Although a lot of the commentary and criticism from people is the bad culture but I really think this was a secondary problem, after all bad culture from the top (autocratic behaviour plus harsh deadlines?) might not kill you. (Apple, Tesla, etc.)
But it would seem the most important aspect is really the declining sales every year that could likely be due to business decisions from the top or simply a cash management issue where the cash at hand was not getting replenished at hand fast enough which again could be a business decision gone wrong based on overly positive sales expectations.
Could a side issue be that the game format just wasn't sustainable? The sales steadily declined after Walking Dead because it's just more of the same?
FWIW, I thought the first Walking Dead was super interesting. It reminded me of those old Choose Your Adventure books. I had a blast playing it because it _felt_ like there was weight behind the decisions. After beating it, I started a fresh game so I could go through a totally different path / play style and... the illusion shattered. The choices didn't have any notable effect on the game.
And that was that. I just wasn't interested after the first game.
Yeah I feel the same. The Sam&Max titles by telltale are wild. There's weird shit going on in these games, especially later on.
However, after the walking dead, the walking dead, wolf among us, minecraft story mode... they kinda feels the same. And as you say, the games are not a divergent graph like witcher 3 or the avenged is. It's more of a fork/join graph, with very low distance from fork to join.
From there, I had no interest in their other games, tbh. I bought Minecraft Story mode entirely because I like Petra, but that's about it.
Jim Sterling went into this a few times, likening TT to a magician with one really exquisite trick. The problem as you put it and he explained, is overexposure shatters the illusion. Instead of trying to invent new tricks, or at least new ways of presenting them, they just went mad exposing people to the same device ad nauseum. It didn’t help that many of their recent titles were very grimdark, which gets tiring, or that their engine was old.
The article starts off saying it was probably both:
"A company where the president picks dumb products, wastes money, and hires unqualified losers is dysfunctional. A company where the president builds a cult of personality, fires people who criticize him, and hires unqualified friends / relatives is toxic.
After reading The Verge article, it sounds like Telltale suffered from both problems. They were dysfunctional in the traditional sense of making lousy business decisions, but they were also dysfunctional in the more specific sense of being run by one or more jerks."
Maybe Apple managed to survive (thrive!) despite of the jerk, but that doesn't mean one wouldn't bring down a company on a less robust standing that may have otherwise still managed to keep the right trajectory.
"The culture is toxic." : The problems are caused by one or more individuals, who may be insurmountably difficult to fire. Actually firing the offending people is likely to correct the course quickly.
"The culture is rotten." : The problems are caused by dysfunctional processes, which may be insurmountably difficult to amend. Firing people won't help, unless their replacements are an order of magnitude more competent, and empowered to enact changes.
I don't think rotten can be fixed unless toxic is fixed first. In this sense, toxicity is the more immediate problem, in that it prevents detection of deep structural issues and potential repairs from being approached in a timely and constructive way.
He may have not been a complete jerk, or the same type of jerk.
Maybe he only wasn't nice to people but didn't hire his incompetent friends, etc. Maybe he was so good at other stuff that a negative jerk effect was not enough to offset the positive parts.
But my point was that according to the definition given in the article I don't think you can say "the jerk effect" was zero at TT, I think the author made a convincing argument.
But it would seem the most important aspect is really the declining sales every year that could likely be due to business decisions from the top or simply a cash management issue where the cash at hand was not getting replenished at hand fast enough which again could be a business decision gone wrong based on overly positive sales expectations.