 I honestly was not expecting this. What's up everyone, Takedown here, welcome back to the channel. Recently, Telltale Games announced the closure of the company at a staff-wide meeting, but are leaving behind a skeleton crew of 25 people to finish one final project. Now this has come to a shock to anybody that is a fan of Telltale or a fan of their games and have played them in the past. So in this video, I'm going to be talking about why they closed, what happened leading up to them closing. What's going to happen going forward with a lot of the games that have not come out and also share my opinions along the way. Let's just get right into it. So Telltale just released the Walking Dead final season, which Episode 2 has just come out yesterday and apparently they have no plans to release Episode 3 and 4. So let me explain this for a second. Whenever you purchase a season's pass for any game, that company does not have to release additional content. Normally they do, but in this case, since Telltale is going under, they legally don't have to release that content even though you bought Season's Pass. Especially since they have already released Episode 2, they technically did release something for Season's Pass and that will go in favor for Telltale, meaning they do not have to release any additional content. It's like any game, for example Call of Duty. When the game first comes out and you purchase Season's Pass, you don't know what content you're going to get additionally, you don't know when it's going to be out or if there is anything coming out. In this case, since Telltale does not exist anymore and they are shutting down completely, they do not have to release that content. However, the one final project that they are working on is the Minecraft Story Mode. So the skeleton crew of 25 people, the last game they are working on is Minecraft Game, something that isn't even finished yet. And then they plan on releasing that instead of releasing the Walking Dead final episodes that is already made, ready to go. They just have to release it. To me, it doesn't make any sense. Why create another game even though you're shutting down when you could just release what you already have finished? To me, that makes no sense whatsoever. The over 200 people laid off were also told that they will not be getting any severance. Their health benefits would run out at the end of the month and that they had 30 minutes to leave the building. To me, I don't think that was right. I think that is bullshit. I think that is the worst thing you could do to your former employees. They were having their employees work 70 to 80 hours a week working weekends. And sometimes they had to work till three or four in the morning. And this is the things that they get. But they were originally going to get three hours to pack up their stuff and to leave. But due to the response after being told they were laid off, they were only given 30 minutes. So now I'm going to be talking about why they actually shut down. They've already announced it. So I'm just going to be sharing that with you guys. First of all, they lost all their sponsors that fund the development and marketing of the games. Apparently they have been struggling for the past few years. And apparently they only had one sponsor left, which had just pulled out, which is why they are shutting down right now because they have no more money. There's no more funding anywhere anymore. But they did not release the name of the company that was their last sponsor. But a lot of people are assuming it is Lionsgate. Lionsgate started to work with and fund Telltale around 2015. They had an agreement that Telltale was to create games with a lot of gameplay, but also act as a scripted TV series. Now, a lot of people will argue that that is what Telltale was doing, but it really wasn't. Honestly, I feel that they nailed the TV series and storytelling parts. But they barely had any gameplay. It was just decision making, which is not what the agreement was with Lionsgate, since they have not released the official name. Honestly, my opinion is that it is Lionsgate just based on these facts right here. Telltale did not follow the agreement. And that is why Lionsgate is not a sponsor anymore. Now, that's not to say they were the last sponsor, but that is what everybody is assuming right now. Another thing that, in my opinion, led them to being shut down is the fact that they are releasing way too many games, way too fast. Their character developments in their games honestly don't make any sense and have been going downhill for recent years. I actually didn't know this, but Telltale has been around for 10 years or more. But a lot of people don't remember them from before they released Walking Dead series, after they released the Walking Dead series, the first Walking Dead game, that's whenever they became very popular. Their games became very popular. Everybody wanted to play them. All of Telltale games are basically the same. They have the same design, same gameplay, same concept. Just the themes for each game is different. You might have a Batman game, you might have a Walking Dead game and then everything else they released. So just the themes and what the game is about is different, but the gameplay and everything else is the exact same. Take EA, for instance. Whenever they release multiple games a year, they have Battlefield, they have sports games, they have Need for Speed, which are all different, completely different games. And that is why it works for those companies. But whenever you're a game like Telltale and you're releasing basically the same games multiple times a year, a lot of people start to lose interest in the games. The only good thing that I see out of Telltale Closing, in my opinion, is the fact that these big game companies are helping those that were laid off find work. It is a whole industry coming together to help those that have been laid off that are now out of work, helping them find work. Honestly, I think that is amazing. That is something so special that I didn't actually think could happen. And I just love that. I love that these big game companies are helping out the little guys, helping other people find work that after being laid off and working for that company for years, they're going to have something to go to now. So this is everything that I have for this video. Everything that has happened with Telltale is the reason why they are closing in a lot of my opinions on the whole situation. Comment down below what you think. Do you think this is good for Telltale to close down? Are you disappointed? Because technically it is a whole 10 years of video games, something that everybody has played at least, in my opinion, one of Telltale games. It is a sad day for the gaming industry, but hopefully something good happens in the future with this. Hopefully everybody that was laid off does find work with these bigger companies. And hopefully they're better off because how they were treated when they were let go from Telltale is really disappointing and saddening to see. So hopefully they're better off wherever they go. But I am going to leave this video here. Hope you guys did enjoy. If you did, please smash that like button. I'll see you guys in the next video. Please take care. Peace.