Telltale employees are stunned by the closure of the company, without compensation

Telltale Games employees were surprised when CEO Pete Hawley announced the closure of the company at a staff-wide meeting. An employee, said a source Kotaku, had worked until 3 am the day before without knowing that the studio was about to leave them and more than 200 other employees left, leaving behind a team of 25 people to complete the work on a final project (Minecraft: Fashion History according to Variety).

The suddenness of the meeting at the company's headquarters in San Rafael, California, has been described Kotaku by a former employee who was there but who wanted to remain anonymous in his search for a job elsewhere in the video game industry. The timing was one of the bad surprises of the meeting. The head of human resources has made a new bomb, the audible shock of employees Telltale: there would be no dismissal.

The fired people were encouraged to apply for unemployment as soon as possible and said their health benefits would be exhausted by the end of the month, nine days later, according to a source and on the social media of the former developers. They had 30 minutes to leave the building.

The absence of separation, a detail that began circulating on Twitter shortly after closing, was one of the most bitter details of a collapse of a gaming studio that has aroused indignation and sympathy among those who play and make games. Telltale existed for over a decade and was deploying a new episode of his series Walking Dead, episode two of a supposed four, scheduled for release tomorrow.

The reason for not paying the severance benefits provided by Hawley, according to KotakuThe source was that it was a business closure rather than partial layoffs, like the 25% discount that hit the studio last November. (A California law, the WARN Act, requires employees to provide 60 days notice for collective redundancies, but allows certain exceptions that might apply to Telltale). until Friday. While the source knew that the future of the company was in question, they never suspected that the end was so close. By the time they returned to their desk, their Google Account had already been disabled.

"None of my sleepless nights or long hours on weekends trying to ship a game on time has earned me a severance package today." tweeted Brandon Cebenka, former Telltale artist, in the hours following the meeting. "Do not work overtime unless you get paid, that's all. Protect your health. Companies do not care about you. Another former employee said he would have liked to take more vacations while they were still employed. "All I want right now is for REST for a few days" they tweeted. "But since we have no compensation and our insurance expires at the end of the month, I do not have that luxury." No employee provided further comments.

Emily Grace Buck, lead designer of several Telltale games, including the most recent The Walking Dead: the final season, spoke publicly about how long was usual at Telltale. "It's true that we usually worked more than 50 hours a week. Sometimes 70-80. Weekends were often expected, "she said. wrote. "We were constantly understaffed. The deadlines were ridiculously tight. Our schedules were so close that we went from one crunch directly to another.

Episode two of The final season was originally scheduled to come out this week on September 25, and Kotaku has already received a preview code for the full game. Telltale has not confirmed that the game will always come out in the same schedule, but that seems likely according to sources reached by Kotaku. Melissa Hutchison, voice actor for Walking Dead heroin Clementine, wrote in a declaration: "To my knowledge, they will publish episode 2 and this will be the case." She also extended her condolences to everyone in Telltale by writing: "I have met and been one of the best friends of my life , and it is priceless.

"I'm in a strange place as the main designer of the episode," Buck wrote"Because I want you to play it!" At the same time, she pointed out that companies do not play games, that the people who work there do it, and that the team that is at the episode 2 will not be there to enjoy it. of any success that he could find. "The team has done a great job, pushed the boundaries and I want you to see it! Send us high note! But I will not tell you to buy it.

This discrepancy between Telltale's commitment to project deadlines and the sudden way the studio broke up this relationship sparked a new debate within the video game industry and the gaming community.

Game Workers Unite, an activist organization seeking to organize the video game industry, launched a scathing letter on Saturday in response to the circumstances in which Telltale employees were fired. "The leaders of Telltale are incompetent. They are farmers. They knew it was going to happen and did not warn anyone, "the letter said. "Unionization can not fix Telltale after the fact, but it could have prevented so much damage to countless workers by guaranteeing benefits such as severance pay and health care that lasted from one job to another. l & # 39; other. "

According to Buck, at least one employee had joined Telltale just one week before the closure and had moved across the country to do so. Another was a foreign national in the country with a work visa, who must now leave "in a few days". Even if no licensee is dismissed, contract workers who are not full-time will not even be able to collect unemployment.

Telltale Games did not respond to several requests for comments.

At the meeting on Friday during which the company's closure was announced, Hawley attributed the fate of the studio in part to the last seasons of The dead who walk do not meet sales expectations, according to the anonymous source present who spoke to Kotaku. Hawley echoed this feeling in his public remarks later in the day, in which he said that if the studio had released some of its best games in 2018, this did not translate into adequate revenues.

Following the financial and critical success of The Walking Dead: season 1 In 2012, Telltale had grown and started working on an increasing number of licensed games, including The wolf among We based on The fables BD, a The iron Throne adaptation and Batman: the Telltale series. This increased workload, led by Kevin Bruner, co-founder of the studio, has resulted in increasingly difficult working conditions The edge reported extensively earlier this year. according to The edge, the teams would work overtime to reach the development milestones, something that Buck also corroborated in his tweetsonly for their work to be mocked at review meetings with Bruner, which would need to be re-launched without revising the development schedule adequately to allow for more time.

Hawley, formerly of Zynga, replaced Bruner in September 2017. One of his first major acts was a restructuring period in which 90 employees were fired in November. At the same time, the morale of the development teams has apparently improved. A source said Kotaku Following Bruner's departure, projects remained more frequent and shipped in a form that was more like what had been decided and agreed upon in the initial stages of planning.

In a statement last Friday, Bruner said he was saddened by the loss of jobs and the studio he helped create. He also praised his own leadership. "Before I left, we were able to avoid massive layoffs and managed to make sure we still had work for everyone," he wrote. "We worked hard and sometimes it seemed like we had more than we could handle, but we stayed together and went from front to back." Bruner sued Telltale for what he claims to be his interference in the sale.

In addition to feelings of frustration, regret and, in some cases, exploitation stories that employees have posted online or in conversations with Kotakusocial media also benefited from a tremendous surge of support for those affected. Two hashtags circulated on social networks following the news: #TelltaleJobs and #TelltaleMemories. The first is filled with colleagues encouraging each other to work and share messages for new jobs in the video game industry. The other offered former Telltale employees and game fans an opportunity to celebrate their work.

Some former employees relayed interesting stories about how parts of the Telltale games came to life. "When we asked for Rhys animation by disabling Hyperion monitors Borderlands Tales Episode 5, the animation requested was worded as follows: "Rhys detaches the monitors during wrote narrative designer Molly Maloney. What the team brought back is literally Rhys who returned the instructors as he passed, one of the funniest moments of the series.

Other Telltale employees shared informal in-game animations that they did for fun, like this one. Walking Dead the protagonist Lee Everett launches a hilarious crisis about an empty cupboard, or this video of Lee pick up bananas.

Others said how much they liked the teams they were part of at the studio and the little memories of their stay. "Has any one written about the time when the Telltale Trophy broke the weight of all the Walking Dead awards?" wrote a former employee. "I think only a small late-night movie crew was there to wrap up an episode of Wolf – we decided it was an omen and we went home shortly afterwards."

Meanwhile, some players have used the hashtag #TelltaleMemories to talk about what games mean to them. "I found Telltale Games at the lowest of my life," wrote one person. "S1 of The Walking Dead" has really helped me through the death of a loved one. This has taught me a lot about acceptance and compassion. I've been a fan of every TWD season and Batman since."