Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Roguey]

"I heard you sucked as a designer"

Bit of an audacious thing to say but yeah, Tim's argument was poor. Decades of experience doesn't make you a good designer, also let's face it, Arcanum shows system design is not one of Tim's strengths. Chris Taylor did the heavy lifting on Fallout.

Does anyone know if this is Black Hound or Black Isle's Torn?

While on the subject, Torn was supposed to be using SPECIAL, which is the first time I'm hearing about it.
Can anyone ask Tim to talk about it? He probably knows some stuff or trivia.

Project Jefferson folders on the desktop. That's BG3.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Project Jefferson folders on the desktop. That's BG3.

The folder is BG3. The wallpaper can be anything.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

I've always seen that image as a screenshot from an early build of Black Hound.

It may be Black Hound, because an icon says Project Jefferson, which was Black Hound.
I also found an article claim it's from Torn.
Or it could be just some art someone put together and used as wallpaper.

In the end, none of those games made it to a stage of development where you could recognize them as games. FO3 was probably the most development these cancelled projects saw. Any material regarding Torn or Black Hound you could ever find barely count as proof of concept type stuff.

 

[Roguey]

"That sounds like a design problem. "

"That sounds like an art problem. "

Holy fuck what a nightmarish environment.

Project Jefferson folders on the desktop. That's BG3.

The folder is BG3. The wallpaper can be anything.

Well it's not. This is Torn:


https://www.unseen64.net/2009/03/27/black-isles-torn-pc-cancelled/

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Looks barely distinguishable from NWN.

The mysterious screenshot above does so too, if not for anime-like characters.

 

[flyingjohn]

So I have a question here anybody believing experience doesn't mean jack shit?
Would you hire a 10+year designer(with projects that have actually shipped) or a guy who has never designed anything officially, if you were in charge of a video game team?
Apply this to almost every role.

 

[Harthwain]

So I have a question here anybody believing experience doesn't mean jack shit?

I think the idea here is that it's not experience as such that separates a good designer from a bad designer.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

So I have a question here anybody believing experience doesn't mean jack shit?
Would you hire a 10+year designer(with projects that have actually shipped) or a guy who has never designed anything officially, if you were in charge of a video game team?
Apply this to almost every role.

Experience is not a panacea, nor is it an argument.
In a way, it's a multiplier of a skill. If your skill is zero, you can multiply it by 20 years and it'll still be zero.

 

[flyingjohn]

In a way, it's a multiplier of a skill. If your skill is zero, you can multiply it by 20 years and it'll still be zero.

If you never worked on something your skill is zero regardless of what you believe.
A bad designer with experience is still above zero because he will at least have some experience in actually designing a game compared to a newbie.
You aren't magically born with the ability to design videogames and especially in a corporate environment with working with multiple people.

Now, a newbie that has actually been involved in actually designing fan projects and actually has a good portfolio is a different story. But that is a unicorn, maybe in a million. All you will get from unexperienced designers is dead ends and quitting midway because they realize they are in way over their head. Or a autistic piece of shit like the artist.
It is a lot like the mystical "genius" freelance programmer who never worked at any firm. You will hire thousands of people who can't do a basic loop before you even get this guy if you go that route.

Now I am not saying Tim is some genius designer. I believe Troika's failures were all related to design not bugs. But, if it is your money on the line you bet your ass on experience because it is the only real way to judge quality quickly.
Or you just hire the cheapest guy if you don't care, but that is a different story.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

In a way, it's a multiplier of a skill. If your skill is zero, you can multiply it by 20 years and it'll still be zero.

If you never worked on something your skill is zero regardless of what you believe.

According to what I wrote, if you multiply any skill by 0 years, you'll get zero. I don't think you understand multiplication if this is something that flew above your head.

 

[pickmeister]

That's a moronic take.

I can't count how many people I met in various roles with many years of experience who sucked a gigantic cock at their job.
And same applies for many juniors that were better than these senior guys, even with their lack of experience. They might require some guidance but the time spent with them was less exhausting than with someone who thinks he knows his shit, while the opposite is true.

Doesn't mean you should make noob a project lead but relying on years of experience as one of main indicators is how you end up with shit like we have these days.

Top managers are the worst offenders of this. Get hired, fuck up, get fired, get hired somewhere else thanks to years of experience, only to fuck up again, rinse and repeat

 

[flyingjohn]

In a way, it's a multiplier of a skill. If your skill is zero, you can multiply it by 20 years and it'll still be zero.

If you never worked on something your skill is zero regardless of what you believe.

According to what I wrote, if you multiply any skill by 0 years, you'll get zero. I don't think you understand multiplication if this is something that flew above your head.

Sigh. My entire point was that there is no such thing as inherent skill when being a video game designer. Experience is what gets the majority their "skill".
So your little formula(the original one in your post) is meaningless because years add skill(not too much if you are bad, but they still add something).
And your new formula actually agrees with me about experience. If you have a 100 skill and 0 years experience, you get 0.

Top managers are the worst offenders of this. Get hired, fuck up, get fired, get hired somewhere else thanks to years of experience, only to fuck up again, rinse and repeat

Managers don't fuck up. They do exactly what they are paid for. They maximize the company shareholder value regardless of long-term survivability. They are not there to keep the company afloat forever.
Most fuckups happen because the people making contracts give them way too much wiggle room even if they fail to to do the one thing they are paid to do.
But, managers, HR and non video game related stuff are meaningless to this discussion. It is a different environment.

