*None of our choices mattered.*

Telltale: *picks Minecraft story season 2 over The Walking Dead *The community will remember that*

RIP Clementine. The last thing you did was murder a child. The hero we did not deserve.

IT ALL COMES TUMBLING DOWN TUMBLING DOWN TUMBLING DOWN

"Thank God. Gearbox needs talent." *OOF*

Around the time Tales from the Borderlands ended, Kevin Bruner, one of the founders, took over as CEO. According to former employees and a few others, Kevin wasn’t exactly the best CEO around as he apparently had the tendency to take a good chunk of the credit when it came to the games themselves as well as being almost a piece of work when it came to shipping the episodes monthly. Kevin also was interested in making more and more “Lightning’s in a bottle” like Walking Dead. Around the time Walking Dead S3 released, Kevin and the upper management at Telltale were having disagreements which led to Kevin stepping down as CEO and just walking out of the company altogether. Later on, Kevin then sued Telltale which probably had in hand in causing the company to close their doors.

*Telltale Games will not remember that*

The story of Telltale Games is kind of ironic and sad if you think about how it started. A bunch of Lucasarts developers that got tired of being forced to work on Star Wars games with no creative input. And then The Walking Dead blew up and the upper management was like "Well, get ready to make this game again over and over again with no say in the matter!"

Liam was on point in this discussion. Hit every nail on the head.

Mixed feelings about Telltale dying, but it looks like they weren't planning on improving/changing their engine or really doing anything different with their game's choice gimmic, despite their absurd amount of employees, so I suppose it was only a matter of time.

8:30 while LPs killed the games... Telltale made games that were easily killed by just 'watching someone else play the game'. So "if you've seen it once, you've seen it a million times". The linear nature and the illusionary choices means that you get everything just by watching an LP. They failed the key element that separates video games from movies- player interaction. Compare that to "The Council"- a game of the same genre where you have stats and skill points that means your build affects your character's options, and some options have their own story branches you can't get otherwise. In that, the player's interaction is essential. Someone watching an LP could easily think "Wait, what if I buffed my science stats in that scene?". In the world where LPs and twitch livestreams are essential channels for advertising... making a game that could be killed off just because people looked at it before hand means you failed.

I hope Clem's voice actor gets another good character

Their Lps have definitely gotten me to buy games I wouldn't have otherwise tried, like dmc and Yakuza.

I still credit you guys for helping to spread the Yakuza hype to America; you sure as hell got me on that train. Lets Plays aren't the problem. Hell, you guys sold me on Skullgirls and a lot of stuff I'd never even played in terms of genres. I think they just dislike Lets Plays in the same sense developers used to dislike doing demos (which are kinda dead compared to how they used to be).

Rip clementine, never got her final stand against a zombie army

There wasn't an inherent design problem. Pat's just regurgitating Sterling, who COMPLETELY glossed over the fact that TWD S1 had talented writers who knew how to WORK with the limited format. Few of your choices mattered to the plot of that game, but they ALWAYS mattered to your relationships, which how it worked so well. VERY few of TellTale's later games understood that AT ALL, leaning into the cinematic stuff and stripping the choices down to dialogue options (Which you could tell they BLATANTLY cheated with a lot) and meaningless coke or pepsi bullshit. At best, a choice could lead to a single alternate scene before it's back to the rigid path.

An end of an era it's weird

I remember when they made decent adventure games WITH ACTUAL FUCKING PUZZLES adapting old LucasArts properties like Sam and Max and Monkey Island before they became a licensed game factory. Back to the Future was the beginning of the end for them, and Jurassic Park really should have been the finishing blow

Tales of the Borderlands actually had that problem too, but it was not nearly as prominent because of the fact the writing was pretty damn good. In the end, your choices don't _matter_ either, but hey, you're having a blast playing it, so who cares? And the fact the writers were authorized to go nuts meant that even though your choices concretely didn't really matter, there's still a lot of really cool and fun stuff to hear and see for every possible situation. All the forks still end up joining in the end, but it's more a case of "it's not the destination that counts, it's the journey", if you see what I mean.

Knowing Telltale, no matter they would have done the out come would have been the same.

So does that mean the TellTales will be on Wha Happun?

So like, a common argument is that let's plays kinda kill these story based games, but that's an excuse from executives who don't want to take any amount of blame. Like, fucking Detroit actually interested me even though I was watching the LP and I saw some friends actually buy it to get their endings that didn't suck. If your choice-based game doesn't entice a person to want to experience all the outcomes, then you made a bad game.

