[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.