Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[processdaemon]

I think Tim seems like a nice dude and I enjoy watching his videos when they're on topics that interest me. I'm not interested in interacting with him so there's no point in me getting a membership but if people are that keen to have him answer their questions he might as well monetize it.

 

[Infinitron]

I found a PowerPoint that I had made in mid-1999 to present at the GDC 1999 Roadtrip Conference in Austin, TX. I never gave this presentation, so here it is, a time capsule from 25 years ago.

 

[FreshCorpse]

He's on track to be more financially successful as a youtuber than he ever was as an actual game developer

 

[Roguey]

Tim's predictions about the future of RPGs were way off.

 

[0sacred]

Tim's predictions about the future of RPGs were way off.

if :fabulously optimistic: was a vibe

 

[Roguey]

Idea Battles:


On ToEE there was no time to argue about anything, so everything was approved.

In design meetings, if people insult an idea, sassy Tim tells them to leave.

Cain didn't want to argue with Sawyer on Pillars of Eternity except for one issue that he brought up a second time, but it didn't go in. Curious how he doesn't mention specifically what it was.

Here's a big reveal: on The Outer Worlds, Tim stayed out of arguments about art and only got involved in one narrative discussion: at one point every companion except SAM and Max was gay/bi. Tim put his foot down and said no, only one companion could be queer (which ended up being Parvati). No BG3/Veilguard-style companions on Tim's watch. (this is also more supporting evidence that Megan Starks was the best nusidian writer, too bad she's gone now)

Tim also put his foot down on removing encumbrance and ammo (though in the shipped game neither of these things are a big deal). Is it victory when it's almost imperceptible from defeat?

 

[Curious_Tongue]

 

[0sacred]

why is Tim talking to Kevin James on a diet dressed up as Tim Allen? Why are they dressed identically like a gay couple? Is this Tim getting real on monetizing his internet performances?

 

[Quillon]

Here's a big reveal: on The Outer Worlds, Tim stayed out of arguments about art and only got involved in one narrative discussion: at one point every companion except SAM and Max was gay/bi. Tim put his foot down and said no, only one companion could be queer (which ended up being Parvati). No BG3/Veilguard-style companions on Tim's watch. (this is also more supporting evidence that Megan Starks was the best nusidian writer, too bad she's gone now)

for his new membership thing he wants another Asmongold take for a video it looks like if this goes a bit viral like that "game development caution" vid Tim will make another video backpedalling; saying both approaches are perfectly valid etc

imo the best nusidian writer was Paul Kirsch(is he still there?), if they had a lick of sense they'd have given this guy a lead position instead of promoting talentless/agenda driven fucks

 

[Roguey]

imo the best nusidian writer was Paul Kirsch(is he still there?), if they had a lick of sense they'd have given this guy a lead position instead of promoting talentless/agenda driven fucks

Being a decent writer doesn't necessarily make him a good lead. Fenstermaker was a solid writer, then they made him a lead and a mess resulted.

 

[Quillon]

Being a decent writer doesn't necessarily make him a good lead. Fenstermaker was a solid writer, then they made him a lead and a mess resulted.

Well they made that game under the assumption that "the audience for this type of game loves to read walls of text", we coulda better judged his leading skills if he hadn't left early deadfire days. Anyway they can't do any worse, why not take the chance with the guy who wrote the most/only fun parts of deadfire & tyranny?

 

[The Brazilian Slaughter]

imo the best nusidian writer was Paul Kirsch(is he still there?), if they had a lick of sense they'd have given this guy a lead position instead of promoting talentless/agenda driven fucks

Being a decent writer doesn't necessarily make him a good lead. Fenstermaker was a solid writer, then they made him a lead and a mess resulted.

This is why making your corporate career progression lead into well, lead positions, is always a stupid idea. Not everyone is cut for leadership, nor enjoys doing so. It causes the Peter Principle to happen. Just give them good career progression through higher pay, a fancier title and maybe some more privileges and you're good. As an asocial programmer, I certainly have no interest in leading.

 

[Old Hans]

why is Tim talking to Kevin James on a diet dressed up as Tim Allen? Why are they dressed identically like a gay couple? Is this Tim getting real on monetizing his internet performances?

because we live in the Twilight Zone now

 

[Melcar]

imo the best nusidian writer was Paul Kirsch(is he still there?), if they had a lick of sense they'd have given this guy a lead position instead of promoting talentless/agenda driven fucks

Being a decent writer doesn't necessarily make him a good lead. Fenstermaker was a solid writer, then they made him a lead and a mess resulted.

