Telltale Games was an American video game developer founded by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors, and Troy Molander in 2004.
The company established itself as an adventure game developer, with its game engine supporting an episodic release schedule.
Perhaps the most iconic Telltale game was the 2012 titleThe Walking Dead, which introduced a more narrative-directed approach.
In other words, players could make choices that affect future events in the game or even how sequels are eventuated.
The company continued to prosper in the following years, releasing episodic interpretations of Guardians of the Galaxy, Batman, Game of Thrones, and Minecraft.
Despite a winning formula, Telltale Games declared bankruptcy in October 2018 after laying off around 90% of its workforce a month earlier.
Mismanagement
The success of The Walking Dead was a company maker, giving Telltale Games the necessary clout to work with companies like Marvel and HBO.
However, this success would prove to be a double-edged sword.
Developers went on a relentless quest to add the charm of The Walking Dead into all the company’s future games.
Essentially, this was stipulated by the major license holders that struck deals with Telltale Games.
But the company board of directors also put pressure on the company to replicate the success of The Walking Dead in other titles.
A preoccupation with what had worked in the past caused the company to develop games based on tired and overused concepts.
As a result, creativity and experimentation were stifled.
Outdated software
Telltale Games developed a proprietary game engine known as the Telltale Tool.
Though initially successful, the engine eventually became obsolete, and the company refused to upgrade or replace it.
For one, the Telltale Tool did not have a dedicated physics system.
This required that the elements in an action system be created by hand, which took vast amounts of time and money away from critical operations.
The lack of a dedicated physics system also caused characters to appear rigid and lifeless, with some games plagued with bugs, erased saves, and purchases that didn’t carry through.
According to co-founder Kevin Bruner, there were internal discussions around upgrading to Unreal, but the transition was considered too disruptive.
Belated attempts in June 2018 to replace the Telltale Tool with Unity were a case of too little, too late.
Competition and market positioning
The games industry evolved in 2013 with the release of the Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
Both platforms offered superior graphics, and titles such as God of War and The Last of Us arguably told better stories to boot.
This put Telltale Games in a predicament.
It competed with lesser-known studios producing comparable games with much lower operating costs.
But it competed against larger players with more manpower and superior development engines.
Stuck in the middle, so to speak, consumers grew weary of the lack of evolution in Telltale Games titles.
Critics also suggested the company had a fundamental misunderstanding of the market.
For example, its interpretation of Guardians of the Galaxy featured dark themes even though the comic and movie franchise has always been associated with comedy.
Telltale Games also developed a more sophisticated version of Minecraft for teenagers and young adults – despite the game enjoying the most success with children.
Company culture
Some former employees also criticized the company culture of Telltale Games after Bruner took over as CEO.
Bruner was known to micromanage employees and criticize them in public.
He also discarded many of the submissions they had made, which resulted in employees having to work 100-hour weeks just to meet deadlines.
The toxic management style of Bruner also resulted in The Walking Deadproject leads Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin quitting the company.
The departure of this crucial personnel exacerbated the lack of creativity and enthusiasm for subsequent releases.
Key takeaways:
Telltale Games was an American video game developer founded by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors, and Troy Molander in 2004. Telltale Games declared bankruptcy in October 2018 despite releasing multiple successful games.
Telltale Games management was preoccupied with the success of The WalkingDead, which could not be replicated in subsequent, unrelated releases. Outdated development software also caused inefficiencies and games riddled with bugs.
Telltale Games suffered competition from smaller and larger players, a fact made worse by the company not understanding its audience or market position.
The play-to-earn model is a business model allowing gamers to farm or collect cryptocurrency and NFTs that can be sold on the market. This model has become a standard already in the “crypto gaming industry,” where blockchain-based games enable token economics to kick in as an incentive mechanism at scale for users to play and be engaged.
A free-to-play is a model that became particularly popular in gaming. Free-to-play is also commonly referred to as free-to-start. For instance, companies like Epic Games have launched popular games like Fortnite’s Battle Royale, which had ingrained a free-to-play model. This is a model that has become extremely popular in the digital age of gaming.
