Telltale Games Lays Off Staff Due To "Market Conditions"

The Walking Dead poster

Image Source: Fanatical

Telltale Games, (known for The Walking Dead episodic adventures), might be in hot water. The majority of the video game studio’s staff were laid off at the beginning of September with little to no warning. In a statement made via social media, the company blamed market conditions. However, the dismissals have coincided with Telltale Games' acquisition of UK-based studio Flavourworks. But maybe that’s just a massive coincidence.

Former employee Jonah Huang is calling for the gaming industry to unionize after a string of studios (Naughty Dog, Microsoft, The Embracer Group, Unity, etc) have gone through similar cuts. This isn’t the first time that Telltale has given a large percentage of their staff marching orders. As recently as 2017, CEO Pete Hawley laid off 25% of the creative talent, and then again just a year later, it let go all but 25 of its staff.  During these tumultuous years, Telltale acquired the licensing to many top-shelf names such as Game of Thrones, Minecraft, and Stranger Things, but because of the disputes and lack of staff, few were made.

As a result of Telltale's current troubles, many of the games in development are now in limbo, including the highly anticipated The Wolf Among Us 2. This begs the question, if not the nearly completed follow-up to its most popular game, what does the studio intend to release?

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