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| Topic | Telltale employees shocked by closure; will not receive severance (long article) |
| Hayame Zero 09/24/18 3:41:35 PM #1: | https://kotaku.com/telltale-employees-left-stunned-by-company-closure-no-1829272139 Telltale Games employees were surprised when CEO Pete Hawley announced the closure of the company at a staff-wide meeting. One employee, a source told Kotaku, had been working until 3 AM the night before with no inkling that the studio was about to let them and over 200 other employees go, leaving behind a skeleton crew of 25 to finish off work on a final project (Minecraft: Story Mode according to Variety). The suddenness of the meeting at the companys San Rafael, California headquarters was described to Kotaku by a former employee who was there but wanted to remain anonymous as they pursue looking for work elsewhere in the video game industry. The timing was just one of the meetings unwelcome surprises. The head of human resources dropped another bombshell, to the audible shock of Telltale employees: there would be no severance. Those laid off were encouraged to begin applying for unemployment as soon as possible and were told their health benefits would run out at the end of the month, just nine days later, according to a source and to social media postings by ex-developers. They had 30 minutes to leave the building. The lack of severance, a detail that began circulating on Twitter shortly after the shutdown, was one of the bitterest details in a game studio collapse that has sparked outrage and sympathy among those who play and make games. Telltale had been around for more than a decade and was in the midst of rolling out a new episode of its signature series about the Walking Dead, episode two of a supposed four, planned for release tomorrow. The rationale for failing to pay out severance provided by Hawley, according to Kotakus source, was that this was a business closure rather than partial layoffs, like the 25% downsizing that hit the studio last November. (A California law, the Cal-WARN Act, requires employees provide 60 day notice for mass layoffs but allows some exceptions that could have applied to Telltale.) That wasnt much consolation, however, to the people who had been working long days leading up to Friday. While the source knew the companys future was in question, they never suspected the end was so close at hand. By the time they got back to their desks, their work Google accounts had already been disabled. None of my sleepless nights or long hours on weekends trying to ship a game on time got me severance today, tweeted now-former Telltale character artist Brandon Cebenka in the hours following the meeting. Dont work overtime unless youre paid for it, yall. Protect your health. Companies dont care about you. Another ex-employee said that theyd wished they taken more vacation time while they still had a job. All I want right now is to REST for a couple of days, they tweeted. But since we got no severance and our insurance expires at the end of the month, I dont have that luxury. Neither employee provided further comment. Emily Grace Buck, a lead designer on several Telltale games, including its most recent one, The Walking Dead: The Final Season, spoke publicly about how long hours were customary at Telltale. Its true we usually worked 50 plus hour weeks. Sometimes 70-80. Weekends were often expected, she wrote. We were constantly understaffed. Deadlines were ludicrously tight. Our schedules were so close we went from one crunch directly into another. --- ...I think I'm done here... ... Copied to Clipboard! |
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