Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[PunchYouInTheFace]

"I'm a forever optimist. My faith in the good of man is inviolable, and every cloud does, in fact, have a silver lining as far as I am concerned"
"Ay yo btw here's my literal Book of Grudges going back 30+ years and dozens on notebooks. You better not do anything to my unshakeable optimism and charming evergreen naivetee, otherwise you're going into the book, MOTHERFUCKER and you BET I'll remember it 20+ years down the line"

In real world outside your stinky basement, Optimistic people can and will be able to feel disappointment too.

 

[I ASK INANE QUESTIONS]

In real world outside your stinky basement, Optimistic people can and will be able to feel disappointment too.

Careful bro, I'm making a note here. Expect to be mentioned in my Youtube autobiography in 30 years. I'll bring up how you've insulted my humble basement, you be sure of that.

 

[Roguey]

The Book of Slights is great.

• Man Who Took My Bonus
• Women Who Were Creeped Out By Burger Becky
• Men Who Lied in Interviews
• Man Who Stole Drinks Meant for Everyone from Troika
• Men Who Promised to Work Late if I Bought Them Dinner Who Left Right After Eating
• Arcanum Team that Kicked Me Out of Design Meetings for Dominating Them
• Publisher That Promised Royalties and Then Found Excuses Not to Ever Pay Them
• Uncooperative Art Lead from Carbine
• Studio Owner Who Broke his Promise of Not Second-Guessing Me If I Would Become a Lead Again
• Man Who Betrayed Me To Implement Something the Studio Owner Wanted That I Rejected
• Woman Who Condescendingly Explained to Leonard why The Outer Worlds's Art Style was Awful Compared to Fallout's

No heroes or villains but this is the kind of dirt I like to see.

 

[processdaemon]

I think naive people are more likely to have those sorts of grudges than anyone else. If you're a misanthrope or even just have an understanding that people can be a bit shitty when it's in their interest to be so then you at least won't be surprised when people act a bit selfish, if you expect everyone to be pleasant and honest then when people don't act that way you're going to think they're uniquely awful and remember them when a lot of the time they're probably fairly standard.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Studio Owner Who Broke his Promise of Not Second-Guessing Me If I Would Become a Lead Again

I'd be willing to bet this guy appears multiple times in his Enemies List.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Wants to talk about having a job vs. a career/calling and how over the last 40 some years Cain has seen the proportion of people in each category change in the game industry. Something he has seen people make comments on, like it's just a job. Some people don't just view this as a job.
What does Cain mean by people viewing this as a job? They usually do tasks usually assigned to them, sometimes the one doing the assigning but that is there job. They get paid for it, outside of work they don't think about it. Doesn't occur to them, doesn't define them, they don't go to people and say hey I'm a game developer. It's something they do to support the things they want to do outside of work

There are the people who consider a career. Like the job people, tasks they do or assign out and they want to get paid, but they have a bigger picture. They often think about how these tasks fit in the whole thing of the product/game, or a line of games or genre. They think of them as things they are doing, but how can they be done better or the game be done better, what will they be doing in 5/10 years? What role are they expecting and how do they plan to get it. A big difference between career person and job person is career person considers those things outside of work. What can they do to advance their goals? Maybe learn a new skill, or ask specifically to manage a group after reading some books on the idea or attending a class. Their goal is to get better.

Then there are callings. Game developer is part of their identity. It's what you do, can't really imagine doing anything else. Always thinking about games and games design and so on everywhere, at work or not, and it's because you love it. Of course you want to get paid and you want that pay to be fair, but that isn't the point. The calling people absolutely love what they do. They get emotional fulfillment out of it.

All three of these types have been in game dev as far as Cain can remember. However, the proportions have changed. 30 or 40 years ago, the games industry had a huge barrier of entry. Not a lot of game jobs, hard to get them because you had to learn a lot of stuff on your own and had to demonstrate you knew those things. Do you know how to access the video card? Do you know how to optimize your software for a good framerate? Your average programmer back then didn't have to think about that. Really had to be your calling to get into the game industry, so in the 80s and even the early 90s Cain would say for most of them it was their calling. They really wanted to do this. They made active decisions in their life to get there.
Entering the 90s, the game industry is growing and becomes more profitable and stable. Wasn't unusual to hear people working in the game industry. Suddenly careers are possible. You go into the industry with a role in mind, whereas in the 80s you were probably juggling a lot of roles. In 90s roles were separated into artists and designers and producers, new way to think about it. People showed up expecting to be hired as QA or a Producer, not just a desire to be in the game industry. Books began to be published on how to code for games or design something, schools started teaching for it and degrees were offered.

