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Telltale Incorporated (trade name: Telltale Games) was an American video game developer based in San Rafael, California. The company was founded in July 2004 by former LucasArts developers Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, following LucasArts' decision to leave the adventure game genre. Telltale established itself to focus on adventure games using a novel episodic release schedule over digital distribution, creating its own game engine, the Telltale Tool, to support this. It closed in October 2018 after filing for bankruptcy protection.

Telltale's initial successes were on games using intellectual properties with small but dedicated fan bases, including Sam & Max, Wallace & Gromit, Homestar Runner, and Bone. Around 2010, the studio gained more lucrative licensing opportunities in more mainstream properties such as Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. Telltale's critical breakout game came in 2012's The Walking Dead, based on the comic book series of the same name. It introduced a more narrative-directed approach that diverged from the standard adventure game "point and click" gameplay. The Walking Dead gave the player the ability to make choices that could affect how future events in the game or its sequels played out, effectively allowing players to craft their own personalized take on the offered story. Nearly all of Telltale's adventure games afterwards featured this player choice-driven approach. The Walking Dead was critically praised and considered to have revitalized the adventure game genre since LucasArts' departure from it in 2004.

Telltale continued to expand with new licensing deals for episodic adventure games over the next few years, including for Minecraft, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy, and Batman, but the rate of production created a "crunch time" culture behind the scenes, leaving poor company morale, little room for creativity to veer from the formula set by The Walking Dead or improvements on the Telltale Tool. A management shakeup occurred in early 2017, with CEO Bruner stepping down, and Pete Hawley, formerly of Zynga, brought in to fix Telltale's problems. Internal restructuring led to a layoff of 25% of the company's staff in November 2017, along with an emphasis to slow down game production to improve production quality, retire the Telltale Tool for a more standard game engine, and seek other lucrative properties to develop for. This resulted in an early 2018 deal with Netflix in which Telltale would adapt its Minecraft: Story Mode into an interactive program for the streaming service, and Netflix licensing the rights to Telltale for an adventure game based on its show Stranger Things.

In the midst of releasing The Walking Dead: The Final Season, the company was forced to initiate a "majority studio closure" after their last investor had pulled out of funding. Telltale announced on September 21, 2018, that it had let go of all but 25 of its staff as part of this closure, with the remaining skeleton crew completing specific obligations, such as finishing the Minecraft: Story Mode project porting to Netflix. Telltale Games filed for assignment in October 2018. Many assets were later acquired by LCG Entertainment, which revived the Telltale Games name as part of its business in August 2019, retaining many of the company's previous licenses and offering former staff freelance positions.

History

Foundation and initial growth (2004–2010)
Telltale Games was founded in San Rafael, California, by Kevin Bruner, Dan Connors and Troy Molander, a group of former LucasArts employees that worked on the studio's adventure games. In March 2004, LucasArts recognized that there were "current market place realities and underlying economic considerations" that made adventure games too risky to release, and canceled work on two sequels of previous adventure games, Full Throttle 2 and Sam & Max: Freelance Police, as well as laying off many of those developers. Bruner, Connors and Molander were not among the layoffs, but felt that the change of direction at LucasArts was not favorable, and departed the company later that year to found Telltale Games July 2004. The studio opening was announced on October 4. The name "Telltale" was selected by Bruner as the three envisioned themselves creating more adventure games but de-emphasizing puzzle elements in favor of narrative aspects, telling a tale to the user. Technology attorney Ira P. Rothken negotiated publishing and licensing deals for the company.

The company's initial goal was to develop a new Sam & Max game in an episodic format. Grossman said that Telltale identified that Sam & Max had a small but dedicated audience allowing them to develop a title that would be successful in reaching out to this group and not requiring them to seek out a bigger license that would have incurred more development costs. Developing a Sam & Max game required both development of tools to produce the game, and the license to make it. At the time of the studio's founding, the license for Sam & Max was still held by LucasArts, who refused to negotiate a deal nor license the work on Sam & Max: Freelance Police for Telltale to complete it. Telltale waited out the licensing period until around mid-2005, after which Steve Purcell, Sam & Maxs creator, immediately offered the license to Telltale.

Until they could get to that point, the studio developed other games to bring in revenue and keep the studio afloat. On February 11, 2005, the company released their first game, Telltale Texas Hold'em, a poker card game simulator which was intended primarily to test the Telltale Tool, their in-house game engine. They used the license around Jeff Smith's Bone comic book series to test the episodic format. Though initially planned for a five-episode series, Telltale only released two episodes in 2005 and 2006 and the remaining episode had been canceled. Alongside Bone, Telltale developed a series of games for Ubisoft around the CSI television series, including CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder, CSI: Hard Evidence, CSI: Deadly Intent, and CSI: Fatal Conspiracy; though these games were also developed as episodes, they were each released in single packages. Outside of Ubisoft, few other publishers were interested in distributing Telltale's early games, forcing them to turn to their own distribution system.

Once they had secured the rights to Sam & Max, Telltale set about to making this game with an episodic approach, with episodes planned to be released on a tight monthly basis through their partner, GameTap. Sam & Max: Season One was considered a success for the company, and considered one of the first successful demonstration of an episodic release in video games. The success led to additional funding through two rounds of angel investment, including Matthew Le Merle and members of angel group Keiretsu Forum. The studio created a second season for Sam & Max, and found additional niche intellectual property areas, including Wallace & Gromit and Homestar Runner, to continue the episodic adventure game format. When Darrell Rodriguez became CEO of LucasArts in 2008, he wanted to see the old LucasArts adventure properties flourish, leading to a license for Telltale to create a new game in the Monkey Island series, Tales of Monkey Island. Telltale was also able to expand their release platforms beyond personal computers, with releases of these games on various consoles at the time.

To supplement their normal episodic games, Telltale created a pilot program in early 2010 to explore one-off games that would explore other gameplay and storytelling approaches that could eventually be incorporated into their episodic games. The first game, Nelson Tethers: Puzzle Agent, a puzzle-solving game in collaboration with Graham Annable, was released in June 2010, while Poker Night at the Inventory, a crossover poker game featuring characters from Sam and Max, Homestar Runner, Valve's Team Fortress 2, and the webcomic Penny Arcade, was released late in 2010. Telltale followed up Puzzle Agent with a sequel, Puzzle Agent 2, in 2011. In 2013, Telltale continued the series with Poker Night 2. The Walking Dead started out as a pilot program game that was known internally as the "zombie prototype". In general, few of these games brought in large revenues, and until 2010, the founders feared that investors would suddenly pull out of the company and would force its closure.

Major franchise acquisitions (2010–2016)
Having established themselves as working with comedy franchises, Telltale chose to work with dramatic franchises as well as comedy series. In June 2010, Telltale announced that they had secured licenses with NBC Universal to develop two episodic series based on Back to the Future and Jurassic Park. Notably, Telltale's Jurassic Park: The Game was the first game to break away from the standard adventure game format, including elements like quick time events and time-limited choices which would become a core gameplay element in their future adventure games. Telltale obtained the license from NBC Universal to develop episodic series around the Law & Order franchise in April 2011.

