[bb88]

> They really did not see a full studio closure coming so suddenly. Yes, they were aware that they were struggling, but the 25% staff reduction was supposed to keep the studio sustainable.

Yeah, so this is just pure mismanagement. Either they couldn't do math, or they signed an agreement that required some sort of hidden balloon payment, or they couldn't reign in their costs when managers were allowed to buy things under the sun.

> Their frantic development pace meant that they their engine was a patchwork of features cobbled together over the years, and not enough resources to rework it, despite their audiences stating that they didn't care enough to fix it.

Again, mismanagement. Someone came up with a term that managers could understand: "Technical Debt". The "Debt" part is the "interest" you pay because you are prioritizing features over maintaining your tech stack. And no doubt would add to their frantic development pace.

[Bartweiss]

> they couldn't do math

Generously, bulk firings like that can be an attempt to add runway, or compensate (painfully) for over-expansion. Telltale management may have been hoping for a few more high-profile releases that would keep them solvent, and cut staff devoted to riskier or lower-margin work in hopes of surviving until those profits hit. When the numbers came in lower than hoped, there was nothing left in the hopper and no more point in delaying the collapse.

Of course, everything in Telltale's story screams mismanagement, and the overexpansion was pretty clearly an issue in the first place. A studio producing largely one-trick games around expensive branded properties can't spin up new projects freely for new staff, and even if they do they were competing with their own games to the point of market saturation.