Player Data Paints Damning Picture of Telltale's Efforts

as you said TellTales just didn't evolve their games enough, it really was a "if you played one then you played them all" situation and you can only go so far with that

The most saddening part of all this news (outside of all the firing, obviously) is that we'll never get to see the previously confirmed Wolf Among Us 2. Seems like it had gathered quite a few fans over the years as well! I'm also surprised Batman is over Minecraft, since I thought I read in a report that TWD S1 and Minecraft S1 were Telltale's only real breakouts sales wise, but I might just have been misinformed.

I didn't really care too much for them. I bought into the hype and played through the original Walking Dead one, but didn't find it nearly as compelling as most reviews indicated. I assumed it was because I don't care for the walking dead.

The Game of Thrones one was a bit better, but I still felt like I was playing it just to finish it.

The stories aren't deep enough to keep me to care and the gameplay/decisions aren't nearly good enough to keep me entertained.

Just sell a complete game instead of spreading your workers to much.

Now I just think they're kinda stupid (quite frankly) for moving along with a "business as usual" approach for YEARS. I think after TWD Season 2 that woulda put up a big red flag. They shoulda ran a player survey or something and I'm sure back then it woulda said "your games are too same-y" as the big no-sale factor.

Great example of the law of diminishing returns.

This ultimately isn't wholly representative as it ignores certain platforms, but it's damning regardless.

Too much too samey and too fast. It was coming for years.

Surprising, I had the impression they were selling really well, since their games were quite popular with streamers.

The problem was not the format in my opinion, but the lack of unique and interesting stories. Borderlands, Game of Thrones, Batman, Minecraft, Guardians ... these are not particularly new and exciting ideas, in the way Wolf Among Us was.

If they had kept it fresh with stories we haven't really seen or heard of before, they could have maintained a steady base of consumers.

I've only played Wolf Among Us on Vita and I really liked the characters and story, but it was very poor technically.
I also have the first season (chapter?) of The Walking Dead, but from what little I've played of it, it just seems to me that it is reaching to much for the lowest common denominator for my liking.
Maybe that's what was Telltale biggest problem in the end; their games just seemed pretty superficial and not very "deep" generally.

I didn't even know Minecraft 2 released yet. Going from 60,000 to 6,000 is quite the underachievement. And Batman 2 didn't fare much better.

Looks like WD3 and Guardians was the writing on the wall. No dates on the charts but I'm guessing they didn't have time to fix it after that.

Lots of gamers saw this coming. Telltale is the perfect example of fluffed up hype overshadowing bad game design. Pick-your-answer games with no actual meaning behind the answers you chose.

@Bonbonetti i wonder if streamers were part of the problem. As the years passed and twitch and youtube became bigger for game streams, many people may have just watched the game being played rather than playing themselves. And these are not the type of games where you necessarily want to play again. I have only ever played each season once, and havent been particularly interested in playing a second time to see an alternative approach. This might have lost telltale many sales

Don't mind giving these a go through PS+ but not necessarily something i'd go out and purchase!

This data only features players who have completed the first chapter of the various games in question.

Given some of the percentage drops for trophies you can see for yourself on PSN across all games, I think this says something about modern attention spans just as much as it does about Telltale Games themselves. I'm still shocked whenever I see huge, expensive games with a 10% or 20% drop from players who earned a trophy for booting up the game to players who completed the first couple of missions; shocked, but no longer surprised. Do people even complete things anymore?

The unfortunate reality seems to be that story-driven experiences asking you to keep track of who said what and when, requiring real thought before making gameplay decisions, ultimately fail to retain today's average Fortnite player beyond a couple minutes.

Now, if Telltale Games weren't such a one-trick pony, then maybe this would've been a different conversation.

Aren’t the most finished ones the games that have been given away with PS Plus and Games with Gold? Leading to bigger numbers too.

I had no problem with TT games not evolving. Not all games need to. They had the perfect formula with TWD so I saw no reason for that to change.

Still, the fact that they had such steep declines yet kept doing more and more games surely didn't help.

I mostly blame the constant sales. I kept thinking "I'll buy this one at a later point; no need to get it now". I also wasn't sure which one to get first. So fewer releases with fewer sales would have probably helped.

