Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Redshirt #42]

"Veep" sounds Indian, should be easy to track down!

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

Was Fargo behind them suing Troika for Fallout source code?

It's possible. Tim left Interplay in early 1998 and Herve Caen took over Interplay in November of 1999. Arcanum had a series of closed betatests in September 2000. I would think the suits would have started around the time Troika got the deal with Sierra or when they were shopping around for a publisher.

Herve Caen was a dick and he was used to subsidies keeping Titus afloat and giving them enough money to make that deal which eventually lead to his take over of Interplay.

The bad guys here are Interplay's management for mismanaging the company to such an extent that their last profitable subdivision was forced to make slam dunks to keep the entire company afloat. Their poor decisions lead to this.

Go back and look at Interplay's releases. It's almost shocking they ran in to trouble. There's several titles in there which underperformed, like Descent 3, and they relied way too much on licenses that they didn't own like Dungeons & Dragons and Star Trek, but they had some decent titles. I do think they also carried Shiny Entertainment too long which were notorious for making cult games that were very novel but didn't really move off the shelves quickly. Interplay went from publishing games for other studios, publishing North American releases for foreign publishers, and publishing a slew of titles to a trickle after Herve Caen took over. Of course, if they weren't running in to trouble, Caen never would have taken over.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Go back and look at Interplay's releases. It's almost shocking they ran in to trouble. There's several titles in there which underperformed, like Descent 3, and they relied way too much on licenses that they didn't own like Dungeons & Dragons and Star Trek, but they had some decent titles.

Interplay seems to have experienced problems less with the quality of their games than with project management, resulting in some games in development never being released, while some of their releases were prohibitively costly due to spending extra time in development. For example, IIRC, Brian Fargo was such a fan of Planescape: Torment that he launched three Planescape projects not long after acquiring the license from TSR in late-1994, but one was canceled entirely, one eventually morphed into a different project that was eventually cancelled, and the third only came to fruition in 1999.

 

[Roguey]

A ton of wastefulness according to Scott Campbell

https://archive.is/zU1bo

Long before I ever heard the term “Jump the Shark”, I began to see some warning signs of Interplay’s continued success. I sensed a change in the management. There was a shift from a passion for game making, to a desire to make Hollywood-style cinema. We changed from the old adage of “Shoot for the moon. Here’s a nickel.” to “How can we make this experience more like watching a movie.” It began with Stonekeep (which started as a throwback to the old Bard’s Tale, but became a nightmare of “cinematic experience”), and exploded with the Sim-CD series (Interplay’s remakes of SimCity, SimAnt, and SimEarth in CD-ROM format with lots of movies) and the horror show that was “Cyberhood” (an interactive movie that became a black hole of funds.)

I remember one producer summit when we first saw the film footage shot for Sim City CD. The idea was that you could click on buildings and see a movie of the people inside living their lives. They were 30 second clips of people watching TV, or sleeping in bed, or doing aerobics, or eating cereal. And there were dozens of these clips; the most boring and mundane things you can imagine. Immediately after seeing this footage, we learned that it cost over a million dollars to film… and there was more filming to do. Considering that most of the games in production had a sub 100K budget, I (and many of the producers there) about had aneurisms. All it took was for this one game to be a train wreck, and the whole company suffers, or even dies.

During this time, I inherited SimEarth CD-ROM. I was my favorite of the sim games, and I immediately wanted to add features that would enhance the gameplay. For instance, I always wondered what my creatures looked like when they evolved into sapient beings. What would a sapient arthropod look like? What kind of cities would an iron age civilization of sapient amphibians build? I wanted to create small movies that were rewards for evolving your planet. There was a new artist at Interplay who was quite good at 3DStudio, and he did an amazing 3D movie test. (This was before Toy Story, so a movie with high-quality animated 3D characters was bleeding edge.) As the artist built and rendered these movies in his spare time, the programmer, coded furiously to convert the old Sim Earth into a modern vibrant VGA game. When the incredible movies went into the beautiful game, it began to really shine.

