The history repeats itself: Is Telltale Games heading towards bankruptcy again?

The company has not denied the employees’ accusations that held them responsible, but it has looked for the typical reason to get away with it and that really means nothing: the famous “current market conditions.”

You might be thinking while reading this headline: “Telltale Games? Didn’t they close five years ago?” The answer is yes, but also no: two months after the closure of Telltale Games, another company specializing in graphic adventure game development was created, also named… Telltale Games. And it turns out, this new underlying company isn’t doing well either, because they have just laid off a significant portion of their team.

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The game among us

The company has not denied the accusations made by the employees holding them responsible, but they have found the typical excuse to get away with it, one that doesn’t really mean anything: the famous “current market conditions.” However, to reassure some unscrupulous gamers, they have also made it clear that their games currently in development will continue. They may have destroyed a few lives, but you can still look forward to ‘The Wolf Among Us 2’; everything is going smoothly.

It was Jonah Huang, a cinematics artist who came from the original Telltale, who spilled the beans on Twitter, stating that he signed “an agreement not to harm Telltale’s business as part of my severance. But I have legal permission to talk about being laid off, and this statement is not an attempt to cause harm or trouble for the company.” In the midst of massive layoffs in the world of video games, this revelation has hit like a boiling pot of oil, realizing that practically no one is spared from the cuts.

Huang took the opportunity to make it clear that “I don’t want Telltale to fail. I genuinely want to see it succeed. Telltale offered me a good salary this time, but it ended the same way as most jobs in the industry: a layoff, not a retirement.” Meanwhile, the company, known for games like ‘The Walking Dead‘ and ‘The Wolf Among Us,’ has announced that their “commitment to storytelling and exploring new ways to do so remains the same.”

The public’s response has been mixed, pending more information: some believe they did the right thing if they had no other choice, while others think every layoff should be met with joining a union and fighting back. The United States is at a crucial moment in its labor history right now. We’ll see how it all unfolds.

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The creator of Fables has said “enough” and has made his work public domain: we explain the soap opera to you

The creator of Fables has decided to definitively break with DC Comics after years of rudeness, releasing his work… and confronting the company

When working for a multinational corporation, there’s always a risk of losing control over your work. In the end, you depend on the good faith of the other party involved because, unfortunately, the law isn’t equally applied to everyone. A gigantic company can afford to spend years in legal battles, while an ordinary person cannot. This means that in the face of any issues with a large multinational, most of the time, workers have only two options: remain silent or take actions outside the legal system. This is especially true in a litigious country like the United States.

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That has been the case for Bill Willingham, the creator of the comic book series Fables. As the creator and writer of this series that began in 2002 and is still ongoing, he blended characters from fairy tales like Snow White and the Big Bad Wolf with the real New York, where they had to conceal their appearance and abilities from the rest of the world. This comic book series led to the creation of The Wolf Among Us, the popular video game by Telltale. Today, Willingham has made a public statement announcing that he is relinquishing the intellectual property rights of his work to the public domain.

The reason behind this decision is that DC Comics executives have been imposing increasingly abusive conditions on him, to the point where their relationship deteriorated so much that he saw no other way out. Unable to engage in a legal battle against the company, he has decided that, at the age of 67, it’s more worthwhile for Fables to be owned by everyone than to try to defeat a giant like DC Comics in the courts.

Willingham is thus denouncing the fact that DC’s current executives believe they can do whatever they want with the property without considering its authors. He uses The Wolf Among Us as an example, where not only have they not paid him royalties for the licensing of his work to Telltale Games, but they have also not consulted him on the changes and trauma introduced by the game in relation to the comics.

The Wolf Among Us 2: A Telltale Series is scheduled for release in 2024 for PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC, and Mac OS. Meanwhile, Willingham has stated that he has read the script that they tried to hide from him for two years and that even if he has put his work into the public domain, he will continue to fight to get the money they owe him. Something we can only applaud.

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