final two episodes of its currently in-progress Walking Dead game.
The gaming community paid tribute to the pioneering point-and-click adventure game studio over the following days, with many fans tweeting their favourite memories and moments from Telltale’s many quality games.
But while gamers were busy making the hashtag #Telltalememories trend on Twitter, things were moving quickly behind the scenes and it appears that Telltale’s Walking Dead game may be revived in one form or another.
— The Walking Dead Game (@telltalegames) September 24, 2018
On the surface, reviving the remaining Walking Dead episodes seems like a pretty cool move. I hate to waste sentences so I can’t imagine what it would be like to abandon all the work done on a video game.
But here’s the first of two big problems with Telltale’s statement: it says nothing about whether the revenue of the potential Walking Dead game revival would go towards supporting the hundreds of employees that were just sacked. Hell, there was nothing at all about supporting employees, period.
Many of the fired staff had were contract workers at Telltale, some of whom moved all the way to San Francisco just for the job. Due to the expense of living in San Fran, a lot of employees were living paycheck to paycheck and some have to worry about feeding their families on top of the stressful game development work life.
Telltale were rightfully called out for this tone-deaf response, and one of the loudest voices happens to be God of War director Cory Barlog, a bloke who knows all too well about the hard life of game development.
I would hope this means that you will first pay your entire team their severance, and then proceed to finish the final episodes. I would be fine waiting however long it took to ensure we first treated those who worked so hard with the humanity and respect they deserve.❤️
— Cory Barlog ? (@corybarlog) September 25, 2018
The lack of support and severance pay isn’t just irresponsible on the behalf of Telltale’s management. This is downright screwing over all of its ex-employees and giving them the middle finger before they’ve even packed up their desk.
Staff can’t feed their families with thoughts and prayers, and that’s not even taking into account the horrendous thought of abandoning all your hard work against your will only to find out that others may come in to finish your job.
Telltale’s treatment of its former staff is downright rage-inducing and the only sliver of bright light in this debacle is all the support from other studios offering jobs and interviews to all those in need of employment.
The second big problem with Telltale’s Walking Dead statement – and one that threatens to overshadow the first problem – is the fan reaction. Many gamers immediately dropped all pretense of sympathy for all the sacked Telltale employees when they realised that they may finally get the game they’ve been waiting for.
It’s incredibly disheartening to see how a good portion of the gaming community is able to immediately shed themselves of any form of empathy in exchange for a fleeting moment of gratification over a game they may or may not even get. And that’s not even mentioning the simply awful takes from so-called fans, such as this one:
Well, that's one way of looking at game development. pic.twitter.com/4PgDUn9HQF
— Richard Cobbett (@richardcobbett) September 24, 2018
It makes you wonder when was the moment where we forgot games were made by real living breathing people, not brands or logos. How did we get to the point where the fate of actual people take a backseat to fictional video game characters?
This whole debacle is perhaps best summarised by Game Informer Australia editor and my peer, David Milner:
The greatest trick this industry ever pulled was making its audience loyal to logos, capital, and products instead of the people behind them.
— David Milner (@DaveMilbo) September 25, 2018
It’s perhaps no surprise that a former Telltale employee has filed a class-action lawsuit against their former employer for violating labour laws and conversations about worker rights have begun to pick up steam, though it remains to be seen what will ultimately happen.
Worst case scenario is that all of Telltale’s former staff will find themselves with nothing to show for once this is all over, and that is a grim reality that everyone in the industry – gamers and companies – needs to pay more attention to.
Just as how Clementine will remember everything you do in The Walking Dead, we need to remember that games are made by real people.