@Tjuz Wolf Among Us was the only telltale game I was interested in. It sucks that we won't get to see the rest.

TWD season 1 was the only good one.

The graphic really is telling (no pun intended). I am a little surprised at the quick steady drop.

Batman and Guardians of The Galaxy are pretty awesome, imo.
I understand the complains about their games not evolving, but I always had a great time with Telltale titles.

@Kidfried Fair point well made. You're right to consider the types of folks who prefer story-driven experiences and what impact that'd have on their available game time; I'd come at it from the opposite side, I guess, and focused on who wasn't playing and why, rather than who was.

Thanks for not counting me in your analysis, though! I'm quite proud to have never prematurely abandoned a game, particularly one with a decent story (as the Telltale games always had).

@PS_Nation The second season of Batman was absolutely stunning. I was about to delete it from my HDD to make space, but with all the uncertainty of late I think I'm gonna keep it, just in case. Would hate to never be able to replay it again.

@Kidfried As with most things in life, the truth is probably somewhere in the murky depths of "the middle". Which is why well-argued counterpoints like yours are always welcome!

As for the second Batman season, I'm afraid that I can't be as diplomatic and polite; just do it, right now.

Episodic games will probably die out! I honestly hate the format and I bet it was a big factor to the player decrease and consequent closure

It's entirely to do with streaming becoming so huge, they aren't interactive games and Telltale are the worst for giving you a false sense of choice so people just watched others play it instead.

Haven't bought a single Telltale game, tbh. The ones I've played were only the ones offered free for PS+ subscribers like Batman, Borderlands and Game of Thrones.

@Rob_230 That seems to be the case. Even some of the streamers I know of have, in hindsight, voiced the same concern with streaming games like these.

I think for some games, in specific genres, game streamers will only have a positive influence on sales, as with most of strategy, survival- and battle-royale games. For story-driven genres it's probably the opposite, going by these charts.

The concern for me is that these kind of games are not seen as having much of any value, since the gameplay mechanics are not elaborate.

The series discounted too quickly. Talking of the walking dead the games after the first one played very differently. the first one had elements of puzzles and problem solving which they pretty much got rid of for the further installments. I loved them all but the first was by far the best. As for the decline in sales for the company I feel they diversified too much. Players were asking for a wolf among us sequel for years and were were only getting one this year.

I've enjoyed their Walking Dead games, but my complaint would be that they are too expensive for what they are when they first release.

Even now, the first season is still £19.99.

@Paranoimia

The walking dead games are often found in the sales for half that price sometimes even less.

Would have been interesting if they had included Back to The Future and Sam and Max to see where they were before The Walking Dead. And wasn’t there a Jurassic Park game as well that no one liked?

@hotukdeals That's when I usually buy them. I think £5.79 was the lowest I paid for one of the seasons. I think they'd have sold more at launch if the prices had been lower; by the time they drop or are in sales, people have moved on/forgotten/are no longer interested.

Of course, I appreciate that they had development costs, salaries to pay, and so on... but half the cost of a Triple-A title for what is significantly less of a game (and in the early seasons at least, a fairly buggy game at that) always struck me as a bit steep. And I say that as a fan of the games.

@Bonbonetti yeah i totally agree. I think streaming can be so valuable, particularly for raising the profile of smaller games, and i dont see how it could really damage sales of games like persona (where atlus blocked streaming for a time) and yeah, online shooters, fighters etc are made for streaming. But story driven games like these are bound to suffer from streaming, particularly where the viewers can vote on what decisions should be taken

I think people are forgetting that the graphic is only of those who have only launched the game & finished the ep. How many more bought the game but never launched it. I buy my Telltales on Steam, I have three completely unopened titles at the moment.

@MaseSco That's a good point. My impression is that most gamers have a sizeable backlog, especially for PC since you can often buy games in bundles. I have at least 50 games I got through Humble that I have never even touched.

@Bonbonetti Yeah, everyone I know seems to have a backlog of games they haven't even touched lol

why buy the game when you can watch in on Youtube?

Reminds me of guitar hero, oversaturating the market and eventually people stopped caring.