Episode 189: Telltale Games and a Radical Rethinking of the Games Industry

Waypoint Radio

VICE

Leisure, Video Game Development, Television, Rewatch, Replay, Tv & Film, Video Games, Games, Movies, Video Game Culture

4.6 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 September 2018

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Content Warning: During our discussion of labor practices at games studios, the previews for Red Dead Redemption 2 come up and reference is made to a line about horse genitalia from the Kotaku preview piece. Skip minutes 52-54 if you'd like to avoid that, and stop the podcast as Austin begins doing the outro (1:11:22).

On today's Waypoint Radio, Austin, Natalie, Patrick, and Rob discuss the recent sudden closure of Telltale Games, how crunch culture causes a cycle of burnout that is physically unsustainable, and how unions and radical cultural change might be the only way forward. Then they talk about the games they've been playing over the past week, and how Rob totally didn't stab his friend in the back.

Discussed: Telltale Games closure, The Walking Dead: The Final Season, crunch, games unionization, Red Dead Redemption 2, Forza Horizon 4, Heat Signature, The Messenger, Undertale, War of the Ring

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey everybody, Austin here. I just want to give you a quick content warning for minutes
0:08.0	52 through 54 of the podcast today. We're talking about games and labor and studio closures
0:14.4	and as part of that discussion we bring up the recent previews of Red Dead Redemption 2,
0:19.3	including a comment in Kotaku about the game's inclusion of some horse genitalia and the
0:24.8	detail therein and the kind of production resources and focuses that go into producing something
0:32.0	like that. And then again at the very end of the podcast it comes back up. So if that doesn't sound
0:38.3	like your sort of thing which is totally fine go ahead and skip minutes 52 to 54 and then maybe
0:44.0	maybe stop the podcast just before the end just as I'm throwing to the outro. All right everybody thanks.
1:06.7	What's good internet it is Monday September 24th and you are listening to Waypoint Radio episode
1:12.0	189. I'm your host Austin Walker the world is on fire and joining me today Patrick Kleppick. Hello
1:20.0	Natalie Watson. Hi hi. And Rob Zachney. Hello hello. How's everybody doing today?
1:26.0	Well this fine super busy news Monday morning. I don't know. Ask me in 15 minutes when there's another
1:30.9	update. You know what? I'm not going to do that and instead I'll talk to you about video games.
1:37.1	That way we get a little bit of a break. We can we can retreat from the world of sorry I just
1:42.5	been handed a piece of paper and it says that the world of video games on fire also. Unfortunately.
1:49.8	Great. Yeah I don't want to be around the bush. I think it's it's important that we have a
1:55.0	conversation about some of the the actions of last week regarding studio closures. Capcom and
2:02.7	Cooper closed early last week. I think midweek actually and then Telltale basically closed up shop
2:10.5	on Friday afternoon. There were 225 employees let go of a total 250. Is that is that right?
2:20.4	It's a roughly 300 person company which 25 people are left behind to cheese kind of
2:25.8	I think as it was put like the things that are required for shareholders and like the board of
2:31.9	directors. Right which shook out to mean something that had to do partially with presumably with
	...

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