This sounds like poor management to me. They have announced several games and the biggest complaint coming from Telltale fans (like myself) is that the games no longer really have any choices in them. They just play out and you get slight variations of the same story.

Here's a crazy idea; Take the awesome stories Telltale tends to have and actually give them some alternate paths and endings and then take those to mobile games and tablets. Also, have other characters you can play as to go through the story.

It may also be hard to get licensing, but there are also quite a few movies to spin from to continue stories or take other characters through. They should have jumped on the comic book fad years ago.

I could understand if they were making any other product, which their statement is using that as the excuse, but Telltale does some things others don't and bring something a bit unique to single player. They were in a good position to do some innovative thing.

The bolded is a big issue for Telltale and their games. A year or two ago they announced all these projects (More Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, Batman, Wolf Among Us, etc.) that are only recently starting to come out or still to come out. Even back then many people said they were biting off more than they could chew and that seems to be the case. They perhaps had a big hiring run that worked out at the time of development but once those games were complete, they had an excess of heads at the table.

I've felt even from the first season of The Walking Dead that the choices in Telltale games were superficial at best. I never bothered to complete TWD Season 2 or even The Wolf Among Us because I grew exceedingly tired of the whole formula. Same reason I never even bothered with the Game of Thrones or Batman games. I knew my choices didn't matter. It's also why I felt that something like Life is Strange was a breath of fresh air. It actually felt like my choices mattered, for the most part, in that game.

They've also wasted their time developing the audience feature, since it's designed not to be played remotely. Which also means they're assuming your buddies watching you play aren't capable of telling you which decision to pick.

Although I didn't expect a local audience feature to work at all, until I saw Hidden Agenda. Now that's a game with some thought put into it before implementation. Telltale's audience feature from its inception as an idea, was already a waste of time.

While certainly not the cause of massive layoffs, it does hint that maybe Telltale doesn't exactly know what they're doing beyond acquiring licenses.