Almost every Telltale game is on sale on Steam right now, but who knows how long they’ll be available.
On September 21st, episodic story-focused game maker Telltale abruptly closed their doors. They told all but 25 of their employees that the studio was shutting down and that they had had 30 minutes to empty their desks and exit the building. This despite the fact that Telltale was an award-winning studio with a strong core audience.
The company never filed for bankruptcy, but it seems that whoever is in charge wants to cash in quick.
As of today, almost every Telltale game is on sale on Steam, down from $19.99 to $14.99. The only exceptions seem to be Tales from the Borderlands and Minecraft Story Mode Season 1, which are still on for their regular price of $19.99.
So what gives? We can only speculate. The ostensible reason for the studio’s closure was its inability to secure a new investor to continue funding the studio, forcing it to cease all operations. But if that were true, why hasn’t Telltale filed for bankruptcy?
Telltale remains alive as a corporate entity only so that the company can still continue to sell their back catalog. The company’s board of directors must have decided that it would be more profitable to close down the studio and simply sell digital content on the cheap rather than make any new games.
While that may be a downright despicable display of corporate greed, it does mean that gamers will get a sweet deal on nearly all of Telltale’s games. The only question is how long they’ll be available.
Because most of Telltale’s games involve copyrighted content, Telltale has digital distribution agreements signed with all their respective copyright holders. They may last for years to come, but once they’re up, it seems unlikely that the company will negotiate to renew their licenses at this point.
We already had one example of a Telltale game being lost forever: Poker Night 2. It was removed from all digital platforms back in the middle of September, so unless you have a physical copy you’ll never be able to play that game again.
Other Telltale games, such as Guardians of the Galaxy, contain copyrighted music that will eventually have their license expire. With no studio left to replace that music with something else, those games are also on a clock for when they’ll disappear for good.
So better grab these Telltale games while you can, since who knows how long they’ll be available.
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