Current Events > Telltale employees shocked by closure; will not receive severance (long article)

(+) Yeah! (+)

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.
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Episode two of The Final Season was originally slated to release this week on September 25, and Kotaku has already received a preview code for it. Telltale has not confirmed that the game will still come out on the same schedule, but it seems likely according to the sources reached by Kotaku. Melissa Hutchison, voice actor for Walking Dead heroine Clementine, wrote in a statement: To my knowledge, they will release Episode 2 and then that will be it. She also gave her condolences to everyone at Telltale, writing, I have met and made some of the very best friends I will have in this life, and that is priceless.

Im in a weird place as lead episode designer, Buck wrote, because I want you to play it! At the same time, she pointed out that companies dont make games, the people who work at them do, and now the team who made episode two wont be around to benefit from any success it might find. The team did awesome work, pushed boundaries, and I want you to see it! Send us off on a high note! But Im not gonna tell you to buy it.

This disconnect between the commitment of Telltale employees to the studios grueling project deadlines and the sudden way in which the studio severed that relationship has inspired a renewed debate within the video game industry and gaming community about crunch, workers rights, and unionization.

Game Workers Unite, an activist organization that seeks to unionize the video game industry, put out a scathing letter on Saturday in response to the circumstances by which Telltales employees were let go. The executives at Telltale are incompetent. They are exploitative. They knew that this was coming and failed to warn anybody, the letter alleged. Unionization cant fix Telltale after the fact, but it could have prevented so much of the damage to countless workers lives by ensuring benefits like severance pay and healthcare that lasts from job to job.

According to Buck, at least one employee had joined Telltale only one week before the closure and had relocated across the country to do so. Another was a foreign national in the country on a work visa who must now leave within a few days. While none of those laid off are being given severance, contract workers who werent full time wont even be able to collect unemployment.

Telltale Games did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

It goes on a little longer. That's all I wanted to copy and paste.
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Ugh. Bro. Im on my phone. You cant even highlight any relevant parts.
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Hayame Zero posted...

Dont work overtime unless youre paid for it, yall.

no shit
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Yea they are right about not killing yourselves for a company to just fire you

Fuck that
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AlephZero posted...

Hayame Zero posted...

Dont work overtime unless youre paid for it, yall.

no shit

Unfortunately, thats not how it works in the game industry. Non paid overtime is a big thing. Youre expected to crunch
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Hayame Zero posted...

The team did awesome work, pushed boundaries, and I want you to see it! Send us off on a high note! But Im not gonna tell you to buy it.

Rofl, you better not, it's a fucking incomplete "game".
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spudger posted...

Yea they are right about not killing yourselves for a company to just fire you

Fuck that

That's actually quite common in gaming. Actual grunts that do the work are treated like dogshit.
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Didnt they have some sjw bs happen a bit ago? Where they only wanted left leaning females to apply for them or something?
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I'd like to know how big of a golden parachute Hawley's going to walk away with.
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WilliamPorygon posted...

I'd like to know how big of a golden parachute Hawley's going to walk away with.

If they're filling bankruptcy then he gets a bedsheet with some holes in it.
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Hayame Zero posted...

They had 30 minutes to leave the building.

How gracious
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Vyrulisse posted...

spudger posted...

Yea they are right about not killing yourselves for a company to just fire you

Fuck that

That's actually quite common in gaming. Actual grunts that do the work are treated like dogshit.

Yep it needs to change
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It sucks they now have no job, but surely they don't actually expect severance when the company is going out of business. Severance paid from what?
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Tyranthraxus posted...

WilliamPorygon posted...

I'd like to know how big of a golden parachute Hawley's going to walk away with.

If they're filling bankruptcy then he gets a bedsheet with some holes in it.

Well that's how it's supposed to work, but this is Capitalist America
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Blue_Inigo posted...

AlephZero posted...

Hayame Zero posted...

Dont work overtime unless youre paid for it, yall.

no shit

Unfortunately, thats not how it works in the game industry. Non paid overtime is a big thing. Youre expected to crunch

That's how it works in every salaried position.

I don't get paid for anything I do overtime.
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Frostshock posted...

It sucks they now have no job, but surely they don't actually expect severance when the company is going out of business. Severance paid from what?

The game they worked on last
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Nice to see other developers reaching out I guess. I just hope it's not just PR.


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Vyrulisse posted...

Nice to see other developers reaching out I guess. I just hope it's not just PR.

It's to their benefit to do it. There are going to be some talented people desperate for a job, they can pick up the top 5% or whatever and get a nice PR boost on the side.
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I'm sad that they closed their studio and everything, but I feel awful for their employees. That has to be a terrible situation for anyone.
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You can't sue the CEO or something?
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Honestly surprised. They pumped out so many games I thought they were doing very well for themselves.
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This is why I bailed on the idea of game development when I was still in college. The industry is just too volatile.
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Vyrulisse posted...

Honestly surprised. They pumped out so many games I thought they were doing very well for themselves.

Those games were basically all funded by TWD Season 1.

They bought licenses for other games, like Batman, which were extremely expensive, and then after making the game, it didn't sell well enough to recoup the money for the license. Had they instead made original games rather than license-chasing, they probably wouldn't have been in the position they're in now.

That's an upper executive management problem, though. Nothing to do with the devs who got shafted despite trying their best.
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Doe posted...

You can't sue the CEO or something?

Wat.

I remember seeing tweets from the wife of that guy who was hired and then laid off within four days. It was kind of funny in a sad way. She kept listing examples to show how absurd it was. Unfortunately the only one I remember is, "I shaved my legs the day he was hired and they're still good."
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Bump
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Hayame Zero posted...

https://kotaku.

*topic list*
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Pathetic. Working in the video game industry sounds completely awful. It's a wonder so many games still manage to end up being good.
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That sucks, but I can't really cry for them.

Most workers don't get a severance package when they're laid off. That is a luxury.

Also, apparently Telltale may be facing a class action lawsuit over this mass layoff.

http://archive.is/E5YVF
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And since most are contracted workers they cant apply for unemployement either with out severance they are really fucked if they had no savings
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