By 2010, Telltale had proven itself successful, with yearly revenues of $10 million, 90% greater than the previous year. Part of this was attributed to Back to the Future: The Game, which Steve Allison, the senior vice-president (VP) of marketing, called in 2011 their "most successful franchise to date". Allison stated that for most of their games, they only need to sell 100,000 copies to break even, but many of their recent releases have seen twice that number or more. The studio expanded from 90 to 140 employees. They had obtained a license in 2011 to develop a King's Quest adventure game based on the original Sierra games, but Activision took back the rights in 2013, which were subsequently used by The Odd Gentlemen to create their 2015 episodic King's Quest game.

Telltale's breakthrough success came with the licenses of the comic book series The Walking Dead and Fables in association with Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment in 2011. Allison anticipated that The Walking Dead series could be a $20 to $30 million franchise. Their The Walking Dead video game presented an alteration of Telltale's approach, as rather than a traditional adventure game where players would need to solve puzzles, The Walking Dead was more focused on providing a cinematic experience but presenting choices to the player, either through dialog trees or through quick time events, that would create "determinants" that would feed into latter parts of the episode and into future episodes; one example would be deciding which of one of two characters to save from a zombie attack at the spur of the moment. While these decisions do not have a direct impact on the game's overall narrative and structure, it provides a more personalized story around what decisions the player had made. This format proved highly successful: the game sold one million copies in 20 days, exceeded 8.5 million episode purchases by 2013, and an estimated $40 million in revenue. The success led to two additional 5-episode seasons, a 3-episode mini-season and a final 4-episode season. The Walking Dead is considered to have revitalized the waning adventure game genre due to this more emotionally driven focus. Since The Walking Dead, nearly all of Telltale's games have used a similar approach of being built around the impacts of the player's choices as determinants in later episodes and seasons.

Telltale has had several other licensing details from popular works, including Tales from the Borderlands based on the Borderlands series by Gearbox Software, and Game of Thrones, based on the HBO television show adaption, Minecraft: Story Mode based on the Mojang game, Minecraft, Batman: The Telltale Series from DC Comics, and Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series from Marvel Comics. On retrospective after the studio's closure, former employees of Telltale believed that the studio's expansion into all these additional licensed properties were trying to replicate the success of The Walking Dead, moving the company from a risk-taker to seeking risk aversion strategies. This was also propagated by the weight of the licensed properties: they had taken more conservative approaches to deliver a game that mirrored The Walking Dead, a well-known product, rather than take risks and potentially lose the license.

Telltale relocated to a larger space and expanded from 125 to 160 in mid-2013. Around 2015, the company had grown to 200 to 250 employees. The company continued to grow, at its peak having about 400 employees in mid-2017. In the midst of this growth, in 2014–2015, the management of Telltale recognized the need to restructure to handle more projects and more staff. This led to original chief executive officer (CEO) Dan Connors resigning and being replaced by co-founder Kevin Bruner, who was also the firm's president. Connors noted that with the studio's continued growth, it had begun experiencing growth-specific challenges. Connors stated that Bruner's ascension to CEO would best enable Telltale Games to act on future expansion opportunities. Connors remained on the board of directors, and also served as a creative consultant. Internally, there were concerns about this transition and Brunner's influence on it; an anonymous quality control (QC) employee writing in Gamasutra after the firm's closure called this transition "the beginning of the end" for Telltale.

With Bruner's placement as CEO in January 2015, Telltale said it was developing a game based on its own intellectual property as a result of this leadership change.

In February 2015, Lionsgate announced an investment within Telltale Games to produce a number of "Super Shows", a hybrid interactive work combining television and video game elements, which would be distributed through non-traditional channels such as through streaming services. The first Super Show planned was an original intellectual property (IP) developed by Telltale that would be able to take advantage of this format. Telltale also announced that Lionsgate CEO Jon Feltheimer and Unity Technologies CEO John Riccitiello joined Telltale's board of directors. Alongside this, Lionsgate had invested  into Telltale. The "Super Show" concept never got out of pre-production, due to issues that arose with the studio in 2016 and 2017, according to Variety.

Restructuring (2017–2018)

By 2016, Bruner said that the Telltale studio had established an environment to be able to work on four major titles simultaneously with room for various side projects. However, this approach to development had created a perpetual state of "crunch time" within Telltale, according to several current and former staff speaking to USgamer, The Verge, and Variety in 2017. This limited the amount of time that the creators and developers could spend on content in order to maintain a consistent flow of episodes to consumers but impacted the quality of games. There was a perpetual drive to release new episodes on a regular basis, whether they were good or not, so that the company had a continued source of income. This particularly affected the Telltale Tool, the game engine used since the company's inception, which caused numerous bugs in released episodes that Telltale became infamously noted for. The anonymous QC tester stated that their department was nearly always under crunch time, working from 48 to 60 hours a week on testing at least two game series across multiple platforms simultaneously, and were understaffed, leading to some of the quality control issues as well. During this time, the eighth generation of video game consoles emerged, and while the Telltale Tool was ported to these platforms, it showed its age in graphics quality, which also diminished Telltale's products. There was also a new trend of major AAA titles incorporating deep story-telling, such as God of War, which Telltale would not easily be able to compete with.

The company was also hobbled by working with established IP, and inconsistencies in the reviewing process with management that led to last-minute reworking of some episodes. The Verge also found some of the employees they spoke to had stated that top-level executives, including Bruner, had become fixated on the format that The Walking Dead presented, making decisions that prevented developers from looking at alternative formats or variations from this formula, stifling creativity and leading to several staff departures prior to the 2017 layoffs. According to narrative designer Emily Grace Buck, management would frequently demand rewrites of materials, with most games having between 60 and 90 percent of the content reworked after executive review. Bruner and management created a "culture of fear" of demotion or firing among developers. Some of these rewrites had come days prior to an episode's submission date for certification, creating hasty rewrites that filtered through the entire production process. This rush created some of the apparent "bugs" in the Telltale Tool which Buck stated were more often a result of the inability to smooth out hastily-reworked animations as well as perpetuating the crunch time culture within the company. Other cases of narrative rewrites were a result of different expectations by some of the executive management. Buck stated that they had originally been driven by management to make Minecraft: Story Mode as a more mature game, but eventually reworked this to a family-friendly title, while for their Guardians of the Galaxy game, the storywriters had written a story they felt more true to the humor and wit of the source material, but were told by management to make a darker story. Further, anonymous sources from Telltale stated that very few of the games were profitable, with only The Walking Dead: The First Season, Minecraft: Story Mode, and revenues from publishing 7 Days to Die turning a profit. Batman: The Telltale Series, released in 2016 was said to be one of the worst commercial failures for the company.

On March 15, 2017, Bruner announced he had stepped down as CEO of Telltale, though Variety reported that he had been voted out of this position by the Board of directors. Bruner turned the day-to-day operations to Connors, while still remaining on the Board of Directors. Bruner said "The time has come to pass the reins to someone that can better drive Telltale to the next level and realize all the potential that is here." Pete Hawley, the former VP for Games at Zynga, was announced as the new CEO, with Connors remaining on its Board and acting in an advisory role. Rather than other corporate "fixers" who take control of a company for a temporary period to help it regain its financial footing, Hawley had committed to staying with Telltale after helping the company to get past these problems.

In November 2017, a restructuring of the company cut about 90 positions, about a quarter of their staff, which was not expected to affect the release of any existing projects. Hawley said that the restructuring was for "reorienting our organization with a focus on delivering fewer, better games with a smaller team". While Telltale had not stated which positions were let go in the restructuring, sources speaking to USgamer stated that most were part of the management structure that led to these problems; coupled with Hawley's appointment as CEO, this was expected to be a turning point to help revitalize Telltale.

