Wants to talk about how he is Naïve and optimistic. Some of you are probably not surprised, others may be going whaaaat. Always been like this, stayed this way despite some negative stuff and despite a lot of good things happening. Has been told this by many people, some meant it kindly, one person pulled him aside and told him he was being really naïve and had to be worried about some people. Other people have not meant it kindly, they just told him he was too naïve. Both groups say it as if he doesn't already know it, he knows it, he is a firm believer that people are a certain way, there is a personality/brainset you have around your 20s or teens this just gets in set in place and that is how you are. Cain knows people always happy and peppy, he knows people always down, he knows some neutrals.
Events may happen that change them, the peppy person could be down for a few weeks, downers happy, neutrals expressing some emotion, but within a week or two they are back to their own selves. Maybe go back to some of his older videos thinking about the fact he is still optimistic and naïve. The optimistic part is easy to see, look at the feature list of his games and know the team size and how long it took to make them, you would think he is far too optimistic about the game working out with that many features and that few people. Cain gets it, but feels they can always make it work. Sometimes they did, sometimes they didn't.
Naive part is a bit different, Cain has been told he is naive often. People keep doing things that should burn that naivety out. Not just employers, employees, co workers. Within weeks Cain is back to being as believing and naïve as he always is. Cain decided to do this video because he saw a comment about Cain being upset that people lie in interviews, Cain once had yelled at by a boss because he couldn't believe Cain didn't catch a lie someone they were interviewing made. Cain has never lied in an interview, alien to his way of thinking that someone could lie in an interview. The impression Cain got from some commentators is that everyone lies in interviews, blew Cain's mind. Doesn't think it's ok or fine to do all the time. Despite that, Cain has a record of believing what anyone tells him up and down and side the chain. Cain has had employers told him they had no money for raises this year, forgetting that Cain had access to some financial records in his position and could see they did, they just didn't want to give raises. Has been promised bonuses that never materialized, team organization that never came through.
Cain has talked about royalties and how they don't really exist. Part of that you don't hear about that is most people aren't allowed to talk about contracts. Cain goes back to Troika's three games, one of them he will not mention even if it probably isn't an NDA violation and the games are really old. One of them, they got in the contract a percentage of the gross, a huge deal, extraordinarily rare. Didn't know it at the time, but they would never get it again. Every time a copy of the game was sold, Troika would get a little percent. That company sent them two checks, then stopped. Cain rings them up to ask what is up, the company is saying they are getting returns. Cain says they get a percentage of gross, publisher says they can't count it as a sale. Then they start bringing up the cost of selling it, such as the physical goods in the box and packaging. Cain responds that is net, not gross, the company insists it is gross. They keep repeating it's gross and then never send Troika another check.
Another company just stopped sending Troika statements after the first few. Cain would ask for statements, they would say don't worry you aren't even close to hitting the point you get royalties, Cain says sure but he still wants the statements for records. They just stop returning his calls. As recently as 2018, Cain has asked that company about that, and they just said they were still compiling them and were behind. Cain finds it hard to believe as they are a public company and they had to do that. Third one, can't recall even seeing a single financial statement.
Why not just sue? Can't really sue a publisher, costs a lot of money. Second, the way accounting is done it may look like you didn't make money (Very common in Hollywood, Cain cites the My Big Greek Wedding incident, points that out as a rare win and most people lose their cases) even if you really made a lot. Once you do it, your relationship with that publisher is dead and many publishers will now avoid you. Taking into account digital sales, Cain believes they may have recouped on all three of Troika's games. Cain knows a lot of people seem to be playing and buying Arcanum and Bloodlines. On the one that is had a cut of the gross, Cain definitely suspects he is owed money. But he isn't going to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to hear 'no'. Employers may say don't worry they will take care of you, but if isn't in the contract, they won't and even if it is in the contract they probably won't. But Cain still goes back to being optimistic and thinks the next employer will be different.
To be balanced, Cain also gets this from employees. Someone says the engine can't support a feature, sometime later Cain or another worker figures out it did. Sometimes discovered too late to add it in. Been told by a lot of employees they would stay late after work to finish some stuff, he buys them dinner, they leave right after dinner. Been told by someone they love a genre and would be good in a game, then it becomes very clear they never ever played a game in that genre, they start saying and doing things that make it clear they have no experience in that genre. Cain doesn't mind new ideas, but if you try to back up your idea but saying lot of RPGs do it and then you can't name one, you have a problem. Frequently, Cain gets someone telling him they will finish a milestone or project before they leave the job for various reasons. Doesn't happen. Every single time, Cain believes them. Cain has even believed the same person who did this twice. Right back afterwards, Cain would be back to believing the next worker who says don't worry I'm staying until the project is finished.
Has been told multiple times at work to be quieter about some things. When Cain was at Obsidian during Outer Worlds and told people he would retire after the game, multiple people came up to him and said he really had to stop talking about that. Some of them meant you don't want to tell people you're retiring because it sounds like you don't really care about the job, others because it makes people feel weird/bad, they might never get to retire. Cain just wanted people to know next project, they would have to step up with him being gone, but he stopped talking about it. Was told he often repeated himself between team and admin meetings during weekly summaries. Cain says of course he is, they are two different audience, this person may have been at both meetings but not everyone is. What this person really meant is that Cain is telling the team things only admin should know, and telling admin some team related things they don't need to hear. Cain asks him to be specific. He got a general and rather vague answer that if you think the team and the admins should both hear the same thing about the state of the project, you are very naïve. Never quite got to the truth of the matter, but it came up several times.
If you still think Cain is not naïve and optimistic, just look at the channel and it's comments. 95% of them are super positive, but there are 5% of people that keep digging at things, saying he is too optimistic about the state of the industry. No matter how many times Cain points out his own mistakes and gives other's credits, he gets comments saying he is blaming everyone but himself. No matter how much detail he goes into, like on loot tables, people still want more detail. Cain isn't sure what they want beyond him posting code, and that might really be what they want. But he keeps making videos and hopes people will hear and get what he is saying, and some of the audience does, so he keeps doing it. Thinks a lot of the audience is reaching the right conclusions, industry has lots of pros and cons.
Cain was once told by a colleague his biggest strength and weakness is that he likes to tilt at windmills, and to never stop that.
