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GDC Europe 09: Telltale Games

I just heard the talk of Dan Connors, CEO of Telltale Games. For those of you who are not familiar with the company: they buy licenses for existing franchises and publish story telling games in episodes. They latest big hit in the news was Tales of Monkey Island (originally Lucasarts). He said that they understand themselves as story telling company, while not so much being a game company. In a world of people trying to make  AAA games they focus on short  dev times (e.g. 8-10 months) and small and fast sequels (e.g. 4-6 months). Judging from the history of Telltale Games thihs approach works out fine  They focus mostly on digital distribution, also based on their own platform.

Buying licenses is an interesting thing as Dan stated. Companies either give them away with the freedom of telling the story on and on, while other need to be involved or have lots of handbooks with do’s and don’ts.