Skybound Games to Continue Development of The Walking Dead The Final Season | Aims to hire Orig Devs

OH shit lets fucking go

Hopefully they get their severance

Hope they do a good job.

Hell yeah scab workers

TheInfinityGauntlet said:

OH shit lets fucking go

Hopefully they get their severance

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They wouldn't be in this position to begin with if they could...

TheInfinityGauntlet said:

OH shit lets fucking go

Hopefully they get their severance

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I don't think this deal has anything to do with the employees who were already fired.

It's cool that the story (of the game) is getting some closure though.

Awesome news. I am glad that we will get to see the proper ending of Clementine's saga.

I hope the deal involves hiring on as much of the team as possible (out of the ones who are both willing and still able to do it).

If memory serves they did a rather good TWD strategy game on mobile years back.

Horseticuffs said:

If memory serves they did a rather good TWD strategy game on mobile years back.

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The owner released pretty good comics about TWD once

This is good

MassiveNights said:

The owner released pretty good comics about TWD once

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I heard the comics were so good that they made a TV show based on them, and an episodic game series set in the same world. The more you know!

I hope TT developers get hired to work on it

LEEEETTTTTTSSSSS GGGGOOOOOO!!!! Just saw the tweet :D

cool news. hate when things can't get a proper ending

They're still working out the details of how this might work, also they aren't quite sure what's going to happen with folks who pre-ordered the whole thing. (But I bet they honor it)

It looks like Skybound have been responsible for the mobile ports of other TellTale Walking Dead Games, so they should be pretty familiar with porting and adapting TT's work. Hopefully they will be able to do the final episodes without huge delays.

Dancrane212 said:

That's apparently the current goal.



I believe they just published them. The work wasn't done in-house.

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Correct, they've never done a game in-house.

It's at least good to see that they're looking to have as many of the possible of the original team working on it to finish it -- with everything they had before it all collapsed, one would hope (even if I'm doubtful).

Still a completely fucked situation, but at least this might be a little less bad?

Sweet! This season is on a good foot so I'd like to see how it pans out. Hopefully, it does.

That's a good look. Hopefully after the game is done everything works out for the remaining developers.

They've never done a game in house but it really seems like Skybound is basically just a front (with a better connotation lol) to hire most (some?) or the original devs to make the game. I hope.

I thought Skybound Games was just another front for Kirkman to make as much money as possible, didn't know they made things.

I like how most of these stories out of Telltale are about "We're really trying to finish the game, you guys!" and the ex-employees severance is either never mentioned or is only an afterthought.
"We might get the original team so we can FINISH THE GAME" not "We will do our very best to make good with our ex-employees, who haven't received severance and lost health insurance because of our failures."

Settle up with your ex-employees. Then we can talk about the game.

The final episodes for Telltale Games "The Walking Dead: The Final Season" will be released afterall, with Skybound taking over development and publishing of the game, "Walking Dead" creator and Skybound founder Robert Kirkman announced Saturday. Skybound also hopes to keep the original Telltale development team intact so they can be the ones to finish the season.

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That's cool. While it does suck for other TT employees, it's good that TWD devs get to finish up their project and keep getting paid for the time being.

Pay your fucking employees

Ratchetdude231 said:

Pay your fucking employees

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I'm gonna go out on a limb and say the employees aren't objecting to a paying job here.

TheInfinityGauntlet said:

OH shit lets fucking go

Hopefully they get their severance

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Why would anyone get their severance? Another studio is footing the bill. Do you expect them and all the people working on it to do it for free? You forget many people already paid for a season pass and that money is gone.

Dancrane212 said:

We'll see how many end up coming back for it. At the rate companies were going after folk you have to figure some developers already have new offers pending.

Giving that up to come back to Walking Dead might be a hard choice.

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I would assume the main concern is leaving an employee who just lost their job without a new one while hiring someone else to replace them. If someone's already got a new one then good for them! Best case scenario is everyone who needs a job still is first pick until the new team is full. I assume that is the spirit of the deal.

this is good .and great to hear they'll reach out to people on the original team, hopefully giving some people a life boat for a while

MinusTydus said:

I like how most of these stories out of Telltale are about "We're really trying to finish the game, you guys!" and the ex-employees severance is either never mentioned or is only an afterthought.
"We might get the original team so we can FINISH THE GAME" not "We will do our very best to make good with our ex-employees, who haven't received severance and lost health insurance because of our failures."

Settle up with your ex-employees. Then we can talk about the game.

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the situation really sucks. and telltale absolutely should not have gotten into this situation in the first place. they should have laid people off while there was still enough money in their coffers to pay severance. but i take some issue with this idea that finishing the game comes at the cost of taking care of their former employees. now that they have gotten into this situation there's likely no way for them to find the money to pay former employees. telltale likely are not paying skybound much (or anything) to finish the game. they wouldn't magically be able to pay their ex-employees had they not let skybound finish up the game. there options, at this moment in time, were likely

1. have skybound finish the game and don't pay former employees
2. cancel the rest of the season and don't pay former employees

again, they absolutely should not have gotten into this situation in the first place, but option 1. above is still preferable to option 2

Nice!

I'm so excited glad it's getting finished!

I hope that they are ultimately able to release a mega-collection that has all 4 seasons plus Michonne on a disc.

Feels good man

Fantastic news!

Good news! Hope they can get the original devs to do it, but I'd understand if many have already had to commit to other things in the meantime.

This is amazing. Hope they can gather all the original devs!

I really hope the money is funneling to the right people (the TT employees who got fucked over) and not the idiot heads that drove the company into the ground.

I hope the contract they rehire staff on includes basic protections like severance packages etc.

hydrophilic attack said:

this is good .and great to hear they'll reach out to people on the original team, hopefully giving some people a life boat for a while

the situation really sucks. and telltale absolutely should not have gotten into this situation in the first place. they should have laid people off while there was still enough money in their coffers to pay severance. but i take some issue with this idea that finishing the game comes at the cost of taking care of their former employees. now that they have gotten into this situation there's likely no way for them to find the money to pay former employees. telltale likely are not paying skybound much (or anything) to finish the game. they wouldn't magically be able to pay their ex-employees had they not let skybound finish up the game. there options, at this moment in time, were likely

1. have skybound finish the game and don't pay former employees
2. cancel the rest of the season and don't pay former employees

again, they absolutely should not have gotten into this situation in the first place, but option 1. above is still preferable to option 2

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They absolutely could find a way to pay their employees. "Hi, everyone. Telltale here! From this point forward, all proceeds from sales of TWD on Switch will be placed in an ex-employees fund. We pledge to not receive another penny until we've paid our employees what they're owed. And furthermore, starting right now the proceeds from ANY Telltale game you buy on a digital storefront will go towards that fund until we've fulfilled our promise."

Instead, we get, "We're really gonna try to finish THE GAME. We'll also try to get some of the team back, but if we don't, meh. We'll try to finish it without 'em."

Pay. Your. Employees.

I hope Skybound is able to keep any former Taletale staff on after they finish up the final season.

Khanimus said:

I really hope the money is funneling to the right people (the TT employees who got fucked over) and not the idiot heads that drove the company into the ground.

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I would suspect that Skybound is doing this as spec work. Any revenue will probably go to them.