I mean I'll say it before and I'll say it again, if it weren't for this channel I would've never played Yakuza 0 and thus I would've missed out on playing my literal favourite game of all time

I remember old telltale. Monkey island and sam and max were some of my favorite games back then, now every telltale feels the same just with different characters. They were great but they do the same thing and needed to branch out.

At a certain point you run out of non-powderized horse corpse to beat, it seems. Also, to help debunk the LP myth. I bought Walking Dead Season One specifically after watching someone stream the farm section. I think it looked awesome and wanted to see what my different choices from some foreknowledge would change......yeah...... Never bought another Telltale game again either. Like most people.

These guys are doing more analytical work than the board of directors for these games.

Oof... 2018 took away so many things... Goodbye SBFP

TellTale has stated that they’ll finish The Walking Dead Final Season with Devolver Digital expressing interest in doing the Stranger Things game that was planned.

The wolf among us is sooo underated

I feel bad for the employees that got completely shafted here, that sucks for them to be out of a job, but thats what you get for coasting on a formula harder than even Activision does. Nice job Telltale.

Pat: "or Mixer" Crazy talk strikes again. It may have taken a whioe but it did.

Now those Telltale employees will know how it feels to have none of their choices matter.

MATT CALLED THE MAGICIAN THING WITH RANDY.

"The end of Telltale Games." - Talks about Capcom Vancouver closing for the first seven minutes.

So here is the thing about some LPs and the effect on the audience. There are those types of games where the gameplay is awesome and despite you watching a let's player play it, you want to purchase it yourself and experience it. This usually applies to good action games, proper horror games and some other genres... Then there are the LPs for games where there is basically no gameplay. The telltale games are point and click + QTE type of game where choices don't rly matter. No even if you didn't like a specific outcome you could just watch another major KZfaq play it like cry, jacksepticeye, etc. this makes the LP more like a tv show and less like a game you want to interact with.

For the record im one of the people that became a fan of the yakuzies because of you guys, ive bought every game since 5 and tracked down an old copy 4 and 3

They should of focused on wolf among us for a smart series, walking dead for a more "scary" series and borderlands for just straight comedy. That's just my opinion xD

Funny, I only have my PS3 and got back into gaming after a nearly 10-year absence because of the MGR:R let's play on this channel. As soon as the first ep of that LP was over I went and bought the console and a copy of the game. Afterwards made another purchase off of the LP of Killer is Dead. My belief is that most people who watch LPs were never planning on buying the game in the first place. But some people (like me) may buy the game to play for themselves if they find that the game looks like something they want to play. All in all, it's a smarter way to gauge if a game seems like a worthy purchase. This may have contributed to Telltale's downfall since a lot of people know what to expect from their formula but for other developers, it probably gets them more sales and exposure in the end.

It's because of you that I got into the Yakuza series, beat the games before watching the LPs, started with yakuza 0 and I fell in love with the emotional and complex storylines.

If i can add another one, no numbers, but i'm pretty sure Night In The Woods didnt have this problem either. Hell i watched the whole thing on here....twice.....and then i bought it

TellTale has just announced that there is hope for finishing The Walking Dead TFS with new potential investors stepping forward.

Man, I just bought Tales From the Borderlands BECAUSE of this channel.

Out of filler games? Good, means you can play Dante's Inferno

I'm sad we're not gettind season 3 of batman.

Please have this guy in more of your podcasts. It's the closest sounding Liam we can ever get I miss him in here.

I never trusted episodic formats of Telltale games, and would only buy then upon completion. The formula has been stale since... forever. Unfortunately for people that I know, who love these games and, for the first time, bought The Final Season of The Walking Dead for full price as it was released, in order to avoid the temptation of watching it on KZfaq (and to talk about a game while it is relevant) they are now stuck with the prospect that it might never be finished. I suggested to my friends to not buy the game until all episodes were released, and THE ONLY REASON why I capitulated and said "Yea, OK, buy it" was because I couldn't envision that it would go this wrong, ESPECIALLY since they had announced a protracted season with clear release dates, so many companies had been advertising it etc... I mean, it was on the PC Gamer E3 show for Christ's sake! They even had the voice actor for Clementine on the stage, and made a big deal out of the game. Didn't these 'Games Journalists' have the good idea to investigate the health of the company before giving them a huge spotlight? Apparently Not. Perhaps companies should be encouraged to have finished most of their f**king game before asking the retail customer for money. We say to ourselves "oh, the episodes must be nearly all done" because we collectively don't want to acknowledge this crunch-time trash that is video games development. It's been that way even since Halo 2. It seems that the people who paid full price now, are being punished for other people not buying their previous games. And, upon asking for a refund, the response from the e-tailer was "Telltale games may seek investors & other companies to finish... the situation is unclear, so you don't need a refund" which is like the excuse of "My dad works in video games and he knows, don't worry they'll finish it" or like that rumour that Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite would be patched to make it good so hang in there.

this whole thing sucks hard. for both fans and the employees of Telltales. telltale made some of the best stories from franchises i barley had any interest in/knowledge of like the walking dead/ the wolf among us (fables) and had a love for like batman season 2. i wish the absolute best for those that worked there.

