LCG Entertainment relaunches Telltale Games brand New owners are "working very hard" to avoid mistakes of previous management

Haydn Taylor Senior Staff Writer Wednesday 28th August 2019 Share this article Share

Companies in this article Telltale Games

After six months of negotiations, LCG Entertainment has completed its asset grab of Telltale Games, and is preparing to relaunch the fallen brand.

The acquisition from an unnamed holding company was supported by publisher Athlon Games, which will handle future distribution.

While the status of licenses such as Borderlands, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Minecraft are currently unknown, Telltale still holds the rights to its original IPs, The Wolf Among Us, and Batman.

However, The Walking Dead and Stranger Things have reverted to Skybound and Netflix respectively.

As reported by Polygon, Telltale will be headed up by LCG's Jamie Ottilie and Brian Waddle.

Current plans involved selling off certain assets, while developing new games from the Telltale roster.

"This is a viable business that went away due to market conditions and some scale choices [Telltale's previous management] made," Ottilie told Polygon.

"I like games that tell stories and I think our industry should have a company that specialises in narrative-driven games."

Telltale Games collapsed overnight in September 2018, leaving 270 people out of a job. In the ensuing fallout, former Telltale narrative designer Emily Grace Buck offered a post-mortem of the developer, highlighting a catalogue of errors by upper management.

Ottilie, founder and CEO of Galaxy Pest Control -- which developed games based-on Duck Dynasty and Power Rangers -- said the new Telltale focused on not repeating those same mistakes.

"They brought me some of my favourite stories to play and they did an amazing job building a company," he said.

"It's unfortunate the way that it ended. Certainly we're working very hard not to make similar mistakes."

The new Telltale Games will be based in Malibu, California. Freelance opportunities are available for former Telltale staff, though no full-time positions are currently available.