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Man: "THIS IS CNN BREAKING NEWS"
SPECIAL NEWS REPORTING! This has just come in.
The Walking Dead developer, Telltale, hit with devastating layoffs as part of a 'majority studio closure.'
Telltale games is SHUTTING DOWN!
I'm Poppy Harlow, and you're watching the special news reported [report] of Pew News. The most trusted news source of all...ᵘⁿᶦᵛᵉʳˢᵉ
[Pew News intro music]
Thank you for tuning in live on this special news report.
Telltale Games is ShUtTiN dOWN
They made a statement saying;
"A small group of 25 employees staying on to fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners"
Telltale Games which, of course, has made such popular games, like, 'The Walking Dead' and 'The Wolf Among Us'
and this means a layoff of 225 people
That's a lotta people.
But they "Will fulfill the obligations to its board and partners."
They JUST released 'Walking Dead: The Final Season',
Episode 2 is supposed to come out next week!
But apparently, they're not gonna finish it.
We're not gonna get the end of Clementine; the final story.
Most likely they're not gonna release Episode 3 and 4.
Uh- what will they release, however, to appease their board and partners?
MiNeCrEfT
Yea, that's right, Netflix "Minecraft: The Story"
At least we will have that. Thank you, Telltale.
So what happens to everyone that bought The Walking Dead Final Season?
AEHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH no
A lot of people were very sad and upset about this.
Obviously, it's a big problem. A lot of people lost their job; that's never something to be celebrated.
Brandon, who is one of the developers on Telltale said *reads tweet*
He's not getting even a severage(severance?) package
people are just let go uh- out of nowhere
Apparently, people even- uh -relocated cross-country and they were hiring people 2 weeks before this announcement.
ʰᵒʷ ᶜʳᵃᶻʸ ᶦˢ ᵗʰᵃᵗˀ
Way to keep people in the dark.
The good news out of all of this is that a lot of big companies have reached out and said, "Hey, don't worry, we got you."
Blizzard reached out, "Anyone that is looking for a new job."
Twitch reached out, same sentiment.
DICE reached out , Paradox reached out, Epic Games reached out, Naughty Dog made a statement,
HALO, Ubisoft, PLAYER UNKNOWN
All these, big, big developing companies are opening their doors and uh- that's great.
I think- Yes, it sucks that a lot of people got- lost their job,
but if this is how they treat their employees anyway, then I'm sure they'll be better off
I know it sucks now but-
Telltale's Walking Dead: Season One was HUGE for my channel,
a big chapter for my career, even.
When we played it, it was one of the most fun things I've ever done because we got to share this amazing experience-
with a huge pack of people that enjoyed it an equal amount.
And just sharing that as a group was incredible...
and being so invested in the characters that in the end you were even crying (oh we were the ones crying, Felix?)
And i think a lot of people were so emotionally invested as well that they did the same thing.
I'm super thankful for that, and i will never forget that.
*stutters*
I'm so glad I had that experience
And even Season Two, I thought, was great; I loved it as well.
as a fan of the- uhh- the series- to see it go down like this doesn't make me sad, it makes me really, really disappointed
Coz I'm mostly critical of things , not bec- out of nowhere, but because i know they can do better.
I knew they can do better than this.
That's why I'm so... I'm upset. I'm pissed off.
Even 2 years ago, when i played The Walking Dead: Michonne, this was my reaction.
*sigh*
*music*
I'm really disappointed; I think you could tell already; very very very very disappointed.
Why was I so disappointed?
Well because the whole experience was completely lackluster- in -compared with what they did in Season One.
Do I expect them to top what they did originally every single time?
Absolutely not.
But to constantly introduce new characters over and over and over,
to then just be met with an ending that felt like- it -nothing really mattered.
I- it's upsetting.
Game of Thrones- I didn't even bother finishing.
Batman- I didn't even continue playing because I wasn't invested enough.
They released so many games; two seasons of Minecraft, Walking dead Michonne, Walking dead-all the DLCs, Guardians of the Galaxy
it ruined your eagerness to play more,
which is such a shame because they did do really good games.
And I know it sounds a bit- uhhh -childish to have that sentiment,
but I think a lot of people agree with it.
They've just made too many games instead of focusing on the really good ones.
[The] Wolf Among Us was a series a lot of people were excited about;
that was *five* years ago,
and now we will *never* see it because of all these bad decisions.
They kept adding new characters to everything.
How- how many characters from the original season of the walking dead-
which everyone played; so many people played.
How many are left in the last season, just Season Three.
ONE. It's Clementine.
Everyone else is gone.
How many people lasted from The Walking Dead DLCs
ZERO.