If you bring nothing but formula to the table, I can just watch others consume it and get more from that. I played S1 of the Walking Dead and saw the formula before it became apparent. (Granted another part of the problem for me at least was that the zombie apocalypse fairly to me is a worn out setting.) However, S1 had good writing to fall back on. Then I heard about all the other experiences people were having online and even though I had already bought 400 days and season 2, I never had the urge to play them after that.

the customers will remember that

You brought all good points up.

the creative force behind The Walking Dead S1 were Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, and both left Telltale after TWD S1 to found Campo Santo (they made Firewatch)

I fucking loved turning point fall of liberty XD

I'm soooooooooo happy Matt remembers Legendary: The Box!

Around the 29 minute mark I'm gonna confess and say I got Deadly Premonition, Silent Hill: Downpour and Heavy Rain because of your guy's playthroughs of them and in the case of the former two my interest in them without the videos would have been non existent.

If it helps for you guys to know, it was thanks to you that I started gaming again. After your Undertale LP, I wanted to play it myself. And that game's greatest strength is its story! So I agree with Pat; that was a Telltale design issue, not your fault.

I've played only 4 Telltale games and the moment I realized choices for sure didn't matter at all was in The Wolf Among Us where I played it a second time and prevented the death of a character who died on my first playthrough, aside from that character showing up in one scene later in the game, nothing changed. Weirdly enough, though, that character was probably supposed to show up in a second scene that I missed, but saw a glimpse of in one of the next episode previews. I will say this, though, even though choices didn't matter I would've still bought Telltale games so long as the stories were good and interesting. I plan, or planned on getting Batman S2 because of the new take on Batman and Joker's relationship. The way I saw it was that if they could tell a good story that gets me invested then they deserve my money. I didn't buy the stories for the choices, I bought them for the narrative.

Oh yeah dudes, you guys def played a part in bringing Yakuza over to the states/NA - I see all these tumblr blogs saying "please play yakuza" who have clearly seen your stuff. I bought 4, 0, and Kiwami because of y'all - but I can't get anywhere in the story because I fuck around too much playing mahjong. Speaking of - I really want to teach you guys how to play mahjong, some of the animations in the minigame are HILARIOUS.

I'll always remember those sbcg4ap games...

"it also gives them an opportunity to make money faster" woolie, you literally just heard about how the only games that made money were the minecraft and walking dead season one games. its like reverse crazy talk where you learn the correct information first but then immediately get it wrong.

Does anyone know what the video Pat was talking about is found? I'm referring to the one about the hundred foot Lee shooting lazers because it's sounds amazing and I can't find it.

Pat and Woolie played Parasite Eve. I've rewatched some parts of their LP. I bought the game myself, played it, and actually had fun experiencing it myself.

28:38 Seeing Brainscratch Commentaries play DMC1 made me buy the HD collection a few years back. Now it’s my favorite series. Hell after seeing you guys play God Of 4 I decided to give it a chance (wasn’t sold on the new style, as I prefer the older PS2 versions) so I’d say LPs can help games. Of course on the other hand, yeah after seeing these types of games I’ll admit I didn’t bother because they didn’t look like my kind of game (maybe indigo prophecy spoiled the genre for me idk). Really suck to see this happen and I do hope that the good Devs from Telltale can find work on games or what have you that can both support them, as well as be something they like doing. I think they deserve that at least after a good 7 year long crunch. Just remember though: at least Gearbox is always looking for talent.

I would guess that LPs help sales when the game is good. If the game is bad and playing it is less entertaining than the LP, it may discourage some viewers from buying. I don't know if that would be considered a bad thing.

I want that folder

Immediately after watching this KZfaq queued me into the latest Tales of the Borderlands LP, with the intro song. Now that hurts.

I remember people's buzz being killed because the time between episodes was really fucking long. It varied between 2 and 5 months, so it honestly makes sense to me. I can only imagine what took all that time other than taking on more than they could afford.

I'm so glad Until Dawn is still remembered as the example of how to do this genre well. It didn't have any lofty narrative ambitions or fancy tie-ins to preexisting franchises, it was just a really solid game with incredible commitment to player agency.

