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Telltale Games CEO steps down again, former Zynga exec Pete Hawley named new CEO

C

chadskin

Member
Telltale Games, the maker of story-based franchises such as The Walking Dead and Batman, has named former Zynga executive Pete Hawley as its new CEO. As such Hawley will be responsible for growing a company that has become a huge proponent of dramatic stories in games.

Hawley succeeds Dan Connors, who cofounded the company in 2004 along with Kevin Bruner and Troy Molander. Connors, formerly of LucasArts, was the initial CEO of the company and led it for many years. Bruner took over as CEO in 2015, and then he resigned and handed the job back to Connors about six months ago. During this time, Telltale’s board, which includes Unity CEO John Riccitiello, was looking for a permanent replacement to lead Telltale into the future.

They settled upon Hawley, who was a senior vice president and general manager of games at Zynga for the past three years. Before that, he was cofounder of augmented reality and location gaming pioneer Red Robot Labs, which had the misfortune of losing out to Pokémon Go creator Niantic Labs.
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https://venturebeat.com/2017/09/14/telltale-names-zynga-veteran-pete-hawley-as-ceo/
 
S

Sami+

Member
Is this the guy that insisted on keeping the engine because he was proud of it or something? Swear I read that here ages ago, don't know if it was bullshit or not.

Anyway cut that fucking garbage engine please
 
G

Gamer @ Heart

Member
Sami+ said:
Is this the guy that insisted on keeping the engine because he was proud of it or something? Swear I read that here ages ago, don't know if it was bullshit or not.

Anyway cut that fucking garbage engine please
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The way their production works, juggling multiple series and their corresponding episodes all at once, would set them a year+ behind. That would kill their profitability. It won't happen.

They make budget games at budget prices.
 
J

Jangowuzhere

Banned
benicillin said:
If they were doing badly they wouldn't be expanding so much and have a dozen games in the pipeline.
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But are they actually doing well? They're playing big with licenses like Batman and Guardians, but I don't get the impression that they're selling well at all. That latest Batman season just came out, and I get the impression that very few people actually care.
 
E

Evolution of Metal

Member
Ferrio said:
Are they? I mean their quality is shit, but are they doing badly?
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We don't know the budgets for those games, but they are making Batman, Guardian of the Galaxy, Minecraft, Walking Dead, Walk among Us this year alone. The studio is capable of releasing a new season every 3-4 months for many platforms including mobile.

My guess is that the quality is never going up because they are focused on quantity and scalability, not quality or high-end at this point. Yet, they still had delays for Batman.
 
N

NewDust

Member
Sami+ said:
Is this the guy that insisted on keeping the engine because he was proud of it or something? Swear I read that here ages ago, don't know if it was bullshit or not.

Anyway cut that fucking garbage engine please
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I believe that was Kevin Bruner, but I might be mistaken.
 
S

Schucky Ducky

Banned
Could be worse. They could be getting this former Zynga CEO
don-mattrick-xbox-one.jpg
 
T

Terrell

Member
If this new CEO wants to make a push towards non-licensed products like, I dunno, a new Sam & Max, then I can surely get behind this.
 
J

Justified

Member
Was this the Executive who created the engine and is holding the development team hostage to it?

Please say yes lol


*edit*

Nevermind, Dan Connors was an old CEO who came back to fill the role temporarily
 
B

Boem

Member
Terrell said:
If this new CEO wants to make a push towards non-licensed products like, I dunno, a new Sam & Max, then I can surely get behind this.
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Sam & Max is a licensed product. It's a comic series (later made into a Lucasarts game, a cartoon series and 3 Telltale series). Steve Purcell owns the rights (The comic came first, and it is still the best incarnation by far and one of the best comics you'll ever read).

But I don't think I want modern Telltale to do Sam & Max. None of the old Lucasarts devs are there anymore, and especially Chuck Jordan (from Curse of Monkey Island fame) is the genius made the first three seasons as great as they are, with Mike Stemmle (from Sam & Max Hit the Road) stepping in later as well. Dave Grossman isn't there anymore either. They're all long gone.

Let's gather those guys at Double Fine and let them make some new sequels to the Lucas classics. Telltale hasn't been the small spiritual successor to the Lucas adventure division in a long, long time.
 
W

waveuponwave

Member
It's such a shame, after TWD season 1 Telltale could have become one of my favourite developers, instead they embraced quantity over quality in the worst possible way.

All they do at this point is copy their formula from one big franchise to another. And every game seems to generate less interest than the last. At this rate they'll be forgotten in 5 years
 
M

megalowho

Member
waveuponwave said:
It's such a shame, after TWD season 1 Telltale could have become one of my favourite developers, instead they embraced quantity over quality in the worst possible way.

All they do at this point is copy their formula from one big franchise to another. And every game seems to generate less interest than the last. At this rate they'll be forgotten in 5 years
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They owe pretty much all of their recent sucess to Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin. They took a risk, showed them the blueprint, moved on, and the rest of the company has been milking it dry ever since. It's a formula that will likely continue to attract popular IP's for narrative minded projects, but I have no expectations of the studio recreating the magic of TWD season 1 anytime soon.
 
Z

Zap Rowsdower

Banned
megalowho said:
They owe pretty much all of their recent sucess to Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin. They took a risk, showed them the blueprint, moved on, and the rest of the company has been milking it dry ever since. It's a formula that will likely continue to attract popular IP's looking to reach wider audiences, but I have no expectations of the studio recreating the magic of TWD season 1 anytime soon.
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The Borderlands team did a fantastic job but like Sean and Jake they have since left Telltale too.
 
V

vocab

Member
Telltale used to be a favorite of mine, their older adventures games were something I looked forward to. TWD was decent, but I always wanted their other style more. The fact that they used TWD formula and copy and pasted it to so many licenses made me lose interest in them fast. I'm not exactly excited to see a Zynga name coming in, and I don't think will see the Telltale magic ever come back.
 
M

megalowho

Member
Zap Rowsdower said:
The Borderlands team did a fantastic job but like Sean and Jake they have since left Telltale too.
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Agreed. I still give the bulk of the credit to the Walking Dead team for innovating and taking the huge risk of changing the design approach to the formula they follow today.
 
M

Muffin1611

Banned
hemo memo said:
I think it's a dare between them and Bethesda.
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Nah. Telltales engine was built when they formed in 2004. Bethesdas engine was made for Skyrim that came out in 2011. Well, Bethesdas Creation Engine is based on the Gamebryo engine, so I guess if you see it like that it'd be true.
 
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