This is why making your corporate career progression lead into well, lead positions, is always a stupid idea. Not everyone is cut for leadership, nor enjoys doing so. It causes the Peter Principle to happen. Just give them good career progression through higher pay, a fancier title and maybe some more privileges and you're good. As an asocial programmer, I certainly have no interest in leading.

Many companies in all fields tie promotions and senior positions with ability to lead teams or at the very least some level of supervision skills. You are very likely to find yourself "stuck" without such skillset or the inclination to lead. It's just how it is. It's fine if you find a job of a certain level that you like and pays well, but one of the ways to avoid getting fired/replaced in the long run is to climb up in your workplace and get promoted. You can only get so far inside a company without getting promoted to some sort of leadership position with people under you. "Then I will just change companies or find another job". Good luck trying to apply for a well paying job at 40 when your CV shows that you have only been in one position with no indication of upward mobility. Such people usually turn into external consultants or some sort of freelancer.

 

[Quillon]

imo the best nusidian writer was Paul Kirsch(is he still there?), if they had a lick of sense they'd have given this guy a lead position instead of promoting talentless/agenda driven fucks

Being a decent writer doesn't necessarily make him a good lead. Fenstermaker was a solid writer, then they made him a lead and a mess resulted.

This is why making your corporate career progression lead into well, lead positions, is always a stupid idea. Not everyone is cut for leadership, nor enjoys doing so. It causes the Peter Principle to happen. Just give them good career progression through higher pay, a fancier title and maybe some more privileges and you're good. As an asocial programmer, I certainly have no interest in leading.

Being a lead in creative positions has to be different than being a lead in programming for instance, if you don't have strong opinions about your work and ultimately don't want to dictate your vision you must be doing it wrong as a creative, you'd end up not reaching your full potential.

And there is obviously different approaches how to go about it hence the obv example of Tim, Leo & Jason's skills complementing each other; they all were leads(maybe not in name in those days) but if they didn't have each other their games coulda been failures(not even unpolished gems), we could even wildly guess lacking Jason in TOW made the difference for the worse. Or Sawya lacking a strong creative lead challenging his ideas, which he had during developing New Vegas and probably PoE but not during Deadfire. You need good creative leads to do "idea battles" with, not talentless fucks who have "leadership skills" which some of us revere here for some reason lol. Or vice versa: Mitsoda probably lacked someone with leadership skillzZZ keeping stuff in line with Bloodlines 2.

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about the best ways to accurately estimate the time it will take to do tasks, and what happens if you under (or over) estimate the time. Most of my examples are programming tasks, since that is the area in which I have the most experience.

 

[Redshirt #42]

For me, I estimate time by saying the most I can get away with, and then I do nothing until a few days before the deadline. If only Tim knew how bad things can really get if you're good at bullshitting management.

 

[processdaemon]

With regard to providing estimates to management I find it's easier to give accurate estimates for a task after you've been working on it for a bit and actually see what you're going to be working with. I'm not a programmer like Tim but I work a multidisciplinary field that requires input from a lot of other specialists, and you could have two superficially similar tasks on your desk only to find that one takes a week and the other takes months based on how good the information you start with is.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Tim Cain should partner with Josh Sawyer on a video series about project management.

 

[Redshirt #42]

I talk about problems that team members can cause during development and how to handle them.

Not that kind of problematic.

 

[0sacred]

I wonder what accounts for the behaviour of those who want to make a different game halfway through development. Is it the urge to have your own ideas imprinted on the game or is it something else?

 

[Melcar]

Probably because they are faggots.
The fuck knows really. People always have different motives. Could be that they simple have no idea how to properly work on a team project and think they can request major changes at any point. Maybe they are just assholes and started to dislike the project.

 

[Eirinjas]

I talk about the best ways to accurately estimate the time it will take to do tasks, and what happens if you under (or over) estimate the time. Most of my examples are programming tasks, since that is the area in which I have the most experience.

Unreal. Tim should never have been in a management position. Instead of pushing back on a bad time estimate for fear of being the bad guy, he drops a feature knowing it will make players unhappy. What a stupid fucknugget.

 

[Infinitron]

Unreal. Tim should never have been in a management position. Instead of pushing back on a bad time estimate for fear of being the bad guy, he drops a feature knowing it will make players unhappy. What a stupid fucknugget.

I suspect he reached these conclusions because of the experiences he had when he was in a management position (at Troika).

 

[NecroLord]

You can't put creative people and artists in management positions.

Or can you?
What's the alternative?
Some corpo douchebag?