Telltale Games Is Shutting Down
It has been revealed that Telltale Games is shutting down. For those who are unfamiliar with that name, Telltale Games is a video game developer that specializes in making graphic adventure games, which is perhaps unsurprising considering that its initial core consisted of video game designers from LucasArts. Primarily, interested individuals should be familiar with Telltale Games because of The Walking Dead, which was their breakout title. However, it should be mentioned that the video game developer has released a number of similar titles based on other media properties.
Why Is Telltale Games Shutting Down?
There have been signs of serious problems for some time, as shown by how November of 2017 saw the elimination of 90 positions so that the video game developer could focus on making a smaller number of games with a smaller number of team members. Now, that process seems to be complete because 225 positions have been eliminated while a mere 25 people will remain on for a short period to fulfill Telltale Games’ remaining obligations.
Context-wise, it should be mentioned that most of Telltale Games’ releases have not been huge earners. The Walking Dead and Minecraft: Story Mode were successes in a financial sense, but for the most part, the other titles were much less impressive. This was a huge problem because a lot of Telltale Games’ releases are based on famous media properties such as Batman, Game of Thrones, and Guardians of the Galaxy, meaning that the rights to them would not have been cheap.
It is unknown why most of Telltale Games‘ releases have not been so successful. Some people have speculated that the system that worked for The Walking Dead wasn’t as suitable for other graphic adventure games based on other media properties, which is supported by personnel claims that excessive focus on the structure of The Walking Dead by the senior leadership stifled creativity at the video game developer.
However, other people have speculated about this particular segment of the video game market not being big enough to support such a huge succession of graphic adventure games, particularly since other video game developers have been getting in on the action without operating under the same creative constraints.
Whatever the case, it is clear that Telltale Games is done. Unfortunately, this means that the fates of various projects remain unknown at the moment, with an excellent example being The Walking Dead: The Final Season, which has already seen the sale of season passes. Currently, there are conflicting reports, but as more information comes out, that is bound to be resolved sooner or later.
