Telltale Tell-All: How Toxic Work Culture Drives Away Best Devs

Description: "Telltale Games Will Remember That"

Writing for The Verge, Megan Farokhmanesh, does a deep dive into the arduous working condition in the video game industry in general, and one award winning studio in particular. As she explains:

These conditions almost always hit one group the hardest: developers, or the people who actually make the games. Layoffs are a pervasive fact of life, even at successful studios where developers are often hired en masse to help hit tight deadlines and then fired to cut costs after the game ships or is canceled. With the next deadline, the cycle begins anew. Overwork, job insecurity, and profound burnout are omnipresent concerns; more than three-quarters of developers report working under “crunch” conditions, which can mean working up to 20 hours a day and more than 100 hours a week. These practices can have a significant and debilitating cost to employees, one that often feels baked into video game development culture.

And how does Telltale Games, the studio that done everything from The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones to Batman and Sam and Max episodic games factor into this? Farokhmanesh elaborates:

The story of Telltale — its rise, decline, and potential reformation — is not just the story of the missteps of one studio. It’s a shocking window into the $36 billion video game industry (which is now so large and lucrative that it rivals the film industry), and how its worst practices can grind down and burn out even the most devoted and valuable employees.

The entire article is important for anyone interested in the human cost of the video games they enjoy, and what is currently being done, and can be done about working conditions in the future.Read the whole thing.