Epic Games is a gaming company that develops, publishes, and distributes games. It comprises the Unreal Engine, making money through licensing agreements with developers and creators. Its games (like Fortnite) mostly follow a free-to-play model on PC and an in-app purchase model on the digitalmarketplace. And its storefront Epic Games Store, taking a 12% cut on games’ sales.
Epic Games owns Fortnite; Tim Sweeney, co-founder and CEO, is the major shareholder, with more than 50% of the company. And Tencent with a stake of over 40% of the company. Epic Games develops, publishes, and distributes games. It comprises the Unreal Engine, making money through licensing agreements with developers and creators. While Fortnite primarily follows a free-to-play model with up-sells and digital in-app purchases.
WeWork is a commercial real estate company providing shared workspaces for tech start-ups and other enterprise services. It was founded by Adam Neumann and Miguel McKelvey in 2010. WeWork’s business model was built on complex arrangements between the company and its landlords. There were also several conflicts of interest between Neumann and WeWork, which provided the impetus for the failed IPO and significant devaluation that would follow.
Netscape – or Netscape Communications Corporation – was a computer services company best known for its web browser. The company was founded in 1994 by Marc Andreessen and James H. Clark as one of the internet’s first and most important start-ups. The Netscape Navigator web browser was released in 1995 and became the browser of choice for the users of the time. By November 1998, it had been acquired by AOL, which tried unsuccessfully to revive the popularity of the web browser. Ten years later, Netscape was shut down entirely.
Musically, or Musical.ly as it is officially known, was a Chinese social media platform headquartered in Shanghai. After passing 200 million users in May 2017, the platform was shut down by tech company ByteDance in November. After its acquisition, ByteDance suggested Musical.ly would continue to operate as a standalone platform. Company representatives noted that it would be able to leverage ByteDance’s AI technology and enormous reach in the Chinese market. Musically was ultimately absorbed into TikTok in June 2018, with the app no longer available in August of the same year. Existing users were offered technical support and several new features as a sweetener.
Vine was an American video social networking platform with a focus on looping video clips of six seconds in length, founded by Dom Hofmann, Rus Yusupov, and Colin Kroll in 2012 to help people capture casual moments in their lives and share them with their friends. Vine went on to become a massively popular platform. Yet by 2016, Twitter discontinued the mobile app, allowing users to view or download content on the Vine website. It then announced a reconfigured app allowing creators to share content to a connected Twitter account only. This marked the end of Vine.
CNN Plus was a video streaming service and offshoot of CNN’s cable TV news network that was launched on March 29, 2022. The service was ultimately shut down just one month after it was launched. Trouble began for the platform when parent company WarnerMedia merged with Discovery. The latter was unimpressed with paltry viewer data and, with $55 billion in debt to clear, was not interested in funding CNN+ moving forward. Other contributing factors to CNN Plus’s demise include a lack of compelling content and streaming service market saturation.
Clubhouse is a social app that allows thousands of people to communicate with each other in audio chat rooms. At one point, the company was worth $4 billion and boasted users such as Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. Clubhouse declined because it rode the wave of pandemic lockdowns and suffered when people resumed their normal routines. The decision to remove the invite-only feature also caused a rapid influx of new members and removed any exclusivity. Clubhouse management also failed to define a business model and was unaware of the components of a successful social media site.
Sean Parker is an American entrepreneur most associated with the music-sharing platform Napster. Parker founded Napster with childhood friend Shawn Fanning, and the service was launched in June 1999 while the pair were still teenagers. Napster’s ultimate demise in 2001 is well documented. Parker was forced to step down as Facebook president in 2005 after an arrest for drug possession in North Carolina. Still, he retained a significant shareholding and informal involvement with the company. He then worked with Peter Thiel at his venture capital firm for a time and then moved into philanthropic efforts.
Gennaro is the creator of FourWeekMBA, which reached about four million business people, comprising C-level executives, investors, analysts, product managers, and aspiring digital entrepreneurs in 2022 alone | He is also Director of Sales for a high-tech scaleup in the AI Industry | In 2012, Gennaro earned an International MBA with emphasis on Corporate Finance and Business Strategy.