In June 2018, Bruner filed a lawsuit against Telltale in relation to his departure, citing financial damages as he had been seemingly removed from the Board of Directors, and thus could not gain information related to Telltale's financial status in anticipation of selling off a portion of his shares in the company. Telltale stated the claims were "meritless". In its response to Bruner's lawsuit, Telltale stated that the company "is now working to turn around the decline that it experienced under [Bruner]'s stewardship". Kent Mudle, the creative director for The Walking Dead: The Final Season, stated that the new management had shown a great deal of effort to turn the studio around from the previous uses, with the executives staying more hands-off and reducing the amount of micromanagement of the creative teams.

In June 2018, Telltale announced a partnership with Netflix for the streaming service to provide its games to subscribers, with the first planned game being Minecraft: Story Mode. Alongside this, Telltale announced that they were working on a yet-untitled game based on Netflix's original property, Stranger Things. According to Variety, there had been suggestions of teaming with Netflix for collaboration shortly after Stranger Things first aired in mid-2016, but Telltale's management at the time, including Bruner, rejected the idea. The Netflix partnership solidified after Hawley took over as CEO. The Stranger Things game would have been used to bridge the show's story between its second and third season. In addition to this game, Telltale had started working with Night School Studio in 2017 for them to make a first-person, narrative driven game that would have led into Telltale's game. However, Night School reported difficulty in cooperating with Telltale over 2018 and were also surprised by the studio's sudden closure.

Majority studio closure and aftermath (2018)
On September 21, 2018, CEO Pete Hawley announced that Telltale was undergoing a "majority studio closure", with around 90% of its present workforce (225 to 250 employees) let go that day. A core team of about 25 employees remained to "fulfill the company's obligations to its board and partners", which includes completing the Minecraft: Story Mode interactive media project for Netflix. According to Dan Connors, the studio had been ready to close another round of financing when their last major investor pulled out. The company executives had to make the decision to end all production as soon as possible without this investment. While Connors did not specify which investor pulled out, Variety suggested that this may have been Lionsgate, which had contacted Telltale's board the previous week about its intent to pull out of funding Telltale in order to return to its core film business. Variety also reported that AMC Networks, which owns the rights to The Walking Dead television series, and Smilegate, a Korean mobile games publisher, were looking to invest in Telltale, but both pulled out the day before Telltale's closure announcement. Dan Murray, president of Skybound Interactive which was working with Telltale for The Walking Dead games, said "We knew some of the challenges Telltale was facing, but when the news hits so suddenly everyone was taken off guard", while anonymous Telltale employees stated to The Verge that they had known the company was in financial trouble in the months leading up to the closure and was further hurt by leaks of news related to the Netflix deal, which management wanted to use as a lure for speculative investors.

In a press release, Hawley stated:

Those who were let go reported they were given no warning, had to leave the office building within 30 minutes of the company's decision, received no severance, and only had a limited amount of time on their health care benefits. Melissa Hutchison, the voice actor for Clementine in The Walking Dead games, said that the news came in the middle of a recording session which they had to immediately end. On September 24, the former staff were allowed to return to the office within a three-hour timeframe to gather any belongings they did not manage to collect in the 30 minutes following the majority closure decision. The suddenness of the closure, along with the lack of post-layoff support for the employees, led to renewed discussions about the need for video game developers to unionize, with the Game Workers Unite grassroots movement calling the treatment of the Telltale employees "exploitative". On September 24, 2018, a class-action lawsuit was filed by former Telltale employee Vernie Roberts, representing about a total of 275 Telltale employees, alleging that Telltale violated the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act of 1988 (WARN Act) and the more stringent requirements set by California of requiring at least 60 days notification before issuing mass layoffs.

Telltale has not officially commented on the status of its in-progress games, including The Wolf Among Us: Season Two, Game of Thrones: Season Two, and the untitled Stranger Things project, but laid-off employees alleged that teams working on these games had all been let go. On September 24, Netflix announced that it is "in the process of evaluating other options for bringing the Stranger Things universe to life in an interactive medium." It also confirmed that it plans to go ahead with releasing Minecraft: Story Mode as planned. The first three episodes of Minecraft: Story Mode were subsequently released on Netflix on November 27, and the remaining 2 were released that December.

Telltale released the second episode of four of The Walking Dead: The Final Season as scheduled on September 25, 2018, and stated that it had been contacted by "multiple potential partners" to help bring the last two episodes of the series to completion in some manner. However, while some fans of the series were happy about this news, others, including Cory Barlog, suggested that Telltale should prioritize finding ways to pay the let-go developers over finishing off the game. Two anonymous sources speaking to Ethan Gach of Kotaku clarified that Telltale was trying to convince potential development partners to hire the staff Telltale had laid off so the staff could remotely finish the two remaining episodes of The Walking Dead: The Final Season. During the 2018 New York Comic Con, Robert Kirkman, the creator of The Walking Dead comic, stated that his production company Skybound Entertainment completed negotiations with Telltale to finish off the last two episodes of The Final Season through their Skybound Games division and with the original development team from Telltale.

On October 4, 2018, narrative designer Rachel Noel stated that her team within the skeleton crew was also laid off, and that there were "not many" people left at the company. Telltale saw assignment proceedings begin on October 11, 2018, working through Sherwood Partners to liquidate all remaining assets; the company remains in assignment as of April 2019. Various digital storefronts started removing Telltale products from their marketplaces by November. For some of these removed games, after rights were returned, the original company was able to rerelease the titles as the new publisher; for example, Skybound republished all four seasons of The Walking Dead as one collection, The Walking Dead: The Telltale Definitive Series, in September 2019, while Gearbox Software rereleased Tales from the Borderlands in February 2021.

Relaunch under LCG Entertainment (2018–present)

Following negotiations with Sherwood Partners starting in February 2019, LCG Entertainment acquired several key Telltale assets and on August 28, 2019, announced that it was re-launching the company by assuming "Telltale Games" as its trade name, operating out of Malibu, California, with a satellite studio in Corte Madera, California. Under the leadership of founders Jamie Ottilie (chief executive officer) and Brian Waddle (chief revenue officer), the new Telltale is set to re-release the old Telltale's back-catalog, as well as work on new games based on Telltale-affiliated properties.  While licenses for games and planned games like The Walking Dead and Stranger Things have since reverted to their original owners, the new Telltale retains licenses for The Wolf Among Us and Batman, as well as the intellectual property for Puzzle Agent. The new Telltale was expected to start small for the first six months to regain distribution channels, and the company has offered former staff of the old Telltale freelance roles within the company with the potential for full-time positions at a later point in time. Partners in the new Telltale include publisher Athlon Games, which will handle distribution, and financial contributors Chris Kingsley, Lyle Hall and Tobias Sjögren. None of the newly involved parties had previously worked with the old Telltale. The first game under this new company was a re-release of Batman: The Telltale Series, adding in a new noir-style shader among other fixes, which was released in December 2019. The company also announced The Wolf Among Us 2 at The Game Awards 2019. The sequel is being made in partnership with Adhoc Studios, a company composed of former Telltale employees who worked on the first game.