Then, the pain. I was told that I was going over budget. Confusing, because I had spent less-than $100k. But my predecessor spent over $200K on other cinematic footage.
Footage that we had no gameplay use for.

No problem, I’ll make it work.

Then, after showing the incredible movies to Steven Spielberg, the artist was pulled from my project to work on “better things”. (Spielberg was in the process of founding Dreamworks, and soon after hired that artist to work on Shrek.) Then another artist was also pulled off. Finally, after months of insane hours to meet the schedule the project was canceled. (Since SimCity was having such budget overruns, our product lineup needed trimming.) After all the time and effort we had spent getting the game ready to ship, this was kick-to-the-bits number two.

In another company wide meeting, we learned that Universal Pictures had purchased a portion of the company. The company was treated to a day at Universal Studios, and we were promised several amazing upcoming movie licenses. My fear of the company ditching games and becoming a movie house was getting stronger.

The first movie license arrived in-house, Flipper, a remake of the 70s TV show. (I recall the designer of that project saying that we should buy the rights to ECO the Dolphin and simply rename it.) The second movie license was Casper the Friendly Ghost. When the first design was shot down by Harvey Comics because “Casper should be able to walk through walls” – we realized that trying to create a game with no way to contain the player’s movement was, in fact, rather impossible.

The third movie license? Oh, it was the granddaddy of them all: Waterworld. After flying the designers out to Hawaii to see one of the multi-million dollar atoll sets (which would later sink), all they were provided with was the original script to create a game (which surprisingly wasn’t bad – the game I mean). However, most of their ideas got thrown out as the movie filming was changing the script on a day to day basis. The game did ship, but it became a Real-Time Strategy game, based in the world, but having nothing to do with the actual movie.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about my notes some more, and what I want people to learn from my stories. I'll use a Fallout story as an example of what I mean.

 

[Redshirt #42]

I tell some of my coming out stories...and give some advice to my gay male viewers.

Finally, the thing we've been waiting for.

 

[NecroLord]

Look at that shirt...



When is Tim going to release a highly informative video on putting gay mechanics in your rpg?

 

[Curious_Tongue]

I know you're lurking Tim.

I watch your Cain on Gays shit.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

Include all the sodomy you want. You won't faze me.

 

[NecroLord]

"Hi everyone! It's me, Tim, and today I wanna talk about rimming mechanics in an rpg."

 

[Sigourn]

My uncle is gay but had two sons and a daughter, so I'm not really surprised by the "so long as you give me grandchildren" angle some people have.
Anyway good video, the Tim Cain worldbuilding keeps expanding. I wish other devs did this too.

 

[0sacred]

I tell some of my coming out stories...and give some advice to my gay male viewers.

Finally, the thing we've been waiting for.

Tim seems to have a bunch of weird friends. Maybe that's why he's so clingy about Leonard

 

[normie]

I tell some of my coming out stories...and give some advice to my gay male viewers.

Finally, the thing we've been waiting for.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

A ton of wastefulness according to Scott Campbell

In certain aspects, the late 90s-2000s gaming dev environment was pretty full of bad fads and general stupid shit. I think a possible big part of it was because things were still so new, so there was a lot of stuff that simply wasn't done at all, a lot of new tech, etc. Examples:

- "Turn-based combat is obsolete" which led us to the Dark Age of RPGs. I don't like the game myself, but Firaxis' nuX-COM was pretty much the big "TB is acceptable again!" starter pistol.
- The insane push to 3D was kinda stupid, in retrospect. If your game doesn't use the three dimensions, there's no need to be three dimensions. There's a reason all the early 3D titles aged out way worse than their 2D counterparts. I still cringe internally at all the time and money Interplay spent on the Jefferson engine, when they could have literally taken the engine used in Fallout Tactics and made Fallout 3 with it. So many studios died trying to make the jump. Sometimes I wonder if the real reason for it is that people were simply done with messing about with Sprites and Tiles.
- Turn-Based/Real-Time Hybrid systems as a way of making both parties happy (See: X-COM Apocalypse, Arcanum, Fallout Tactics. The cancelled X-COM Genesis was going to do this too). Nowadays, this is wisely and widely considered a dumb idea.
- "Games as Movies". Not that this type of thinking has ever gone away.
- "PC Games are dying"
- Early multiplataform held PC gaming back for years, PC gaming forced to fit into an inferior console mold.