Starting in 2010s and up to now, projects are huge. Tens of millions of dollars, hundreds of millions, approaching a billion dollars spent on one project. Job insecurity, because if these massive games don't sell well it's a huge loss, you aren't going to make it back on the next game. This loss of job security led to some career people becoming job people. Once you get laid off a few times, you stop thinking that far ahead, why think about your future at the company if you aren't even sure you will be there in a few years? Cain has been watching that happen.

Does Cain think the shift from calling to career to job is bad? If you've watched him long enough, you know how he feels; it's subjective. Each of the three groups feels justified in being the type they are. Job people say companies don't care about you and your job isn't secure, be there for the paycheck. Career people want to think about themselves but also where they will be in 10-20 years. Calling people know that is important but want to make a game no matter what. As games got bigger and bigger, both in budget and team size, when you have hundreds or a thousand people on one game, you can't expect everyone to be totally in it. By necessity, some of those people are just going to be jobs people doing their task and getting paid. That may even be desirable, as a thousand people all super passionate about the game and trying to insert their own ideas in would be chaos. You cannot have majority input on a game with hundreds on it, somebody has to steer the ship.

That kind of environment leads to people moving into the Job mindset, particularly the career people. A career is hard to have and plan for when your job is not secure, when layoffs are common or you doubt the company will even be around, 10 year plans are hard. Cain sees a lot of experience being lost as career people seek new industries. A good producer with management skills will move into some other creative industry or something else entirely, knowing their managing abilities will transfer over. Cain sees good programmers move to a none game dev programming job where they will get better pay and stability.

Cain, as the old guy, has seen this always happen. People say it's terrible now, it was terrible during the 80s console collapse, as a lot of people left the industry not by choice, just as it is happening now. Not good, losing people with good experience, but it always happens. Should not let it affect your decision to be a job people or career person,. it is a constant. Personally, Cain kind of misses the old days where he was surrounded by people who considered game development their calling. Led to a different game development environment, but Cain admits it may just be nostalgia talking. Maybe it just felt different because it was a small team where Cain knew everyone really well and they were always talking about new ideas. Easy with 15 people, harder with 100, almost impossible with 1000. Cain won't say it was better or worse, but it was very different, and Cain wants to bring it on the channel so you can use it as a lens for what is happening in the game industry. Has happened before, is happening now, will happen again in the future. Not the only lens to look at it with, but an interesting one.

 

[PunchYouInTheFace]

Careful bro, I'm making a note here. Expect to be mentioned in my Youtube autobiography in 30 years. I'll bring up how you've insulted my humble basement, you be sure of that.

Feel free to do that, but I'd rather you take a bath first.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

The Book of Slights is great.
...
No heroes or villains but this is the kind of dirt I like to see.

Waiting for Tim Cain to address Chris Avellone's appearance in Fallout and the Rue Avellone in Arcanum.

 

[NecroLord]

New Reno whores also mention Chris.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

New Reno whores also mention Chris.

Tim Cain didn't work on Fallout 2 (except for an "additional programming" credit) or Fallout: Tactics, so can't be expected to explain the Avellone references in those two games, but he could shed insight into the Avellone references in Fallout (1) and Arcanum.

 

[Roguey]

Cain doesn't need to explain the Avellone reference because Chris did it himself in the Fallout Bible

It's just a joke from Jess Heinig, one of the programmers.

 

[Bulo]

'I'm Christopher and you're meat.' How many women has he used that one on? How many times did it work?

 

[NecroLord]

Third wheeling exit strategy...

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Cain doesn't need to explain the Avellone reference because Chris did it himself in the Fallout Bible

It's just a joke from Jess Heinig, one of the programmers.

This doesn't explain anything.

 

[__scribbles__]

I give my thoughts on making prequels. TLDW: I like them more than sequels, but I’d still rather make a new IP.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Did a video on sequels, but since then had people ask him about whether he would like to do a prequel or what he thinks of them.

