Telltale Games Has Laid Off Staff

gameranx.com:

The tale of Telltale Games is much more than just a game studio that fell on hard times and had to rebuild itself. It’s a tale of a company that, at one point, had some of the most unique narrative-driven titles in the world and yet also had one of the most abusive in-house cultures in the world. Back in 2018, they had such an oppressive regime going on that they basically shut down the entire studio in a single day without taking care of any of the workers who had slaved away on their titles. They were rebuilt and seemed to be coming back strong, and now, it seems to be happening again.

But don’t take our word for it, cinematic artist Jonah Huang had worked for both “versions” of Telltale Games, and yet on Twitter yesterday, he revealed a hard truth that he and many others on staff at the “reborn” company had been laid off and that they had NDA’s that wouldn’t let them “cause any harm” to the company after they left. But he found a loophole by talking about his being let go, and rallied the gaming community to unionize:

This is a sore subject, but I feel it necessary to add to the gaming layoff news: Telltale laid most of us off early September. Status of TWAU2, I can't say (NDA).

Now, I focus on what matters to me—my own game, and the following words:

Games industry, we must UNIONIZE.

1/5

Later on, he stated: “This is a departure from what I usually post, which is just pixel art / stuff about my game. But this is extremely important to me, as someone that genuinely cares about the people who works in games. I hate seeing abuse and exploitation continue. Telltale gave me a good deal this time around, but still, it ended the same way most jobs in games end: a layoff, not a retirement. I ask my fellow game devs to fight for