 

[behold_a_man]

Why are people creating videos showcasing their hideous faces coupled with cacophonic voices rather than simply writing their thoughts down? Essays are faster to read, easier to dissect, and way less repulsive than a video if you don't have anything visually interesting to show.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

- The insane push to 3D was kinda stupid, in retrospect. If your game doesn't use the three dimensions, there's no need to be three dimensions. There's a reason all the early 3D titles aged out way worse than their 2D counterparts. I still cringe internally at all the time and money Interplay spent on the Jefferson engine, when they could have literally taken the engine used in Fallout Tactics and made Fallout 3 with it. So many studios died trying to make the jump. Sometimes I wonder if the real reason for it is that people were simply done with messing about with Sprites and Tiles.

It's been a while, but wasn't Jefferson supposed to be TORN? How much time and money did Interplay waste on that thing? They licensed Lithtech for it. Fucked around for a few years, and ended up scrapping it. I don't even think any of those assets were able to be used in anything else they made, nor was the Lithtech engine they licensed. The whole reason they were doing TORN was because "RPGs needed to be Fantasy setting to sell", which was another trope from the early 2000s. Interplay followed a lot of these tropes down the shitter. It's kind of funny they decided to do Fallout 3 only afterwards.

Turn-Based/Real-Time Hybrid systems as a way of making both parties happy (See: X-COM Apocalypse, Arcanum, Fallout Tactics. The cancelled X-COM Genesis was going to do this too). Nowadays, this is wisely and widely considered a dumb idea.

The one thing I remember from news posting as much as I did back in the early 2000s was pretty much everything AAA was either a Diablo clone or a Baldur's Gate clone, with the notable exception of Oblivion which annoyed the piss out of Vault Dweller. And honestly, the only BG-likes I remember that I actually liked were the ones from China, like Prince of Qin. In fact, I don't even recall any of the others by name. I do remember a whole slew of Diablo clones that sucked, and it wasn't until Divine Divinity and Sacred that something worth playing was released.

Early multiplataform held PC gaming back for years, PC gaming forced to fit into an inferior console mold.

Not to mention that it took developers forever to figure out decent control schemes for a controller, even though the PSX, N64, etc. had close to the layout and features modern controllers have. Even with the finalized XBox controller that's a standard these days, it still took them years to figure out a decent way of controlling things for each genre.

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

It's been a while, but wasn't Jefferson supposed to be TORN? How much time and money did Interplay waste on that thing? They licensed Lithtech for it. Fucked around for a few years, and ended up scrapping it. I don't even think any of those assets were able to be used in anything else they made, nor was the Lithtech engine they licensed. The whole reason they were doing TORN was because "RPGs needed to be Fantasy setting to sell", which was another trope from the early 2000s. Interplay followed a lot of these tropes down the shitter. It's kind of funny they decided to do Fallout 3 only afterwards.

Nah, Jefferson Engine was Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound. TORN was before that.
Yeah they definitively wasted a bunch of money on it, for fuck-all result. TORN was definitively part of the beginning of the end for Interplay.

Interplay also lost the D&D license for PCs in 2003. Which pretty much killed BIS' BG3 and led to Avellone's resignation. Because of that, The Black Hound was cancelled and they put all the work into making Fallout 3 using Jefferson.

Good call on the "RPGs need to be fantasy to sell". Highly ironic that in the end, they ran to Fallout, one of their own's the biggest denials of that trope.

