How One Man's Ego Destroyed Telltale Games

Telltale Games won more than 90 Game of the Year awards for The Walking Dead Season 1. They got to work on games for Batman, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, Borderlands, and Minecraft. They could have been a gaming dynasty that lasted decades, but one man’s ego destroyed it all.

CEO Kevin Bruner, described by some workers as “The Eye of Sauron”, worked his employees to the bone, forcing them to crunch for 80 hours a week and refusing to let his employees get the respect they deserved. The culture at Telltale got to so toxic that all of the best writers left, going on to make other games like Firewatch, OXENFREE, and Dispatch, while Telltale stagnated and eventually went bankrupt.

Come with us as we explore what exactly happened to one of the most promising gaming companies of all time.

Telltale Games were also responsible for such titles as The Tale of Monkey Island, Wallace and Gromit, Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Tales From the Borderlands, Minecraft Story Mode, and more!