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Former staff at Telltale reveal a toxic working culture at The Walking Dead studio

Ex-employees complained of constant overwork, toxic management and creative stagnation

Former staff at Telltale reveal a toxic working culture at The Walking Dead studio

Ex-employees of narrative-focused games studio Telltale have spoken out about the company's toxic working culture.

The Verge has spoken to more than a dozen former staff, who speak about a working environment with, "Constant overwork, toxic management and creative stagnation".

In short, the company tripled in size following the success of The Walking Dead, taking on licenses such as Minecraft, Batman and Game of Thrones, but The Verge's sources speak of a studio that never adapted to this growth, with a gang mentality between different teams. Often employees would have no idea who they were working with outside of their respective teams. This contributed to a lack of shared knowledge.

Our sister-site PCGamesInsider.biz has the full story.


PCGamesInsider Contributing Editor

Alex Calvin is a freelance journalist who writes about the business of games. He started out at UK trade paper MCV in 2013 and left as deputy editor over three years later. In June 2017, he joined Steel Media as the editor for new site PCGamesInsider.biz. In October 2019 he left this full-time position at the company but still contributes to the site on a daily basis. He has also written for GamesIndustry.biz, VGC, Games London, The Observer/Guardian and Esquire UK.