AFAIK the timeline goes like this:

- 1997: Fallout released. Planescape Torment development begins, using the Infinity Engine
- 1998: FO2 released. Interplay decides that the next Fallout should be 3D.
- 1999: Planescape Torment released. Work on the first iteration of Fallout 3 starts, using the NDL engine. Cancelled because Interplay was inexperienced with 3D game engines, moved over development to what would be Icewind Dale.
- 2000: Icewind Dale Released. After the cancellation of the first FO3 iteration, Avellone started working on a Fallout tabletop game in his spare time, and ran his two legendary tabletop games which spawned much of Van Buren.
- 2001: TORN announced, developed by the same team behind Planescape Torment, then cancelled not long after. Development on Jefferson AKA Baldur's Gate III: The Black Hound begins. Fallout Tactics released.
- 2002: BGIII is announced to be in-development. Uses their newly-created Jefferson Engine, which takes a lot of inspiration from Neverwinter Nights' Aurora Engine.
- 2003: Interplay loses the D&D License on computers (but not consoles). The Black Hound is cancelled. BIS is told to use Jefferson to make Fallout 3.
- Mid-2003: Work on Van Buren begins. According to Josh Sawyer, Van Buren had six months of development in it. Seeing as it was cancelled in December 2003, I think its reasonable to assume it began somewhere between May-June of 2003. According to Josh Sawyer, he kept asking Interplay to evaluate their work, but they never did it. "Interplay either had no interest or care for what we are doing." Sawyer resigns after they pull one of their remaining character designer artists to another project. Lionheart: Legacy of the Crusader is released around this time.
- December 2003: Van Buren cancelled sometime after Josh Sawyer resigned. BIS closed. Focus shifted to The Burned Game because Titus wanted to focus on console releases. We all know how that ended.
- 2004: The Game Which Shall Not Be Named was released. Bauldur's Gate: Dark Alliance II released.

According to Chris Avellone, Interplay lost its vision with Brian Fargo gone.

Yeah, Fallout 3 was definitively a Hail Mary for Black Isle.

I have a feeling that the kill-shot was the loss of the D&D rights. Had Interplay retained the D&D rights, BGIII would have probably been released in 2003. Had it done well, Interplay may have gotten enough money to not pull the plug and consider console crap was where it is at. BIS' Fallout 3 might even have been finished.

The one thing I remember from news posting as much as I did back in the early 2000s was pretty much everything AAA was either a Diablo clone or a Baldur's Gate clone, with the notable exception of Oblivion which annoyed the piss out of Vault Dweller. And honestly, the only BG-likes I remember that I actually liked were the ones from China, like Prince of Qin. In fact, I don't even recall any of the others by name. I do remember a whole slew of Diablo clones that sucked, and it wasn't until Divine Divinity and Sacred that something worth playing was released.

Oh yeah, that was definitively a thing. Everyone and his mother was making Diablo and BG clones. Except Bethesda, they were going full Consoletard with Oblivion.

Not to mention that it took developers forever to figure out decent control schemes for a controller, even though the PSX, N64, etc. had close to the layout and features modern controllers have. Even with the finalized XBox controller that's a standard these days, it still took them years to figure out a decent way of controlling things for each genre.

True, there was a lot of experimentation at the time, because a lot of genres were new to consoles.
The PSX controller was pretty damn good from what I remember right, and it was pretty "modern" as controllers go.
It's funny, I remember the N64 was a huge ungodly and ungainly heavy thing. However, a few years ago I did play some N64 games at a party in a bar, and it wasn't that bad. Either my memory is fucking with me or I remember it being heavy because I was a pre-teen with little kid hands.

 

[Sweeper]

I tell some of my coming out stories...and give some advice to my gay male viewers.

Finally, the thing we've been waiting for.

Sam really should shave that thing off, his "beard" looks incredibly Jewish.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

I have a feeling that the kill-shot was the loss of the D&D rights. Had Interplay retained the D&D rights, BGIII would have probably been released in 2003. Had it done well, Interplay may have gotten enough money to not pull the plug and consider console crap was where it is at. BIS' Fallout 3 might even have been finished.