Former employees of the original Telltale were skeptical of LCG's approach to the relaunch of Telltale, considering that offering only freelance work while in San Francisco, which has one of the highest costs-of-living in the country, is risky. Others have urged LCG to pay off the existing Telltale debt to its former employees, while others have called for a boycott of any game from the new Telltale. As of 2022, roughly 50 percent of the company's staff is made up of former Telltale employees.

Development model
Telltale Games released video games in episodic installments. It is seen by production studios and other content producers to take a more realistic approach to movie tie-in games rather than the difficult "see the movie, play the game" model, and also collaborates with studios and screenwriters to create a strong experience that pays homage to the original film or franchise. In a September 2017 interview, Job Stauffer called Telltale's role as "an interactive TV network and a studio", able to produce content across a wide range of genres on a regular basis. He considered their studio something between a video game developer and a cable or streaming network with production capabilities like HBO or Netflix.

In general, Telltale offered its games as a one-time "season pass" purchase for the game's season when the first episode of the season was released, with the user then entitled to all planned episodes for that season. For digital purchases, this entitlement was handled through the digital storefront. In retail, Telltale published complete seasons after the season's digital release was over, but also adopted a model where they could publish, at the same time as the digital release, a retail disc that contains the first episode. The disc included a "season pass" entitlement to the remaining episodes to be digitally downloaded, tied to the disc itself rather than the user. This allowed for trading or resale of the retail product that can be played by others, which according to Stauffer, makes for a "nice in-between" market model that satisfies players, retailers, and themselves. For some of their games, Telltale developed additional downloadable content, such as 400 Days for The Walking Dead, or three additional episodes for Minecraft: Story Mode Season 1, which must be purchased separately from the season pass.

With Batman: The Telltale Series and most of their subsequently released episodic adventure games, Telltale added a "Crowd Play" feature that can be used by those that stream their playthroughs on services like Twitch. Through Crowd Play, viewers can vote for an option for the streamer to select.

While mainly a developer, Telltale also verified its self-publishing ethos; the only classic developer-publisher relationship was with Ubisoft for the CSI video game franchise. They have struck financial arrangements with GameTap for the first two seasons of the rebooted Sam & Max games, but their publishing arrangements have been chiefly made after the games were already completed and had already been sold via digital distribution.

Telltale aimed to also present itself on as many digital platforms and avenues as possible. To date, it has released games through GameTap; on Microsoft Windows and OS X, through Steam and similar services, plus its own online store, on Wii via WiiWare and disc, on Xbox 360, via Xbox Live Arcade and disc, on PlayStation 3 through PlayStation Network and disc, on iPhone and iPad through iTunes, on PlayStation Vita, and on Kindle Fire HDX. Though Telltale normally port their own games to other systems, CSI: 3 Dimensions of Murder was ported to the PlayStation 2 by Ubisoft Sofia, and Bone: Out from Boneville was ported to Mac OS by Vanbrio. Telltale was one of the companies who Sony confirmed pledged PlayStation 4 third-party support at the PlayStation Meeting 2013. Telltale had also committed to developing and re-releasing seasons for the Nintendo Switch. Stauffer stated that there were no restrictions on what games they can bring to the Switch due to content, but they were focusing on their more recent, family-friendly games like Minecraft: Story Mode, Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy only due to ease of porting these to the Switch, while older games like The Walking Dead required more effort to port.

Telltale Tool
The Telltale Tool is a proprietary game engine developed by Telltale. Telltale commenced development on the engine shortly after its founding, initially referring to the engine as the "Telltale Engine and Toolset". A casual poker game, Telltale Texas Hold'em, was created to test their engine and distribution model, and to ensure that all major bugs were ironed out before the release of their first adventure game, Bone: Out from Boneville.

The Telltale Tool has been used for every game developed by Telltale Games, and continued to receive improvements since the initial version, such as compatibility to new systems and better graphics capabilities. The only third-party game to use the Telltale Tool, Hector: Badge of Carnage, was developed by Straandlooper and also published by Telltale Games.

While the Telltale Tool has been updated over the years to support newer consoles and computers, it lacked features that made it more difficult to develop for as the company took on more projects, rushing the development schedules. Until 2016, Telltale Tool did not have a physics engine, meaning that if a scene required an object to fall, this had to be animated by hand, taking time from other more productive activities. This also prevented them from using elements like dynamic lighting, and required them to develop lighting models using 3D modeling tools like Maya, significantly extending time to develop art assets. The aged feature set of the Telltale Tool led to a perception that many of Telltale's games had an abnormally high rate of bugs and other technical flaws, pervasive enough to pose a significant risk of impeding players' ability to progress through a given game. A 2015 article by Kotaku noted that "their games, wonderful in many ways as they may be, have been accompanied by an undercurrent of fan anger" over widespread bugs and glitches. The article concluded that Telltale's support forums "paint a portrait of a publisher that is constantly releasing buggy and even outright broken games", seemingly lacking the resources to fix or even monitor most of them.

Telltale moved to an improved version of their engine around early 2016, partially implemented first in The Walking Dead: Michonne and completed for the release of Batman: The Telltale Series. The updated Telltale Tool provided direct support for DirectX 11 features, including physics-based models, texture mapping and blending, and dynamic lighting and shadows. The changes also helped automate and integrate a game's development across all departments within Telltale, and specifically helped to reduce memory use in some scenes, which had been identified as causing bugs in some consoles' versions.

In mid-June 2018, Variety reported that Telltale was moving away from the Telltale Tool and instead toward the established Unity game engine. The Stranger Things game was expected to be the first to use the Unity-based engine.

Telltale Publishing
Telltale helped other developers to publish their games. Under the moniker Telltale Publishing, Telltale entered into a publishing deal with Jackbox Games to bring the console versions of The Jackbox Party Pack to retail markets, and with The Fun Pimps to publish 7 Days to Die for consoles; according to Variety, this publishing deal was as financially successful for Telltale as the first The Walking Dead season. On August 18, 2016, Telltale published Mr. Robot:1.51exfiltrati0n by Night School Studio. During the company's restructuring in 2017, the publishing branch of Telltale had been put on hiatus but was expected to be reused once the company regained its financial stability.

Games

Legacy
The release of the first season of The Walking Dead in 2012 is considered to have created a resurgence in the adventure game genre, which had been languishing since about 2000. Dontnod Entertainment found the episodic approach to storytelling to be an ideal way to present Life Is Strange, and it has allowed them to release supplementary stories within the series in smaller pieces. Telltale's approach to branching stories has often been criticized, with choices ultimately having little effect on a game's overall narration, often being summarized as "choices don't matter"; players may make choices to save a character from death early in a game, but only to have that character die later for the game to have a cohesive plot and making the player's effort to save the character meaningless, for example.

Former employees of Telltale Games have gone on to adapt the narrative aspects of these games into their own products. Sean Vanaman and Jake Rodkin, co-writers of the first season of The Walking Dead, decided to leave to pursue independent game development, founding Campo Santo in 2013 and releasing Firewatch, a critically-praised narrative-driven exploration game. Adam Hines and Sean Krankel, both writers for Telltale, left to launch Night School Studio in 2014, subsequently releasing Oxenfree which heavily used a "walk and talk" mechanic as part of its gameplay. Four former employees who had left before the studio's closure—Michael Choung (who had briefly spent time at Night School Studio), Dennis Lenart, Nick Herman, and Pierre Shorette—formed AdHoc Studio with the intent to develop live-action interactive video games, following in Telltale's footsteps. AdHoc has since become involved with the new Telltale Games by LCG to help with the narrative and cinematic elements of The Wolf Among Us 2. Telltale co-founder Dan Connors created a new studio in 2019, Skunkape Games, made up of himself and former Telltale employees Jake Rodkin, Randy Tudor, and Jonathan Sgro. The studio is currently working on remastering Telltale's Sam & Max games with assistance from other members of the original development team, beginning with the remaster of Sam & Max Save the World in December 2020.

