At the tail end of last year, I wrote an article on Telltale’s closure. I talked to those who had worked there about what it was like at the company when roughly 274 people suddenly lost their jobs. With this many writers, artists, testers and others left stranded without severance more than four months ago, I wanted to find out how those affected are doing in 2019.
Following the closure, there was a huge push by fans of Telltale’s games and the industry as a whole to help those in need however they could. On the industry side this led to a careers fair for those recently made unemployed, while the community of gamers supporting Telltale employees used the Telltalejobs hashtag to spread word of employment opportunities.
Emily Grace Buck – a former narrative designer at Telltale and current lead writer at Gato Salvaje Studio – has been a major voice for those left jobless since September, going so far as to talk about her experience at the Sweden Game Conference 2018. At the talk she mentioned only 20 per cent of those let go had been employed, but since then that figure has improved significantly. “It’s been almost three months since I gave that talk and the percentage of people who have landed jobs has steadily grown since then, with a number of people accepting positions just as the year started which isn’t much of a surprise. I gave that talk less than a month after the layoff, so even then 20 per cent wasn’t a bad figure really.”
