One of the better, to me, telltale game design decisions companies make that indicate how they feel about their game is what they do with leveling speed. This crosses many kinds of games, from MMORPGs to single player RPGs where character development is an important aspect to the game.

I have seen more and more games design into their play ways to "level faster." There may be potions players can buy. In MMOs, there may be zones that give more XP for playing there. Take Skyrim and the first 3 Standing Stones (Thief, Mage, Warrior) they introduce you to: Faster leveling for whatever playstyle you want to engage in.

This tells me one thing: The company wants the player to skip through all this content they took years to develop.

On one hand, it is the players that are asking for this. They want to beat the game and move on to the "next big game" either out or soon to be released. These players just do not have the time to invest in gaming anymore, or cannot focus on any one game for any great length of time.

On the other, why spend all this time and effort creating a world to adventure in, quests to engage the players in, and all the other things a company puts into their games? If you give players a way to "bypass" all this content, they usually will. With Skyrim, it took me 4 or 5 playthrouighs before I STOPPED choosing one those standing stones when Ralof or Hadvar ask. It almost seems like the developers do not have confidence in their designs.

Is it rocket science to ask, "If you want players to play the content in your games, why give them (sometimes multiple) ways to bypass it, or get through it faster?"

Thoughts? Reprimands? Additions?

[EDIT]

In Skyrim, I never stopped playing because I ran out of content. Ever. Why push me through it even faster?

Wait, what? TellTale games are just adventure games, a more character and story based format of the old click adventure games, ala Monkey Island.

He's talking about a design decision that can be described as "telltale", that gives away how a developer feels about some aspect of their game. Not the company. The title confused me too, but it's pretty clear in the OP, is it not?

Anyway, I don't think developers give players ways to level up faster just so they can "skip" the content they made. I usually don't skip quests in RPG's just because I'm at max level, as long as the content is actually interesting on it's own and isn't just about the incentive to get a reward, that is. But that leads to your theory that the developers don't have confidence that they're content really is worth experiencing beyond the need for more XP, which is interesting. But, I assume their intent is just to make the players feel consistently "rewarded" by it, but then they don't think through how such an addition will actually affect the balancing of the game, or the player's reaction to it.

It may be me being tired, but I was a little lost between the first and second paragraph. Mostly due to trying to figure out how TellTale fit in all of this.

I thought the point of the stones in skyrim was to get powerful faster, not 'beat the game' faster. Besides anyone who buys skyrim just to play the main quest and 'beat the game' is just feeding bethesda money. Im not complaining, i sure as hell got my money's worth for that game Does being level 81 mean that you can't play anymore? Nah. Thats what you seemed to imply though

Anyway the only time i got to level 81 was with an uncapper mod.

all the features to level faster's just to give the player a sense that they're getting powerful quicker, and thus its supposed to increase their interest for the game. Imagine if you needed to kill 1000 monsters in skyrim before advancing a skill level, that would be slow and boring. Also MMOs are, in my opinion, not about character development at all. If i wanted my character to have a personality and have intricate dialogues with NPCs and all that i wouldnt play a MMO. MMOs are more of the team fights and team boss fights or something. And constantly striving to get better items and levels i think.

I do apologize for the title. I thought about NOT using the word "telltale" because of the company of the same name

I understand where you're coming from. And many players just want to get more powerful, faster. I don't have a problem with that. However, for me, when my enemies become too easy, I get bored and start all over with a new character and concept.

Skyrim has a few ways in place for a character to gain levels faster. The Guardian Stones and simply sleeping at night for at least 4 hours come to mind.

MMORPGs today are even worse. Many of them try to minimize the time spent leveling so that players get to the "end game" quicker. I think I read somewhere that one of the most popular items sold in cash shops are XP potions. The stickler for me, though, is that for an RPG, the journey should be the game. The longer the journey, the better the game, usually. Some games just have a bad journey and making it longer would be like pouring lemon juice on a paper cut, so making a journey long just to make it longer is as bad of an idea