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Telltale names new CEO, original property in the works
Telltale Games announced co-founder Kevin Bruner as its new CEO, with former boss Dan Connors taking an advisory role after leading the company since 2004. Telltale also revealed it has "original IP (intellectual property)" in development, a marked change for a studio that built its name on licensing and adapting properties like The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us. Telltale's official announcement discusses plans for growth in 2015, underscoring a period of transition for the adventure game studio. There are seasons of Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones to complete after their debut episodes, while Minecraft: Story Mode. The Walking Dead Season 3 and the new original IP are also somewhere in the pipeline.
Telltale president would love to change James Bond's game persona
Kevin Bruner, Telltale co-founder and president, is a big fan of James Bond – he's just not happy with how most video games portray the British MI6 agent. When asked by OXM which dream license he'd like his studio to adapt, Bruner's mind went directly to 007. "I'm a giant James Bond fan and I'm always frustrated by games that make him a mass murderer," Bruner explained to OXM. "He's a super-spy, and that's a different skillset. The films make him less of a mass murderer, and there's not much killing in the books - more spying and intrigue." The last game to star James Bond, 007 Legends from Eurocom, certainly contributed to that mass murderer image. Even if Telltale somehow acquired the Bond license, we imagine it'd be tough to immediately start production on a game. Telltale is quite busy working on the next episode of The Wolf Among Us' debut season along with the next episode in The Walking Dead's second season. On top of those, there are new announced projects in Tales from the Borderlands and Game of Thrones due this year.
Jurassic Park: The Game promo Jeep deal causes dino-sized kerfuffle on Reddit
Yesterday, we received a flood of tips from Redditors and other folks urging us to report on a post at the community site, titled, "I let TellTale borrow my Jurassic Park Jeep and all I got was this lousy Dino-Damage." Written by Jurassic Park-themed Jeep Wrangler owner Kevin "Boomerjinks" Henry of the Jurassic Jeep group, he recounts the events that transpired upon arranging a deal with Telltale Games to use his vehicle for promotion at this past September's PAX, where the studio was showing attendees its upcoming Jurassic Park game. Henry alleges that a variety of communication issues transpired prior to shipment of the Jeep from his location in Colorado to the convention in Washington, and that upon arrival, the vehicle itself had been damaged (scuffs and chips, mostly). Though he says he was assured that he'd be compensated for the damages, the company apparently went dark on him after several exchanges in the weeks following PAX. So he took to Reddit, but we'd only heard one side of the story. But after a minor uproar ensued, Telltale head Kevin Bruner took to Reddit himself to air his company's side of things, even agreeing to pay the damages in full out of pocket immediately. While he says he doesn't like "the circumstances this is going down in," he'd rather move things along. "This way we won't need to hash this out publicly any longer." As Telltale has been going through the vehicle transport's insurance holder, things haven't been speeding along for Henry's Jeep fix, Bruner claims. Meanwhile, as a fallout from the initial report, the ex-Telltale employee who organized the Jeep deal with Henry has been virtually mobbed by angry Redditors -- one of which posted the former employee's name, which resulted in "83 phone calls (according to Google voice), 41 Facebook messages, and 19 emails." Also, Jurassic Park: The Game is out today, in case you were wondering. Update: Apparently Henry himself outed the former Telltale employee, according to this Reddit comment.
Macworld 2010: Telltale Games live in our booth
We're cleaning out the video files from the chaos of Macworld last week, and while we've already shared with you an interview that we did with Dan Connors of Telltale Games (who just recently announced that they're bringing their whole catalog over to the Mac), his co-founder Kevin Bruner also stopped by our booth live on the show floor to chat about gaming on the Mac and why Telltale has made the leap to our side. You can watch the interview in two parts after the link below. In addition to telling us about his company and their big Mac Revolution, Bruner also shared with us his own passion for Apple's machines, including how he went into hock to buy a Newton on day one, and what he thinks of the iPad as a gaming device. Click on to see our chat, won't you?
Macworld 2010: Telltale Games and their Mac revolution
Well, there you go. After consistent rumors that the whole catalog would be coming over to the Mac, Telltale Games announced at Macworld last week that that's exactly what was going to happen. Starting with the Tales of Monkey Island series (based on the Lucasarts games, where many Telltale developers formerly hung their hats), the company will co-release Mac and PC versions, giving customers versions for both platforms at the same time. Telltale is hosting a vote on its website right now as to the next game set to be released, but as we learned directly from co-founders Dan Connors and Kevin Bruner, eventually the whole platform, including Monkey Island, Sam and Max, Wallace and Gromit, and Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People, is coming over. And it's probably not long until the iPhone and the iPad follow suit. Kevin Bruner spoke with us on the livestream during the show, and Dan Connors sat down for a longer interview about Telltale's past, the decision to join the Mac gaming community, and what both founders think of Apple's newest platforms and the Mac community at large. Read on to see the full text of the interview.
Devs show Steam love as Pitchford defends his criticism
Just under two weeks ago, Gearbox Software's Randy Pitchford let out his less than pleasant feelings regarding digital distribution platform Steam and its owner, Valve Software. Today, Ars Techinca posted a rundown of developers from World of Goo's 2D Boy to Sam & Max's Telltale Games who all feel ... the exact opposite of Pitchford. "If this is exploitation, more please," Audiosurf creator Dylan Fitterer said.According to Telltale CTO Kevin Bruner, "Steam may be one the greatest things to happen recently ... we put Steam as one of the A-list distribution channels; up there with XBLA and WiiWare." The praise doesn't stop there -- Ars points out that it was unable to find even one developer who would "admit to feeling exploited" by Valve's business practices concerning Steam. We reached out to Pitchford, who told us, "As a gamer, I love Valve ... as a customer, I love Steam." He clarified, "From an industry perspective, Steam would be even better off if it were a separate company ... trust issues that result from conflict of interest could be mitigated." To Pitchford, it's a question of appearances rather than actual impropriety. "It's just perception within segments of the publishing and development community that, I guess, no one is really talking about."We've posted Pitchford's entire (and quite lengthy) response after the break. Hopefully we're not alone in hoping everyone will just hug it out.