References

External links

2004 establishments in California
2018 disestablishments in California
Companies based in San Rafael, California
Companies that have filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy
Privately held companies based in California
Software companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area

Video game companies based in California
Video game companies established in 2004
Video game companies disestablished in 2018
Defunct video game companies of the United States
Video game development companies
Video game publishers
Defunct companies based in the San Francisco Bay Area
Spike Video Game Award winners


ANN ARBOR--Scientists at the University of Michigan have deduced that the Andromeda galaxy, our closest large galactic neighbor, shredded and cannibalized a massive galaxy two billion years ago.
"Astronomers have been studying the Local Group--the Milky Way, Andromeda and their companions--for so long. It was shocking to realize that the Milky Way had a large sibling, and we never knew about it," said co-author Bell, U-M professor of astronomy.
Radio images give new evidence that a jet of material from one young star may have triggered the gas collapse that started another young star.
Scientists seeking to understand the origins of life have found a new organic compound in the material from which a star like the Sun is forming.
Three stars have been discovered that now hold the record as the youngest-known examples of a super-fast star category.
A gravitational tussle, ended with a multi-star system breaking apart and at least three stars being ejected in different directions.
University of Massachusetts Amherst astrophysicist Stella Offner, who has received a five-year, $429,000 faculty early career development (CAREER) grant from National Science Foundation (NSF), plans to use it not only to study how stars are born, but also to develop interactive online astronomy 'tours' to enhance K-12 science education in local schools.


text:
Q: Android image upload issue I am developing an Android application for airport customer complain lodging and tracking.The user will enter their passenger ID,complain text and an image(optional)...i am using the Asynchronous Http Client library to upload the image to the server...
my client end code to upload image is-
File myfile=new File(photoFile.getAbsolutePath());
params.put("image",myfile);

i am saving the image captured by the camera in photoFile.
Then i am making a POST request and sending the Complain ID(generated on client-side),Complain text and image to the server.
On server side i am using PHP,the code goes like this-
$complain_id=$_POST['complain_id'];
$ticket_id=substr($complain_id,-6);
$complain=$_POST['complain_text'];
$imageName = $_FILES["image"]["name"];
move_uploaded_file($_FILES["image"]["tmp_name"] , "/images/".$imageName);
$imageData = file_get_contents( "/images/".$imageName);
$imageData = addslashes($imageData);
$imageType = $_FILES["image"]["type"];

$sql='INSERT INTO `complain_table` (`complain_id`, `ticket_id`, `complain_text`, `complain_image`, `complain_audio`) VALUES(?,?,?,?,?)';
$query=$db->prepare($sql);
$values=array($complain_id, $ticket_id, $complain, $imageData, NULL);;
$query -> execute($values);
$fetch_sql=$sql="SELECT Name, Email FROM  `person_table` WHERE ticket_id ='".$ticket_id."'";
$fetch_query=$db->prepare($fetch_sql);
$fetch_query->execute();
$fetch_obj=$fetch_query->fetch(PDO::FETCH_OBJ);

$admin_email = "Abhijog@feedbackdesignlab.com";
$email =$fetch_obj->Email;
$user_name=$fetch_obj->Name;
$subject = 'Complain Registration';
$comment = 'Dear '.$user_name.', your Complain ID is '.$complain_id.'. Use the Complain ID to track your complain.';
mail($email, "$subject", $comment, "From:" . $admin_email);
echo "The complain has been lodged.Please check your e-mail for the complain ID for tracking";

Everthing is getting inserted in the database except the image.I can't find any bug in my code.please help

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


I covered the Safari Hunters Club convention, SCI, held in Reno, Nevada back in January 2004. This is where 1%'ers who are interested in trophy hunting hire guides, buy guns, or plan trophy hunting trips around the world. The convention featured hundreds of taxidermied animals stuffed in strange and quasi natural poses. Several hunting rifles, many costing over 100 thousand dollars were sold.
Most of the participants were Americans including former President George HW Bush.


John and Elaine Glover – and Jackie and Peter in the garden – restored this old Victorian Walled Garden to its former glory. They grow all the greens and veg they serve, and their all-day breakfasts are amazing! Try to catch one of their tasting menu nights. The Walled Garden has become very popular as a wedding and party venue. Jon has a marriage licence – you could not hope for a nicer wedding officiant! Jon and Elaine go to great lengths to make their guests happy and the staff is always smiling and helpful.
The Walled Garden also serves a selection of delicious home baked cakes, scones, brownies, and a wide selection of teas and coffees.
The Applecross Inn-Side Out, a 1950s-style Airstream trailer reflecting the sea, the sand and the sky of Applecross Bay, does a roaring trade serving fresh-ground coffee, the famous Applecross Inn beer-battered fish and chips, and home-made ice cream from Applecross Ices.
Caty can provide organically grown salad from Easter – October from the MacLennan family croft in Toscaig, Applecross. The MacLennan's hand pick their salad and sell mixed leaf bags for £1 to £2.
Cheeses come in from the West Highland Dairy.Chef Robbie MacRae is a local boy come home after being head chef for Marco Pierre White, and then at the Royal Oak, another Michelin restaurant down south.
John and Elaine Glover – and Jackie and Peter in the garden – restored this old Victorian Walled Garden to its former glory. They grow all the greens and veg they serve, and their all-day breakfasts are amazing! Try to catch one of their tasting menu nights. The Walled Garden has become very popular as a wedding and party venue. Jon has a marriage licence – you could not hope for a nicer wedding official.! Jon and Elaine go to great lengths to make their guests happy and the staff are always smiling and helpful.
The Walled Garden also serve a selection of delicious home baked cakes, scones, brownies, and a wide selection of teas and coffees.
The Applecross Inn-Side Out, a 1950s-style trailer reflecting the sea, the sand and the sky of Applecross Bay, does a roaring trade serving fresh-ground coffee, the famous Applecross Inn beer-battered fish and chips, and home-made ice cream from Applecross Ices.


