Poker_Night_2-FLT

The first Poker Night game was developed by Telltale during a lull in their release schedule, and proved to be successful; Steve Allison, vice president of publishing at Telltale, believed it was the relationship between Telltale and the Valve Corporation that contributed to the success of the game, luring players with Team Fortress 2 items for performing well in the game.[7] As completion of The Walking Dead neared, Telltale found themselves in another lull, and returned to the Poker Night concept as a way to fill the gap.[7]

Character selection was more direct than the first game, with Telltale wanting to bring in characters from movies and television. Allison had a good relationship with MGM Studios who were eager to offer characters, and was able to secure the character of Ash from Evil Dead, which also was timed well against the release of the 2013 remake.[7] Similarly, Allison stated that Cartoon Network readily agreed to the inclusion of Brock from Venture Bros., one of the Telltale team's first selections.[7] Gearbox Software, the creators of Borderlands, appreciated the first game, and allowed the Claptrap character to be used.[7] The final spot at the table was to be left open for a character from a Telltale game, eventually resulting in Sam. They had considered using either Marty or Doc Brown from the Back to the Future game but realized that they would not be appropriate in a game with mature spoken content. Similarly, characters from The Walking Dead series would not be a thematic fit for the poker title, as it would make people emotional about the game.[7] To help make the play more personable, they needed to have a dealer for the table, and GLaDOS was considered an obvious fit.[7]