"Inevitably, the Eye of Sauron looks at you, and that beam of light just blows everything up and makes it a hellscape," one former employee told the site. Ultimately he is accused of creating a culture of fear in which developers felt belittled for any decisions Bruner disagreed with, and were dissuaded from trying to create new mechanics that strayed too far from the studio's established formulas. The success of Firewatch, along with other hit games from former employees such as Adam Hines' Oxenfree, left Bruner unwilling to praise workers in fear that they too would leave. The Verge's sources are particularly critical of studio co-founder Kevin Bruner, whose behaviour was said to have become "significantly more abrasive and inflexible" following The Walking Dead's hit status. This was a cycle that would repeat over and over, the report adds. The then shock departure of Rodkin and Vanaman (to form Firewatch developer Campo Santo) left a creative vacuum that the company's then many disparate parts were never able to fill. However, as developer numbers swelled to over 300, the working culture allegedly never adapted, with teams becoming tribalistic. Sources say the credit for The Walking Dead can very much be placed at the feet of lead developers Jake Rodkin and Sean Vanaman, who garnered such respect that they were able to stand up to a pushy management structure that was accountable to investors, and ultimately shape an excellent product. In a small space of time it had gone from a comparatively small outfit of 100 people to a hugely important company working with colossal licenses such as Batman, Game of Thrones and Minecraft. The Verge's report explains how the huge success of The Walking Dead in 2012 led to a period of very rapid expansion for the studio, which tripled its headcount in "just a few years". A new report has detailed an alleged work culture that "promoted constant overwork, toxic management, and creative stagnation" at developer Telltale Games.
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