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Admitted Planned Parenthood shooter now facing federal charges for 2015 shooting
by: Angela Case
Posted: Dec 9, 2019 / 11:59 AM MST / Updated: Dec 9, 2019 / 06:40 PM MST
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — Robert Dear, the man who has admitted to killing three people and injuring nine others at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood in November 2015, is now facing charges in federal court.
A grand jury indicted Dear on 65 counts of violating the federal Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act. He is also facing three counts of use of a firearm during a crime of violence resulting in death where the killing is a murder.
Federal prosecutors said Dear, 61, is not charged with homicide because federal law does not have a homicide offense that applies in this case.
If convicted, Dear could face the death penalty. If he is convicted and not sentenced to death, he would face between 10 years and life in prison. Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to seek the death penalty in this particular case.
"The Department will follow the usual rigorous protocol to thoroughly consider all factual and legal issues relevant to that decision, which will necessarily involve consultation with the counsel for the defendant," prosecutors said in a statement. "In addition, consultation with the victims' families is an important part of this decision-making process and no decision will be made before conferring with them."
>> Read the full statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
This photo from November 28, 2015 shows police investigating a shooting at the Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood. The shooting happened the previous day. / FOX21 News file photo
The shooting happened November 27, 2015, at the Planned Parenthood on Centennial Boulevard in western Colorado Springs. Three people–Jennifer Markovsky, Ke'Arre Stewart, and UCCS police officer Garrett Swasey–were killed in the shooting. Nine other people, including four law enforcement officers, were injured.
Dear still faces 179 charges, including murder and attempted murder, in El Paso County District Court. That case has not advanced since May 2016, when the court first deemed Dear mentally incompetent to stand trial. Last year, a court ruled he can be forcibly medicated. Dear's next court appearance in that case is set for January 9.
Federal prosecutors said they filed the charges now because the state case has failed to advance, and the federal FACE Act has a five-year statute of limitations.
"In consideration of the views of both the 4th Judicial District Attorney and victims, the decision was made to file charges now," prosecutors said in a statement.
Dear was taken into federal custody Monday morning at the state mental hospital in Pueblo. He will appear in federal court in Denver at 2 p.m. There, he will be advised of his rights and the charges pending against him. Assuming that he is detained following this hearing, the U.S. Marshals will determine where he will be held in federal custody.
El Paso County prosecutors said they support the indictment.
"As one of the many responding agencies, the 4th Judicial District Attorney's Office has worked closely with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado since November 27, 2015," the prosecutor's office said in a statement. "The indictment, which is fully supported by our office, is a culmination of those joint efforts, and we hope shall serve as notice that the victims in this case will never be forgotten. We want to thank the U.S. Attorney's Office for their diligent work."
Robert Dear found incompetent to stand trial
Planned Parenthood shooting suspect: "I'm guilty. No trial. I'm a warrior for the babies."
More Crime Stories
COLORADO SPRINGS -- A former teen fugitive faces new charges for fighting two cellmates in El Paso County Jail.
According to court documents, on Tuesday, 18-year-old Quinn James Scaggs is accused of fighting 28-year-old Nathan Espinoza. Espinoza had several abrasions to his face and mouth, which required stitches to close up the wound in his lip.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


text:
How to Refresh Your Wine Program with Ribera del Duero and Rueda Wines
Top restaurant and retail accounts are finding new success with Spain's most popular wines.
The wines of Rueda and Ribera del Duero are finding new prominence on restaurant wine lists and retail shelves around the country. Buyers ramping up their by-the-glass and bottle offerings with fresh selections are increasingly turning to these Spanish wines for their accessibility, value, and authentic heritage. "For Ribera del Duero and Rueda wines, character overrides all," says Doug Jeffirs, director of wine sales at Binny's Beverage Depot, a Chicago-based retailer with more than 30 locations. "More than ever, people want real wines. Wines with personality and a sense of place, made by real people."
These sister regions are the second and third largest wine regions in Spain, by production (behind Rioja), but most wineries in the area are small, family-owned operations. Rueda and Ribera del Duero are located on a high-elevation plateau along the Duero River in the Castilla y León region in North-Central Spain, two hours north of Madrid. In both areas, high sunshine exposure, dramatic temperature shifts, dry conditions, and optimal soils help produce exceptional, easy-to-drink wines that are versatile with myriad flavors and cuisines.
In the decades since Rueda attained Denominación de Origen (DO) recognition in 1980, with Ribera del Duero following two years later, the regions have matured considerably. Producers now recognize the potential of their dirt, climate, and native varieties, according to Brahm Callahan, MS, corporate beverage director for Boston's Himmel Hospitality. "When you go to Ribera and Rueda, you see the level of detail where they pick, the breaking apart of plots," he says. Grapes from different plots are typically hand picked and fermented separately, so winemakers can control the process and understand the best way to make wine from each plot. "That is something that was not normal even 25 to 30 years ago, but now Spain is leading the charge for Europe," Callahan notes. While organic viticulture is becoming increasingly popular throughout the wine world, many growers in these regions have always farmed organically.
Positioning Spain's Wines of Place
These days, Rueda and Ribera del Duero wines are largely created in a clean, focused, modern style, making them highly versatile across the consumer spectrum. "These wines are unique in that they're convenient sells for customers of New World wines and Old World wines," Jeffirs says.
Rueda's soil is a blend of stones, clay, limestone, and gravel—an optimal combination for white wine production. Wines in the region are almost exclusively produced from white varieties, with the majority of them made with 100% Verdejo grapes, although Verdejo-based blends with Viura and 100% Sauvignon Blancs are also found.
Rueda's traditional style of Verdejo is fresh, crisp, and dry, with herbaceous, grassy and subtle tropical fruit notes. Some producers are experimenting with fermenting and aging Verdejo in oak, on the lees, or in cement eggs or amphora vessels, which is giving way to a new style of fuller bodied Rueda wines, more akin to oak-aged Chardonnay. "I love all of the barrel-fermented wines, where Verdejo gains an unctuous character; it's super cool stuff," says Charles Ford, who worked extensively with Rueda and Ribera as wine director and general manager of The Bristol, a new American gastropub in Chicago.
In Ribera del Duero, Tempranillo—a hearty, thick-skinned version of its cousin in Rioja, known locally as Tinto Fino—produces bold, yet elegant red wines. Like Burgundy, Piedmont, and several other great wine regions, Ribera del Duero is notable for the limestone soil that helps the wines develop complex, floral aromas, characteristic tannins, and high acidity.
Some Ribera del Duero wineries have maintained the traditional convention of naming wines according to time spent aging (from young to old: Joven or Roble, Crianza, Reserva, and Gran Reserva), while others simply prefer the DO Ribera del Duero label. The younger wines tend to be fresh, crisp, and easy-to-drink, while the older, oak-aged variations are medium- to full-bodied reds with notable complexity.
Easy Substitutions and Sales "Sweet Spots"
To train a staff unfamiliar with Rueda and Ribera wines, frequent, quick blind tasting sessions are an effective way to acquaint them with the wines and how they map to other regions, Ford says. This knowledge helps empower staff members to sell more wines, while treating guests to new wine experiences.
In general, Ruedas map well to light, aromatic varieties like Sauvignon Blancs, white Bordeaux, and Loire Valley whites. At Binny's, Jeffirs has found success with even farther-reaching substitutions. "Rueda is for those who desire the richness and elegance of the best cool-climate California Chardonnay, or the clean but fuller-bodied wines from Alsace," he says.
Juan Valencia, the Spanish wine specialist from Spec's Fine Wine & Spirits, a Texas wine retailer with over 130 locations, also suggests Rueda Verdejo as an alternative to Argentina's Torrontes, which comes from similar elevation and sunlight exposure. In comparison to Torrontes, "The advantage for Rueda is the complexity in their soils, which triggers a decent amount of minerality," Valencia says.
Callahan recommends Rueda for by-the-glass programs. "At wholesale, from Rueda, you can find a lot of wines in the $8 to $16 a bottle range, which is a sweet spot for glass pours, and those wines will cover a range of styles," he says. With so many different interpretations of the varietal, the choices for on- and off-premise wine buyers are plentiful. "You have Rueda wines fermented or aged in oak that are going to be more pleasant for a Chardonnay drinker, with more body, weight, and texture," Callahan says. "Then you have the other side of the coin, with Rueda Verdejos that are focused on fruit, on acidity, and these are more satisfying to a Sauvignon Blanc drinker."
With Ribera's Tempranillo-based red wines, you see similar diversification in the range of quality levels and styles produced. Riberas map well to rich, full-bodied, structured wines like Bordeaux, Cabernet Sauvignons, and Super Tuscans. Spec's Valencia has found particular success recommending Ribera wines to customers who want to try something new but usually gravitate toward California Cabernets and Argentine Malbecs.
In Chicago, Ford has found strong customer appreciation for current release Riberas by-the-glass. "People in Chicago will pay $15 to $16 a glass for a nice Tempranillo," Ford says. "I've got a $14 bottle of Ribera del Duero that I sell for $15 a glass. To be able to provide that for guests, you can't explain how happy that makes you." These wines drink well above their weight in terms of price, he says, noting that many selections that wholesale around $20 drink in the $50 to $60 range. "If you blind-tasted somebody on that, they could never tell," he says. "Ribera has that $20 to $40 range really down, and that's just a testament to their winemaking."
Food Pairing and Occasion Recommendations that Perform
Wines from Rueda and Ribera have become key players at a wide range of restaurant concepts. In Boston, Callahan stocks Rueda and Ribera wines at steakhouse Grill 23, farm-to-table Harvest, and upscale American Post 390, calling out their versatility and food pairing abilities as selling points. "Quite frankly, the wines from both regions are very food friendly and approachable, and certainly work well outside of the realm of Spanish cuisine," says Callahan.
Verdejo's versatility also makes Rueda wines an easy fit for harder-to-pair vegetarian and international menus. Ford plans to serve Rueda wines by the glass at S.K.Y., a wine-focused, global cuisine concept—where he is the general manager and sommelier—that's scheduled to open later this summer in Chicago. The menu will blend pan-Asian, contemporary American, and French influences. "Rueda Verdejo is an easy match with our menu," Ford says. "It pairs really well with raw and roasted vegetables."
At retail, Spec's is capitalizing on Spain's most sipped white wine with their recently launched Summer Like a Spaniard campaign, promoting Rueda Verdejo as the perfect wine of the season. "Ruedas are enticing and fun," Valencia says. "I present the scenario of enjoying a chilled and crisp Verdejo on a hot afternoon by the patio or pool."
With their stylistic breadth, Riberas also share similar versatility. At Spec's, Valencia starts by asking customers a couple of questions: "Dry or fruity? Food or by itself?" For casual social gatherings where guests are grazing, he recommends a younger Ribera. For sit-down meals featuring heavier fare, he tends to choose an older, more structured style.
Ford echoes: "A simple red like a Joven or Roble with some jamon and queso, it doesn't get any better than that. And if you're having a backyard barbecue, making a quick steak or something similar, the wines from Ribera at $10 to $11 wholesale a bottle have incredible quality."
At the higher end, for short ribs or steaks in a more formal setting, Ford points to older Riberas as an ideal option. "If someone is ordering a big, juicy steak and they want a bold red wine, you'd better believe it—the first bottle I'm going to is a Ribera, a Reserva, or Gran Reserva," he says. Ford has found that, with bottle age, these reds evolve to show aspects similar to older Bordeaux.
Callahan carries a range of Riberas by the bottle, from more moderately priced (around $50) to celebration bottles at $200-plus. His staff is trained to offer interested guests a taste of the wine during conversations at the table. The oft-overlooked technique has yielded big dividends for the wine programs at his restaurants, Callahan notes.
Whether by-the-glass or by the bottle, Rueda and Ribera del Duero are proving that fresh expressions—and new sales opportunities—are still coming from the Old World. "With both Ribera and Rueda, they're good indicators of where Spain is going," Callahan says. As these versatile, value-oriented wines of place increasingly resonate with consumers, the key to sales success is simple: equip staff with the knowledge and descriptors to make the sale.
Read Full Article Here
Chef Profile: Xixón
Let's Talk RyR with Master Somm Alexander LaPratt
Master Somm Seminar on the Purest Expression of Tempranillo, Year-Round
From "Best Kept Secret" to "Next Big Thing"