They also lost the Star Trek rights around that same time, and Interplay made a lot of Star Trek games including Star Fleet Command which is my favorite Star Trek game of all time. It's kind of interesting that after Interplay lost the rights to Star Trek, I can only name five single player Star Trek games, Starfleet Command III from Activision which was a Next Generation stripped down version of what Interplay did because they didn't have the Starfleet Battles license, Star Trek Armada I and II which was basically Warcraft with star ships, that Nintendo DS game I forget the name of, and Star Trek Voyager: Elite Forces. And most of those were years, if not decades, ago. Elite Forces was the only notable one of that bunch too. Certainly nothing compared to Starfleet Command or the Starfleet Academy series. Admittedly, it was odd flying a starship around with a flight stick, though.

Well, I'd forgotten that Star Trek VR game and Bridge Commander, but the VR game is the only newish one. Other than what I mentioned, you have Star Trek Online(which the space combat is similar to Starfleet Command) and that mobile game. At least Interplay tried some things with the Star Trek license.

It's funny, I remember the N64 was a huge ungodly and ungainly heavy thing. However, a few years ago I did play some N64 games at a party in a bar, and it wasn't that bad. Either my memory is fucking with me or I remember it being heavy because I was a pre-teen with little kid hands.

It was awkward as Hell when it came out, probably because most people were used to SNES style controllers. It was the first controller I remember with an analog stick, though, and I think the intention was for the camera in 3D games. I also remember thinking the PSX controller was awkward until I got used to it.

 

[Roguey]

Why are people creating videos showcasing their hideous faces coupled with cacophonic voices rather than simply writing their thoughts down? Essays are faster to read, easier to dissect, and way less repulsive than a video if you don't have anything visually interesting to show.

He's talked about this, he comes across as too mean in text.

 

[Sigourn]

Some people also prefer hearing the person behind the thoughts. Human emotion is nice to see.

 

[Froila]

The bad guys here are Interplay's management for mismanaging the company to such an extent that their last profitable subdivision was forced to make slam dunks to keep the entire company afloat. Their poor decisions lead to this.

I'm curious, who were the bad guys for mismanaging Troika?

 

[Roguey]

I'm curious, who were bad guys for mismanaging Troika?

Themselves. All their games were overambitious and suffered for it. I know Tim likes to blame the publishers and their manipulative ways, the "Don't you want to make a great game?" talk.

 

[Morality Games]

This seems to be his roundabout way of saying it's okay to interpret Fallout as anticapitalist even though he told Avellone he didn't actually create it as such.

What about The Outer Worlds?
Is that also a work of art?

It's not Fallout, but the Outer Worlds' reputation as rabidly anti-capitalist propaganda is somewhat undeserved.

Most NPCs are well adapted to the game's hyper capitalist environment, leading happy and purposeful lives, and the POV of 'the Board' about why stability and profit (even if it comes at a high human cost) are important is well represented throughout the game. Most choices are less pro-capitalism and pro-socialist and more pro-corporation or anti-corporation, and there is usually a 'hidden' Third Way that reconciles the two competing interests if you find the right data caches or accomplish the extra objectives. One of the best companions 'Vicar Max' is actually an effective vehicle for the pro-corporation argument.

The game's exact attitude toward capitalism is sort of undefinable, but the overall impression I got is less that 'capitalism bad, socialism good' and more 'a future society dominated by capitalism would be imperfect and complicated and seem very odd to a fish out of water experiencing it for the first time'.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

It's not Fallout, but the Outer Worlds' reputation as rabidly anti-capitalist propaganda is somewhat undeserved.

Keep in mind that the same people who think Outer Worlds is anti-capitalist are the same people who visit Starbucks at least once a day, wouldn't give up their iPhone if they found out it caused turbo-cancer, have a bathroom cupboard filled with bottles labeled "Pfizer" they they had filled at their local CVS, can't pry themselves away from Reddit and Twitter, shop for merchandise at Target and Amazon, get their food from Whole Foods, and so on. They're the most pro-corporation people on the planet.