I honestly really wanna see that shitpost folder. Lee shooting laser beams at boats sounds like a missed plot point

R.I.P.

While I will watch an LP even if I'm interested in the game, there have been multiple times where I went out and bought said game to play it for myself. I did get into Yakuza because of Mat and Pat's LP of Yakuza 4, I haven't watched their Evil Within 2 LP because I'm slowly going through it, and I watch the first part if Devil May Cry 1, and said to myself, "Ok. When I have free time, I'm going to pick up a PS2 copy of DMC1". You can blame LPers a small percentage when a game doesn't sell, but that isn't the issue overall.

I hope Pat likes that Minecraft Netflix series they're doing

LP's from a few different people over the years, have sold me on a number of games, "Red Faction Guerrilla", "Rainbow Six Siege", "GTA V", "Bioshock Infinite", "Driver: San Francisco", "Bully", "Just Cause 2", "Night in the Woods", "Spec Ops: The Line", "Rolling Line", "Cities Skylines". (Night in the Woods, was thanks to your LP.)

I think half the games in my steam library ive bought because ive watched a best friends lp and wanted to play along with their videos.

The problem with telltale games is that they are the perfect example of games everyone says they love, but don't really buy. Most people preferred to watch others play them and say how much they themselves liked it, but never actually bought the games. It's just like part of the tweet says in regards to receiving tons of support and positive feedback, but it didn't equate to sales.

im glad the guys acknowledged that LPing could harm the sales of games (as well as improve them) here because in a previous podcast the sentiment was pure sticking fingers in ears going "Lalala!! I am not listening Lalala our job doesn't negatively impact shit!"

You guys got me to buy Tales From The Boarderlands and Into The Breach, so I don’t think LPs hurt sales, I think they provide a way for people to experience a game before they buy it, or before they have money for it.

Telltale got LP'd to death. Wow.

I like it when they play a game I bought but never finished/installed, like binary domain or dmc1,2.

Theres also the channels on youtube that map out the choices you make.

The subspace emissary comparison is absurd. People were still going to buy the game for the gameplay, Sakurai just got butthurt over people watching cutscenes on the internet and just decided not to do it again.

Yaiba is underrated IMO and apparently there's some weird interesting lawsuit-drama-involving-history surrounding Spark Unlimited, Activision and Call of Duty Finest Hour

I'm curious if any company or even animation studio will buy what remains up. Would be kinda interesting to see what other companies would do with the assets.

SBCG4AP seems to have dodged that "formula" problem by being accualy episodic with just some nods to previous episodes.

I bought Enter the Gungeon thanks to best friends videos. I know that's only one data point but for what its worth I think lets plays have a net positive effect on game sales, and at my worst estimate I would say they're only neutral.

i hope you guys upload the capcom cast

I remember I got the best ending in Detroit, now I kinda just refuse to go back as that’s just my canon ending😂

20:30 - I would say because you don't have to put much effort in watching a bad movie, but you have to put in quite a bit of effort to play a bad game.

So how long until game devs unionize and make everything go nuts. I don't even know if I'd mind if everything went nuts at this point.

Why would you even want a Stranger Things game? The second season of the show was basically the single biggest case of diminishing returns ever.

I wonder if lp's were a factor for their games doing bad in terms of salesnumbers. The reason I am asking myself this is because the way a telltale game works make it kinda unnecessary to buy the game if you get to see most of its content for free on an lp.

I've bought all telltale games apart for batman and minecraft and if I've not played the game before I've seen an LP of it I've always postponed watching that LP for fear of if effecting my decision making, I decided that after watching these guys play WD season 1 where they were ragging on Kenny, I was so glad I played it myself first. The problem I find with telltale games is that decision making doesn't effect the play through as much it would lead you to believe so there's no incentive for people to play it after watching an LP and there's little replay value.

I don't even watch LPs unless I've played the game already.

I think another problem of telltale was bad. advertising. I had zero idea a guardians of the galaxy game even existed until I by chance, saw it in a youtube search. Not to say that all those other factors you pointed out didn't play a part, I just think they would have benefited from a youtube ad or something.

I only watched batman season 2, but i have played through most of the first

I literally bought the two Batman ones to do the exact opposite as you guys did in the LP.

How could making an empire based on choices not mattering possibly blow up in your face?

I will say this... I got into Yakuza because of the Yakuza 4 LP (albeit I never played that one). And the Yakuza 0 playthrough I specifically skipped because I knew I would get the game later down the line.

You guys got me into Yakuza FFS!

I love legendary that game was awesome.

If they moved their studio out of San Francisco they could've actually made a profit.