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Lewis Brisbois Ranks 11th in Law360's Glass Ceiling Report on Gender Parity in Law Firms
Los Angeles, Calif. (September 15, 2021) - Lewis Brisbois has ranked 11th in Law360's 2021 Glass Ceiling report, moving up from 37th place in 2020. The report measures female presence and gender parity in law firms, this year evaluating 269 organizations.
As described in the Law360 Pulse article titled "Glass Ceiling Report: How Does Your Firm Stack Up?," the publication redesigned its report this year to evaluate female attorneys' industry standing from a new angle by showing how the percentage of women across three levels within law firms compared with the potential marketplace of hires. This evaluation resulted in the firms' "pipeline scores," which measure a firm's percentage points above or below a set of benchmarks assembled with data from the American Bar Association and previous Law360 submissions.
Lewis Brisbois' Los Angeles Co-Managing Partner Jana Lubert and Chief Strategy Officer Janet Eskow, the co-chairs of Lewis Brisbois' Women's Initiative, each expressed excitement about the report, along with resolve to further promote gender diversity. "We are proud that Lewis Brisbois has moved up in these rankings because we have focused diligently on hiring and retaining the best legal talent from a diverse pool of candidates nationwide," Ms. Lubert said. "At the same time, we recognize that there is more to be done to further improve gender equity and inclusion. We remain committed to this important goal, both as it pertains to Lewis Brisbois and to the entire legal industry," she added.
Similarly, Ms. Eskow discussed Lewis Brisbois' ongoing efforts to promote female presence throughout the firm's highest ranks, including its current participation in the Mansfield 5.0 Certification process – an accreditation program that requires firms to consider women and diverse candidates in recruiting, promoting, and pitching to new clients. "We are looking forward to even greater progress as we continue to work with Diversity Lab to achieve our Mansfield Certification," Ms. Eskow explained. "Arabella Mansfield, the first female lawyer in the United States, remains the inspiration for our Women's Initiative at Lewis Brisbois as we consistently seek to incorporate the ideals of equality and inclusion in our workplace, our communities, and our lives."
In a statement, Chief Diversity Partner Rima M. Badawiya and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee Co-Chairs Karen L. Campbell and Alexis Crump said, "These results are driven by the firm's continued commitment to all forms of diversity, equity and inclusion and to realizing our collective true potential."
Significantly, Lewis Brisbois also ranked among the top 25 law firms included in the National Law Journal's 2021 Women in Law Scorecard (Women's Scorecard), moving up from 27th place to 23rd place this year.
Learn more about Law360's Glass Ceiling report here (subscription required) and learn more about Lewis Brisbois' Women's Initiative here.
Managing Partners
Jana Lubert
Jana.Lubert@lewisbrisbois.com
Rima Badawiya
Rima.Badawiya@lewisbrisbois.com
Karen Campbell
Karen.Campbell@lewisbrisbois.com
Alexis Crump
Alexis.Crump@lewisbrisbois.com


