Telltale Games
Telltale Incorporated (trade name: Telltale Games) was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. The company was founded in July 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following LucasArts' decision to leave the adventure game genre. Telltale established itself to focus on adventure games using a novel episodic release schedule over digital distribution, creating its own game engine, the Telltale Tool, to support this. It closed in October 2018 after filing for bankruptcy protection.
This article is about the defunct video game company. For the new company that acquired its assets, see Telltale Games (2018–present).Telltale Games
July 2004
- Kevin Bruner
- Dan Connors
- Troy Molander
October 11, 2018
Telltale Games (2018–present)
- Dan Connors
- (CEO; 2004–2015)
- Kevin Bruner
- (CEO; 2015–2017)
- Pete Hawley
- (CEO; 2017–2018)
Telltale's initial successes were on games using intellectual properties with small but dedicated fan bases, including Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, Homestar Runner, and Bone. Around 2010, the studio gained more lucrative licensing opportunities in more mainstream properties such as Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. Telltale's critical breakout game came in 2012's The Walking Dead, based on the comic book series of the same name. It introduced a more narrative-directed approach that diverged from the standard adventure game "point and click" gameplay. The Walking Dead gave the player the ability to make choices that could affect how future events in the game or its sequels played out, effectively allowing players to craft their own personalized take on the offered story. Nearly all of Telltale's adventure games afterwards featured this player choice-driven approach. The Walking Dead was critically praised and considered to have revitalized the adventure game genre since LucasArts' departure from it in 2004.
Telltale continued to expand with new licensing deals for episodic adventure games over the next few years, including for Minecraft, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman, but the rate of production created a "crunch time" culture behind the scenes, leaving poor company morale, little room for creativity to veer from the formula set by The Walking Dead or improvements on the Telltale Tool. A management shakeup occurred in early 2017, with CEO Bruner stepping down, and Pete Hawley, formerly of Zynga, brought in to fix Telltale's problems. Internal restructuring led to a layoff of 25% of the company's staff in November 2017, along with an emphasis to slow down game production to improve production quality, retire the Telltale Tool for a more standard game engine, and seek other lucrative properties to develop for. This resulted in an early 2018 deal with Netflix in which Telltale would adapt its Minecraft: Story Mode into an interactive program for the streaming service, and Netflix licensing the rights to Telltale for an adventure game based on its show Stranger Things.
In the midst of releasing The Walking Dead: The Final Season, the company was forced to initiate a "majority studio closure" after their last investor had pulled out of funding. Telltale announced on September 21, 2018, that it had let go of all but 25 of its staff as part of this closure, with the remaining skeleton crew completing specific obligations, such as finishing the Minecraft: Story Mode project porting to Netflix. Telltale Games filed for assignment in October 2018. Many assets were later acquired by LCG Entertainment, which revived the Telltale Games name as part of its business in August 2019, retaining many of the company's previous licenses and offering former staff freelance positions.
History[edit]
Foundation and initial growth (2004–2010)[edit]
Telltale Games was founded in San Rafael, California, by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, a group of former LucasArts employees who worked on the studio's adventure games. In March 2004, LucasArts recognized that there were "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" that made adventure games too risky to release, and canceled work on two sequels of previous adventure games, Full Throttle 2 and Sam & Max: Freelance Police, as well as laying off many of those developers.[1] Bruner, Connors and Molander were not among the layoffs, but felt that the change of direction at LucasArts was not favorable, and departed the company later that year to found Telltale Games July 2004.[1][2] The studio opening was announced on October 4.[3][4] The name "Telltale" was selected by Bruner as the three envisioned themselves creating more adventure games but de-emphasizing puzzle elements in favor of narrative aspects, telling a tale to the user.[2] Technology attorney Ira P. Rothken negotiated publishing and licensing deals for the company.[5]
Legacy[edit]
The release of the first season of The Walking Dead in 2012 is considered to have created a resurgence in the adventure game genre, which had been languishing since about 2000.[99][100] Dontnod Entertainment found the episodic approach to storytelling to be an ideal way to present Life Is Strange, and it has allowed them to release supplementary stories within the series in smaller pieces.[101][102] Telltale's approach to branching stories has often been criticized, with choices ultimately having little effect on a game's overall narration, often being summarized as "choices don't matter"; players may make choices to save a character from death early in a game, but only to have that character die later for the game to have a cohesive plot and making the player's effort to save the character meaningless, for example.[103][104][105]
Former employees of Telltale Games have gone on to adapt the narrative aspects of these games into their own products. Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, co-writers of the first season of The Walking Dead, decided to leave to pursue independent game development, founding Campo Santo in 2013 and releasing Firewatch, a critically-praised narrative-driven exploration game. Adam Hines, a writer for Telltale, co-founded Night School Studio in 2014, subsequently releasing Oxenfree which heavily used a "walk and talk" mechanic as part of its gameplay.[102] Four former employees who had left before the studio's closure—Michael Choung (who had briefly spent time at Night School Studio), Dennis Lenart, Nick Herman, and Pierre Shorette—formed AdHoc Studio with the intent to develop live-action interactive video games, following in Telltale's footsteps.[106] AdHoc has since become involved with the new Telltale Games by LCG to help with the narrative and cinematic elements of The Wolf Among Us 2.[107] Telltale co-founder Dan Connors created a new studio in 2019, Skunkape Games, made up of himself and former Telltale employees Jake Rodkin, Randy Tudor, and Jonathan Sgro.[108] Between 2020 and 2024, the studio released remasters of Telltale's Sam & Max games with assistance from other members of the original development team.[109] In 2021, Telltale co-founder Kevin Bruner created a new studio Dramatic Labs with more than twenty former Telltale employees, including former lead writer and creative director Andrew Grant, former lead writer Dan Martin, former creative director Kent Mudle, and former executive producer and creative director Brett Tosti.[110] Dramatic Lab's first game, Star Trek: Resurgence, was released in May 2023.[111]