TL;DW : Feels the same as sequels, but likes them more.

If given a big bag of cash, would still make a new IP instead of going to an old one, just likes that more. New ideas to explore, no constraints.

Has gotten the opportunity to work on New IPs several times, knows how lucky he is to get that and enjoys them more.

If given a lot of money and told to choose between making prequel or sequel for established IP, would pick prequel.

Has some reasons to back that up. Whenever you play a game, particularly the RPGs rich in lore Cain likes to play, you hear a lot about events in the past about people who did things. Goes back over disliking forced lore dumps vs. just being given a book to read. Likes being able to go back to skipped cutscenes.

Big fan of show not tell, and prequel gives you an opportunity to show. Go to famous person, talk to them, witness famous event instead of just hearing about it.

A big problem with sequels for the kind of games Cain makes is that they are nonlinear and there are many ending states to consider. What ending are you going to make canonical? But prequels have their own constraint, the events you heard about in the first game have to play out. You played that first game, you already know about that famous guy or that big dragon war. If you heard about an NPC dying, he has to die. Maybe you could get away with having them live in the game and die offscreen, but characters that live to the first game have to live, which requires essential NPCs, which Cain doesn't like. But anti-essential NPCs (NPC has to die no matter what) are also a problem. How are you going to do that, set it up so they have 1 HP and any blow kills them? What if the player hides a character that has to die in a locked door in a house, or paralyzes them before entering an important cave. Do you have it scripted so they just fall over dead at a certain point? It's an interesting problem to solve, how to kill them so certain events play it properly no matter what.

Now making a game under constraints can be fun, and Cain knows some developers that actually prefer that, they want an established frame, while Cain prefers to build the frame itself.

Yes, prequels are interesting to Cain, more interesting than sequels, but would still prefer making a new game.

Cain designed ToEE with sequels in mind, but it turned out Cain worked out a prequel idea for one of his other games. Won't say what it is, not to tease you, but simply because he hasn't told anyone else. It exists, and it is a totally different story Cain just wants to mention to show he has been interested in prequels in the past .

 

[StrongBelwas]

I talk about cultural references in games (and movies, TV shows, books, etc.) and how they make those games feel dated.

Cain wants to talk about why he hates cultural references. Almost said it was just about games, but really he hates them in general.
When Cain says cultural references, he doesn't just mean you referencing a song or movie you like, but any form of pop culture. Famous people, events, etc. Thinks Fallout 2 went overboard with them. Fallout made references to cultural events, but almost everything they had that was super obvious was a random lucky special encounter, that left the rest of the game feeling more timeless. Glad New Vegas hid that stuff behind Wild Wasteland, those who like it can get it others can avoid it.

Cain doesn't like making cultural references because it roots your game into a particular time. Cain prefers games to be timeless, by rooting he means that you have locked your game into a particular point in time that only a particular audience will get. A few years after, people might find some stuff funny but be confused why you are making a big deal about an actor or wonder if they are supposed to know who that politician is. What will happen is your tv show/movie/game whatever feels dated quickly. Cain knows that when he watches old TV shows he was into from the 80s/90s, he really preferred it when the guest stars weren't made a big deal of. There was an actor on, you kind of recognize them, if they make a big deal about it, quite possible he's forgotten who that actor is. If the actor references someone, everyone born afterwards won't get the joke. If an actor name drops George Bush, do they even know George Bush, or know which Bush they are talking about specifically? Show gets dated fast.

This dislike extends to the channel, Cain wants this channel to be timeless and avoids references. Cain wants this channel to be about game development and best practices for the audience to follow if they want to make good games, talking about the outrage of the week is not helpful. Shocking cutscenes, Sweet Baby, Brexit, misleading trailers, nobody will care about this in a few years. If you're younger than Cain, trust him, 90% of the things you think are important you won't even care about or remember in 10-20 years. The 10% you will care about, good luck figuring that out right now. You will be (un)pleasantly surprised in a few years about what you still care about and what you think is stupid. Good luck on guessing, don't try guessing, or if you do try guessing, don't make a public guess by putting it into a game you made that everyone can see. Forget years, things change so fast people might not care about in a week, or a day. Cain tries to make videos that even someone 10 years from now could find useful for their games, if they are working on a loot table his loot table video is still useful. If Cain talks about the "that cutscene with the bear", that person from 10 years will have no idea what he is talking about.

