The Telltale Games logo
Telltale Games, Inc. was an American independent digital publisher founded in June 2004 as Telltale, Incorporated. Located in San Rafael, California, the studio includes designers formerly employed at LucasArts. It's business model revolved around episodic gaming and digital distribution, and it is best known for its various graphic adventure game series based on popular licensed properties.
Overview[]
Telltale Games was founded in San Rafael, California with the assistance of technology attorney Ira P. Rothken who provided initial seed capital, procured angel investments, and negotiated deals involving Bone, Sam & Max, GameTap, Ubisoft, and others which led to initial revenue, marketing, and development of the core episodic game technology.
History[]
Telltale Games was founded by Kevin Burner, Dan Connors, and Troy Molander. Both were a formerly of group of LucasArts employees. They have been working on Sam & Max: Freelance Police, a sequel to Sam & Max: Hit The Road, but was cancelled on March 2004.
Telltale Texas Hold'em was the first game created by Telltale Games on February 11, 2005, make to test the Telltale Tool, the in-house game engine. Soon, other games were made, such as Bone, based on Jeff Smith's comic book series. They also made CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder.
Bankruptcy[]
On September 21st, 2018, following a lawsuit against the company by the former CEO, Telltale Games was forced to lay off almost every employee. Only 25 of 250 Employees were still in the company. This also means that there will no longer be games produced by them. On November 14th, 2018, Telltale Games filed for bankruptcy, officially closing down the company for good.
Revival[]
On August 28th, 2019, it was announced that LCG Entertainment has purchased many of Telltale Games' assets, reviving as a new company while keeping its original name. Some of the licenses, such as Wolf Among Us and Batman, has been regained as well, although the Minecraft license's status is currently unconfirmed (however, Mojang said that "The Minecraft team currently has no plans to take over Minecraft: Story Mode from Telltale.", which appears that they will no longer be interested in the game ever, on the other hand, if The Wolf Among Us is successful enough, it could boost the "new" Telltale to a position in which they would be able to get the old licenses for their "lost" games, including, but not limited to Minecraft: Story Mode). Thus, Jamie Otilie, the new CEO of Telltale Games have said that some of the former Telltale employees will be given freelance roles. [1]
However, some of the former Telltale employees were skeptical of LCG's approach of this revival, considering the freelance roles that were offered risky. Some of them urged LCG to pay off existing debt to former employees, and some even called for a boycott. [2]
Games[]
Notable titles & series by Telltale include:
- Telltale Texas Hold'em
- Sam & Max Seasons 1, 2, & 3
- Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures
- Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People
- Tales of Monkey Island
- Bone
- Puzzle Agent
- Hector: Badge of Carnage
- CSI: The Video Game
- Law & Order: Legacies
- The Inventory
- Back to the Future: The Game
- Jurassic Park: The Game
- The Walking Dead: The Game Seasons 1, 2, & 3
- The Walking Dead: Michonne
- The Wolf Among Us - Season 1
- Game of Thrones - Season 1
- Tales from the Borderlands
- Minecraft: Story Mode - Season 1
- Minecraft: Story Mode - Season 2
- Batman - the Telltale Series
- Guardians of the Galaxy - the Telltale Series
- Batman - Season 2: The Enemy Within
- The Walking Dead - Season 4: The Final Season
- The Wolf Among Us - Season 2
- The Expanse
Episodic Releases[]
Many of the games that have been developed by Telltale are released episodically. Several episodes, released together in a season, are released periodically through a certain timeframe, often concluding around half a year or so after the initial release.
Sometimes, new seasons of a game also come out, such as The Walking Dead. It usually ends after 2-4 Seasons
Style[]
Telltale, starting with the Walking Dead, has adopted a choice based style rather than a complete point and click adventure game. All of their titles following the Walking Dead Season One have used this system, including Minecraft: Story Mode.
Telltale Tool[]
All of their Post-2014 games are made using the in-house Telltale Tool 2 engine, which uses the Lua scripting language and is multiplatform compatible! (Including MC:SM Season One and Two)