{"id":280861,"date":"2018-10-15T01:02:29","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T01:02:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/15\/toxic-management-cost-an-award-winning-game-studio\/"},"modified":"2018-10-15T01:02:29","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T01:02:29","slug":"toxic-management-cost-an-award-winning-game-studio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.merindab.com\/private\/2018\/10\/15\/toxic-management-cost-an-award-winning-game-studio\/","title":{"rendered":"Toxic management cost an award-winning game studio its best developers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toxic management cost an award-winning game studio its best developers<\/a><\/p>\n

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youngandyoungatheart<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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Multiple sources say the some of the studio\u2019s most troubling dynamics originated from one person: co-founder Kevin Bruner.<\/b><\/p>\n

Bruner worked primarily as a programmer prior to Telltale, including during his stint at LucasArts. But he wore many hats during his time at Telltale: first as the company\u2019s CTO and later as a director and CEO. According to numerous current and former employees, Bruner\u2019s behavior became significantly more abrasive and inflexible after the success of The Walking Dead.<\/b> Thanks to his background in programming, he had been a strong force in creating game development tools for Telltale. As the studio\u2019s popularity exploded, some employees felt he wanted to step into the role of a design auteur, which sources say made him resistant to give the spotlight to other employees at the company.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s when things got really bad,\u201d says a former employee. \u201cI think a lot of the insecurity came from The Walking Dead.\u201d The game\u2019s success had significantly raised the profiles of Rodkin and Vanaman and earned them widespread praise. \u201cI think that that really irked [Bruner] a lot,\u201d says the source. \u201cHe felt that\u2026 he deserved that.<\/b> It was his project, or it was his company. He should have gotten all that love.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some say Bruner\u2019s behavior led Rodkin and Vanaman to ultimately leave after the wildly successful first season of The Walking Dead.<\/b> \u201cThey were tired of fighting with [Bruner],\u201d says a source with direct knowledge. They jumped into indie development and founded their own studio called Campo Santo, where they released the award-winning game Firewatch. One source points to Campo Santo\u2019s success, along with Night School Studios and its supernatural thriller Oxenfree \u2014 co-created by former Telltale veteran Adam Hines \u2014 as a catalyst for Bruner\u2019s tightening grip.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was hesitant to give anyone much credit for having significant creative vision,\u201d one source says. \u201cHe thought they would leave and become a competitor because he had a couple of strong examples of people doing exactly that.\u201d If Bruner\u2019s behavior was aimed at quashing future competitors, however, it only wound up driving more people out the door. Those who stayed as project leads often felt that they were no longer trusted to do their jobs, and were shuffled to the side in favor of giving Bruner the limelight. \u201cThere was a dark period of time where if you were in charge of a project, you are not getting any interviews,\u201d one source says. \u201cHe\u2019s going to be the one on the panel. He\u2019s going to be the one doing the interviews. He\u2019s going to be the one in the magazine.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Former employees and sources with direct knowledge of Telltale\u2019s inner workings consistently describe Bruner as a creative bottleneck who micromanaged every part of the development process, from pitch to final product \u2014 even going so far as to personally rewrite tutorial text. \u201cHe wanted to be consulted on everything from the color of the walls to who they\u2019ve hired to write specific dialogue,\u201d a former employee says.<\/b><\/p>\n

Bruner took over as CEO of Telltale in 2015 from Connors, who former employees described as a far less imposing figure. Numerous employees describe Bruner as cultivating a culture of fear, and a running joke at the company compared Bruner\u2019s attention to the Eye of Sauron, the fiery gaze of the villain in The Lord of the Rings.<\/b> \u201cInevitably, the Eye of Sauron looks at you, and that beam of light just blows everything up and makes it a hellscape where you don\u2019t believe in a thing you\u2019re building anymore,\u201d says a former employee. \u201cA lot of times at Telltale, you don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re wanted there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Executive review meetings with higher-ups like Bruner became infamous within the company as brutal, hours-long arguments where Bruner would belittle and question the choices of those involved with the studio\u2019s projects, <\/b>according to half a dozen sources. \u201cWhen [Bruner] saw something he decided he didn\u2019t like \u2014 which very often was exactly what he had asked for \u2014 [that] was really undeserved, and often really difficult for teams to deal with,\u201d the source says.<\/p>\n

But multiple sources told The Verge that they often felt like they weren\u2019t making the best games possible, but rather the ones that Bruner personally preferred. \u201cIt often felt like we were building games specifically for him,\u201d<\/b> says one source with direct knowledge of the process. \u201cWe were tailoring the type of content we were building \u2014 not just gameplay mechanics, but tone, the types of characters we chose to use \u2014 to his taste. This was one of the biggest issues with him as a CEO: he was pretty convinced that his taste was everyone\u2019s taste.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

Bruner\u2019s time at Telltale came to a close in March 2017, when employees spotted him leaving the Telltale offices with his backpack.<\/b> He\u2019d left most of his things in his office; shortly after, the company got an email from him announcing that he had stepped down as CEO, and Connors would once again resume the position. Though rumors of Bruner\u2019s departure had circulated widely, many were shocked when it came to pass. Others were more surprised by the quiet way Bruner had chosen to leave.<\/p>\n

\u201dMy guess is that he saw writing on the wall,\u201d says a source with direct knowledge of the company.<\/b> \u201cWe needed to break out of the Telltale formula, do something different, surprise and delight people, multiple years ago. It\u2019s reflected in [online] comments in articles about us. It\u2019s reflected in our review scores. It\u2019s reflected in our sales. It\u2019s reflected in our game scores. Everyone [could] see that, not just people who work for Telltale.\u201d<\/b><\/p>\n

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And there we have it. Four years later, I finally have a name and a face to attach to cataclysmic shift from original TWDG to the worst sequel ever made:
Kevin Bruner.<\/p>\n

He stepped into the role of CEO, he bullied, belittled, and demeaned the hard-working artists, programmers and coders of the company, he forced his idiotic and often changing personal whims on already over-worked development teams, he ruined literally everything Telltale Games ever built.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s not all bad. From the same article there\u2019s also this:<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the most recognizable mechanics in Telltale games, where players are told that a character \u2018will remember that,\u2019 was his idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Well Mr. Bruner, you took a company hot off its heels from a massive sleeper-hit that won over 80 GOTY awards, codified a new sub-genre of games, and was famous for literally moving jaded YouTubers to tears, and destroyed it and everything it ever built, and only in six years time, the last year and a half of which you couldn\u2019t even be bothered to stick around for, all because you wanted to be the center of attention.<\/p>\n

<\/figure>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toxic management cost an award-winning game studio its best developers youngandyoungatheart: Multiple sources say the some of the studio\u2019s most troubling dynamics originated from one person: co-founder Kevin Bruner. Bruner worked primarily as a programmer prior to Telltale, including during his stint at LucasArts. But he wore many hats during his time at Telltale: first … <\/p>\n

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