Around 250 people have lost their job after Telltale Games, the studio behind The Walking Dead and Tales from the Borderlands, closed down last week.
According to reports, employees were informed about the closure and told to leave the building within 30 minutes, but they can return today, within a three-hour period, to collect their belongings.
The company made this announcement on Friday:
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 fulfil the company’s obligations to its board and partners. CEO Pete Hawley issued the following statement:
It’s been an 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.
Although not every Telltale release received brilliant reviews, most of their games were very enjoyable; their Walking Dead, Borderlands, and Batman series in particular.
So, what’s going to happen to the projects Telltale was working on, including the next Walking Dead instalment and the upcoming Stranger Things Netflix adaptation?
Emily Grace Buck, a narrative designer who lost her job, took to Twitter to share this information, but that’s not all she revealed:
In direct response to the closure, #TelltaleJobs has been created with the aim of finding work for everyone affected – and it hasn’t taken long for some of the biggest names in gaming to respond.
Ubisoft, Niantic, Blizzard are just three of the many companies reaching out to those who lost their job. Hopefully it won’t until the talented developers grab a new role, but who knows – they might even end up with a better one.
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