How many people from Walking Dead: Michonne-
all those characters that spent so many times trying to pick the right choices for-
How many of those characters are in Season Three?
NONE
They just keep giving you more and more characters and after a while, you just don't care.
Combine that with way too many games,
You-you're just not invested anymore.
Their engine has not been improved on until now.
It's such a shame as well because it seems like they're finally picking up their mistakes now,
when it's clearly too late.
Their engine is incredibly buggy
The lip-syncing is terrible, which takes you out of the immersion.
The graphic will just drop out of nowhere.
You'll see characters appearing in the background an disappearing
And just- uhh - just awkward movements in general.
It's just bad.
And then finally, the illusions of a choice
When you play TWD the first text that appears is, *reads what's on screen*
This is... not true.
It's simply not true.
I think most people know by now that when you play through a Telltale game, the ending will be exactly the same, no matter what choices you make.
But- people didn't know this when they played Season One.
You had that illusion of that you had a choice.
When it said that, "Clementine feels hurt," and people said "Restart the entire game."
I think people share that sentiment.
They were like, "I really want to get the best outcome. I really care about these characters, so I'm going to try my best to really pick the best outcome
But the more games they pump out, the more you realize it's just the same ending no matter what.
And sometimes it was so transparent that you didn't even have to keep playing for more than a second to realize that your choice didn't even matter.
In game: "Do something!"
"Stop!"
"Dammit Zachary, Now who is taking things too far!"
"What, I didn't- I- I-" "Outside, now"
Pewds: Well, that was completely pointless.
It made no difference anyway.
This is a reoccurring theme through Telltale games, and the more you notice it, the more it's impossible to miss.
Now, Telltale has dealt with this criticism for a long time and a lot of people have different opinions about it.
Some- from PC Gamer, for example, saying *reads on screen*
While I saw other articles, previously criticizing telltale, saying that, "Telltale needs to add consequence to out actions,
so I can sit on the edge of my seat again, and make heart-wrenching decisions that matter.
We know what actually the majority thinks because now they're shutting down coz not enough people want to buy their games anymore.
Because people don't feel that same way and engagement with them.
And we know it's not impossible to execute these interactive choices of [in] games.
We've seen it now in Detroit: Become Human, where how many different outcomes- you get to see all of them.
You understand that you can play the game very differently
If a character doesn't actually like you- if Hank will remember that- he will actually remember that,
and it will change the story of the game and the outcome of the ending that you get.
So a lot of people had been saying on twitter- blaming let's players for the fact that the company is shutting down,
which is not true. You have a lot of story games- uhh, being more popular than ever.
You have "Stranger Things," (lmao) for example, which literally saved the company by releasing a game in a very much same style as TWD.
You have Quantic Dream doing a purely story based game, doing great.
And even if a game is a story with no interaction whatsoever, like visual novels,
it will still drive attention to the game and people will still want to experience it purely by themselves.
I think the people that just decide to watch it aren't gonna buy the game, regardless
So it doesn't really matter, you're not adding a sale to these people, but you're not taking one away anyway.
I found TWD through other let's players,
and I think they know that it was big for their game- that people played it online.
Some other games apparently were really good, like Batman and Borderlands.
People said that those were incredible.
But all these bad games like Walking Dead: Michonne just ruins it for everyone.
And the thing is, they made games before Walking Dead.
It was just that Walking Dead was their big hit.
That's what really made them take off, but it was also technically their downfall.
I'm so confident things could've been differently [different].
And that's why I'm not sad. I'm just disappointed.
I don't know who makes the decisions in the studio, but it seems like they have all kinds of strange internal conflict.
The former CEO apparently sued Telltale Games or tried to.
The developers saying that they knew about all the issues and all the criticisms that I probably already brought up.
They tried to do the best, but most likely it's not the developer's fault, it's the people making the decisions of the company, the company itself.
So I hope all of the developers can find new homes; I'm sure they will.
It seems like a lot of people reached out, which I'm very happy about.
I'm sad; I'm let down that we won't see the end of Clementine.
I think that's such a... such a shame.
What a waste.
I am incredibly thankful for what Walking dead did for my channel- that Telltale Games.
And it was such a great experience that I'm very very thankful for.
And to everyone that watched me playing those games- Thank you for sharing those memories with me.
I think it was incredible.
And the ones that experienced it, probably felt the same way.
And I think that's why I'm so emotionally invested into this.
That's why I'm so upset even though for most people, they don't even care.
I don't know. What do you guys think about this? What's your take on it?
I wanted to summarize everything as good as I can because- uh- that's what I like to do.
Hope it was enjoyable. I'll see you guys tomorrow. Bye~
*outro*