Congratulations on becoming a new grandmother! Sorry the happy occasion had to be tarnished by one of the more confusing practices among card companies that came about many years ago: the addition of the "payment due date." I'll provide a little background on how payments on revolving accounts work, some details as to what I believe may have happened in your situation, and how you can avoid future repeats.
And I'll begin by saying yes, it's all legal.
If you're one of us baby boomers or a little younger, you may remember when card bills contained a single date that was both the closing date for the current statement and the date your payment was due each month. For example, if your account's statement closing date was the 20th of one month, your payment would be due on the 20th of the following month. Simple as that.
Then a number of years ago the card companies came up with the payment due date, which, while leaving the billing cycle — when payments, charges and all other credits and debits are posted to an account — at the traditional 30-day length, served to shorten the amount of time available for paying the bill by anywhere from three to 10 days, depending on the card company. With this change, any payment made after the payment due date is now considered late, typically resulting in a late fee and in some cases when occurring repeatedly, a delinquency added to the consumer's credit report.
To give you an example of how this works: If the payment due date is the 20th and the closing date is the 30th, a payment made on the 19th is on time, but one made on the 21st is late — despite payments of either date appearing on the statement of the 30th.
But what does this mean for a second payment made before the closing date, yet after the payment due date, as was your experience back in August? Will it apply as a payment for the following month, as you had hoped, or simply be treated as an additional payment within the same month?
Unfortunately, in order for that second payment to count as next month's, it would have to post sometime after the current month's closing date and on or before the next payment due date. Otherwise, as in your situation, posting between the due date and the soon-to-follow closing date will cause the second payment to be considered nothing more than an additional payment for that month — leaving another payment remaining due by the next due date.
Unlike mortgages and other installment loans, where additional payments made in one month can be applied to future months, revolving accounts (cards and lines of credit) not only require at least a minimum payment for every billing cycle in which there is a balance, but also that those payments are made between the closing date of one month and the payment due date of the next — often a window of as few as 20 days.
On your bank's website, set up a schedule for funds to be sent from your bank to your creditors.
Create an autopay account at each of your creditors' websites, allowing each to withdraw funds from your bank when payments are due.
Both methods tend to be safe and convenient, with each having its pluses and minuses.
For paying multiple accounts and maintaining all payment records at a single source, using your online bank site to schedule future payments may be the way to go. One drawback to this method, however, is that there is no way for your bank to know the amounts of these bills or when they become due each month, so you will have to specify exactly how much is to be paid and when for each account each month.
While having to go to different websites to set up autopay systems for multiple accounts can be tedious initially, a big advantage to this method is that each card company will have all of your account information — balance, minimum payment, due date — which means you can, just once, simply check the boxes as to whether you'd like the minimum payment, full balance or a fixed amount (set by you) withdrawn from your bank when due each month. You can also indicate if payments are to be made on an ongoing or one-time basis, and how many days before the statement date you'd like the payment made each month.
Of course, you can't forget about paying bills entirely with automatic bill pay. You'll always want to make sure to have the funds available at your bank when the payments hit, or you may incur a late charge and delinquency with the credit card company, and also an overdraft fee from your bank. Fortunately, such lapses can be easily prevented with both methods of automated bill pay providing email notification before and after payments are made.
I hope that knowing what you now know about minimum payment requirements and payment due dates — and having at least one solution — will help enable you to spend more time with your new grandchild and less time worrying about paying bills. Good luck!
Store cards get a bad rap. But closing even an unused retail card can hurt credit utilization and lower your credit score.


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We have more than 22,000 people working in our district?
Has SoHo Gone Retro? The Streets of the District in Crisis: 1970s and Today
May 1, 2020 | By SoHo Broadway Initiative
Thomas Struth Crosby Street 1978 Metropolitan Museum
SoHo Broadway History: Empty streets for the first time in decades
The 1970s represents the heyday and golden age of the SoHo to many neighborhood artist residents. Attracted by the ample space of the industrial lofts, and the low rents resulting from the fiscal crisis the city was facing, SoHo was redefined as a creative enclave that added to the avant-garde culture scene of downtown Manhattan. Yet over the last few decades, SoHo–especially the Broadway corridor–has shifted towards becoming a mixed-use residential, office, and retail district; the large floorplates that offered artists convenient live/work setups have also attracted international retail brands and offices for a range of industries, not to mention high-end residential units.
While for many longtime artist residents, the SoHo of the past can feel but gone, if not a memory, the recent COVID-19 crisis has brought back one aspect of the neighborhood that hasn't been seen for a long time: empty streets. As public life has currently come to a near halt in the district, let's take a look at the SoHo of then and now to see how much the neighborhood has changed, and the similarities that exist to our present situation.
The divestment that cleared away the SoHo of the first half of the 20th century led to a flowering of creative pursuits and community identity in the neighborhood in the 70s. With another external condition momentarily clearing away much of what has come to define SoHo of the present day, only time will tell what will come next and who will shape the area in our post-pandemic city.
If you want to learn more about SoHo in the 70s, check out a prior post on the subject by Yukie Ohta of the SoHo Memory Project.
SoHo then and now:
Mercer and Prince 1975. Photo from the Museum of the City of New York.
Broadway and Broome, today.
Fanelli's, 1976. Photo from NYPL.
Another view down Broadway, today.
Trash fire on Crosby Street, 1979. Photo courtesy of Esquire.
Boarded-up storefront, April 2020.
Initiative Launches Public Realm Visioning and Planning Process
New York Responds: Museum of the City of New York Features Broadway Street Art
Looking Back on The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces


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Q: incorrect data from boost binary_iarchive read I'm trying to read custom data from a binary file
#include <boost/archive/binary_iarchive.hpp>
#include <boost/archive/binary_oarchive.hpp>
#include <fstream>

struct Data
{
    int xs, ys;
    double ullat, ullon, lrlat, lrlon;
    double minval, maxval;

   // and some vector of floats
};

namespace boost {
namespace serialization {

template <class Archive>
void
serialize (Archive& ar, Data& d, const unsigned int version)
{
    ar & d.xs & d.ys;
    ar & d.ullat & d.ullon & d.lrlat & d.lrlon;
    ar & d.minval & d.maxval;
}

} // namespace serialization
} // namespace boost

int main (void)
{
    std::ifstream fin ("test.bin", std::ios::in | std::ios::binary);

    // the binary file was not created by boost serialization library. No header information
    boost::archive::binary_iarchive arc (fin, boost::archive::no_header);

    Data d;
    arc >> d;
}

After this, d contains junk values (huge -ve or +ve numbers).
If I use fstream::read to read the file following the layout of d I'm getting correct values. I'm unable to figure out what is going on here. As I commented in the code, the binary file was not created by boost serialization library. Hence using no_header flag.
I checked the binary file using hex viewer tool (ghex on linux) and fstream::read is returning correct values. What could be going wrong here?
I'm using gcc-8.3 and VS2017 with boost 1.70 and c++17

A:
As I commented in the code, the binary file was not created by boost serialization library.

In that case you won't be able to read the file using boost::archive::binary_iarchive unless your file happens to share the exact same binary format by chance.
You will need to create a new implementation for the Loading Archive Concept as Boost calls it. In other words, a new archive type (for loading at least) that matchs your current format.

Hence using no_header flag.

This flag only skips the header that boost::archive::binary_oarchive writes for checking sizes/endianness etc., but it cannot read your data without knowing its format. That is why you have to write your own archive.


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