Try to have the same goal, make something people a year from now will have fun with and understand. There are many other things to consider for making a game timeless that aren't really in Cain's area of expertise but he will go over them in general; Going for super realistic artwork will always be beaten by next year's level of realism, game will look old and dated real fast. If you don't believe him, check out the realistic 90s games, particularly the FMV era which looks silly now.

If you absolutely, positively, are not convinced, and must add a cultural reference, use Cain's guide to humor. Make the reference in a way that if the player doesn't get the reference they don't even know a reference was made. They don't feel left out or that they missed out on. If they do get that feeling, they won't blame themselves, they will blame you. If you do something to make the player left out, they won't feel left out, they will just think the game is dumb.

TL;DW If you have to add a cultural reference to person/event/whatever, put it in in a way where people who know it will get the double meaning, but other people will get the surface level and then move on. If you do that, your games will last longer and be talked about longer.

 

[Odoryuk]

I think 3D Gex games came out with some already outdated pop-culture references and it gave them quite a unique charm in return.

 

[Alienman]

Cain apparently thinks everyone has the memory of a guppy. I understand not wanting to make a game full of lame references, but that excuse seems weird. Does that mean he would cram them full of references if he believed people would remember?

 

[Machocruz]

Always thought a lot of modern music, especially rap, is going to be extremely dated and possibly intelligible in short time because of the constant name-dropping celebrities and events that seem like a big deal now but will ultimately be forgotten and relatively quickly. There's levels to it, mentioning Alexander the Great is more evergreen than mentioning George Bush is more evergreen than Cardi B, and so on.

 

[Roguey]

Counterpoint, everyone considers the Golden Age Looney Tunes classics and they're full of a mix of highbrow and lowbrow cultural references.

Bugs Bunny forever changed the meaning of Nimrod because most people didn't even know that was a hunter of great skill from the Bible and his use of the term for Elmer Fudd was sarcastic.

Likewise Tim's beloved Simpsons.

This reference went right over my head as a child, didn't register it as a joke, didn't care. Caught a rerun when I was an adult and laughed out loud (especially given the context).

 

[Lyric Suite]

Nowadays we have a different problem it seems. Zoomers making references to past cultural artifacts they never actually experienced. I don't know how common it actually is as i don't play or watch the nu-shit but i caught it a few times.

 

[Wesp5]

This reference went right over my head as a child, didn't register it as a joke, didn't care. Caught a rerun when I was an adult and laughed out loud (especially given the context).

This is exactly the kind of reference that Tim likes. He just doesn't like the obvious-into-the-face ones that will age quickly...

 

[SpaceWizardz]

The premise for the jokes there are Maggie's increasingly convoluted plans to get her pacifier back from a harsh teacher, knowing who Rand is isn't necessary to get it.

 

[rojay]

The premise for the jokes there are Maggie's increasingly convoluted plans to get her pacifier back from a harsh teacher, knowing who Rand is isn't necessary to get it.

Right, but that screenshot is a specific joke that you'd only get if you know who Ayn Rand is.

This reference went right over my head as a child, didn't register it as a joke, didn't care. Caught a rerun when I was an adult and laughed out loud (especially given the context).

This is exactly the kind of reference that Tim likes. He just doesn't like the obvious-into-the-face ones that will age quickly...

I wonder where the cut off is for how deeply ingrained a reference has to be in the culture for it to be "timeless" and ok to reference according to Tim? I also wonder whether the fact that games are made for an international audience restricts what references are really "universal." Not entirely apropos, but I had a conversation with my 22 year-old son the other day and he said he'd used the phrase "death knell" with a friend around the same age and the guy had no idea what he was talking about.

Counterpoint, everyone considers the Golden Age Looney Tunes classics and they're full of a mix of highbrow and lowbrow cultural references.

Bugs Bunny forever changed the meaning of Nimrod because most people didn't even know that was a hunter of great skill from the Bible and his use of the term for Elmer Fudd was sarcastic.

"Nimrod" is also a slang term for "idiot," which is how I interpreted that Looney Tunes joke when I was a kid. It hadn't occurred to me there was more to it, but it was clearly a more subtle joke than I understood until about 10 minutes ago and I appreciate it more now. Thanks, dude.