When The Wolf Among Us 2 was announced earlier this year, fans of the Telltale series were excited to learn that their long-awaited series would indeed be released at some point despite the abrupt failure and closing of the studio. Thanks to LCG Entertainment reviving Telltales Games as a new company, the beloved franchise won't meet the same fate of its developer. However, despite the excitement among fans, they are struggling with the demons of the old management and how badly its workers were treated with severe development crunch.
For the unfamiliar, crunch is an entirely too common phenomenon in the video game industry that forces developers into working extremely long hours in the months leading to the launch of a game to meet a deadline. It is often unofficial, meaning that no one is obligated to work an eighty-hour week, but those that don’t at various studios say they find themselves punished for demanding any semblance of work-life balance. Often this crunch is blamed on the unrealistic timelines set forth by upper level management that have little to no involvement in the nitty-gritty work of a development project.
In the lead-up to the close of Telltale Games, company co-founder Kevin Bruner took pride in pushing employees to the brink with an overload of work, stating that crunch was necessary in order to make a company succeed. This is precisely as idiotic as it sounds, and the company shut down in September of 2018.
It is no surprise that LCG Entertainment needs to tread carefully with regards to this terrible reputation it has absorbed in reopening Telltale Games. Speaking to IGN, CEO of LCG Entertainment Jamie Ottilie states, “All we can do is be forthcoming; we can’t control whether critics hear or believe us. The truth is we are a new company — with different ownership and management, and a different approach as to how we structure a studio in today’s market.”
Given how delicate it can be to adopt a brand with former reputation mistreating employees, and that Telltale is now operated by a new management team that is in no way associated with the old company, there should be no reason for their statement to be anything but genuine. All things considered, The Wolf Among Us 2 will most likely be made without the previous rush imposed on employees.
Of course, if the new Telltale devolves into an abusive, crunch-enforcing bully like the old company, there is no doubt that word will quickly spread. 2019 has been a year of exposing toxic workplace conditions in the video game industry, crunch being among them, at places like Riot Games, Rockstar Games, Take-Two, and others, and hopefully things will only improve as a dialogue remains open on how workers are treated.
Source: ca.ign.com