 

[Warhawk47]

Well, after that last video Tim's really laid the cards on the table. Some of his reactions seemed prematurely combative, but after all of the other corporate BS described, I'm not at all surprised he would be on a hairpin trigger to respond to the slightest signs of it. From the interpersonal perspective, it sounds like a dysfunctional operation to begin with, so I'd argue he gets the benefit of the doubt, though it's odd he would have accepted the position under those circumstances. As for the quality of the work, he's got the receipts, so it's up to the opposition to elaborate on the specifics.

The thing which still bothers me is how well he handles criticism or rejection of his ideas. Virtually every single case provided is always notable because of its bad contexts. The minor cases are glossed over, yet there's enough suspicion of his snippy responses to wonder if that isn't the default reaction to everything. Not sure this could be confirmed or not without working with the guy directly and seeing for myself.

Top managers are the worst offenders of this. Get hired, fuck up, get fired, get hired somewhere else thanks to years of experience, only to fuck up again, rinse and repeat

This is correct. Experience is Time + Learning. Wisdom is Experience + Application. Time spent without learning certainly isn't going to translate into wisdom. As for execs, I've seen that revolving door myself. They hire each other as if they're a caste, but when you look at their track records, they end up being abysmal. In many ways, placing Tim Cain in a high position after Troika is part of the same phenomenon. Never assume that it was because the events behind the failure were well understood; the board of directors rarely understands anything.

 

[Riddler]

Listening to this it seems to me (assuming what tim says is accurate) that that art director was both psychopathic and incompetent, tim is bad at conflic resolution and Tim isn't very good at navigating the corporate environment.

Some of his actions are frankly bizarre, like spending 4 hours straight going through his notes of complaints during a meeting. Like what did he expect was going to happen? Is he a complete autist?

Maybe he is a poor designer or maybe he isn't, I don't know. He definitely seems like a poor leader though. Perhaps he works best as "just" being a senior programmer.

 

[Warhawk47]

Some of his actions are frankly bizarre, like spending 4 hours straight going through his notes of complaints during a meeting. Like what did he expect was going to happen? Is he a complete autist?

That meeting was a 2v1 and he definitely understood it. The giant pile of notes was like a substitute person to even the odds. The problem is that by the time it's gotten to that point, it's already game over, and you're still riding it because of the paycheck. He just didn't flat out say it during this video, likely because that sounds even less "professional" despite being totally authentic.

 

[Riddler]

Notes are good but there is no context in which a non-stop 4 hour detailed account/rant makes you come out stronger.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

Does anyone know who the art director Tim Cain complained about is, and would you be willing to share their identity (in DM if preferred)? I'm just asking out of curiosity, and will keep it to myself.

 

[Butter]

Credited Art Director: https://www.mobygames.com/person/155806/matt-mocarski/

I don't know if this is the guy.

 

[Roguey]

Looks like a real jerk.

https://troikachronicles.wordpress.com/2007/10/23/carbine-studios-interview/

There is some very impressive concept art at your website, I already use the “Desktop Wallpaper #2” on my notebook. Can you tell us something about the concept art and who created it? Is the concept track “The Awakening” an actual piece to be used in the upcoming game or just something “to set the mood”?


Jeremy: Cory Loftus is our lead concept artist, and a guy who geeks us all up with his art. Our art director Matt Mocarski sweats blood with Cory and the team to make sure our art goes from concept to in-game and meets our exacting standards.

From reddit:

There are interviews with Matt Mocarski where he talks about the team working on something, then just scrapping it and changing gears because of his decision. And claiming that he's the one who decides what stays and what goes in the game. Like he was fulfilling the Creative Director role just based on the art he wanted to work on.

Polish management does it again.

 

[ghostdog]

And that's when Mocarski starts receiving death-threats by bored codexers and Tim's channel gets shutdown by youtube for igniting hate.

 

[flyingjohn]

 

[Hobo Elf]

Some of his actions are frankly bizarre, like spending 4 hours straight going through his notes of complaints during a meeting. Like what did he expect was going to happen? Is he a complete autist?

Probably he was just trying win over the other decision makers. It's hard to gauge from his video if he truly thought that the art director would've taken the criticism to heart, or if he was just trying to underline the problems for everyone else to see and maybe act on it. Judging by the fact that other high position people quit around the same time as him it's obvious that the problem was with the top not snipping the problems at the bottom and letting the people who actually know their shit to work in peace. The game came out and died almost instantly, so it's no surprise that it had such a troubled development. All it takes is for one bad egg to ruin a work environment if he's being enabled by the people who have the power to do something about it.

 

[Transfiguring Roar]

I listened to a podcast interview with the art director that Tim complained about, and it turns out that Matt had worked with a bunch of Carbine employees at a previous company. That's how he got the job, and promotion to art director and creative director. I think it's safe to say that the third man in the meeting was on Matt's side, so definitely it would have been a 2 vs 1 situation, as Warhawk47 wrote above.

Here's the podcast for anyone interested: https://www.mixcloud.com/gamedevast...ski-amazon-carbine-blizzard-crystal-dynamics/

 

[flyingjohn]

It is always an ex-Blizzard employee.

 

[Riddler]

Some of his actions are frankly bizarre, like spending 4 hours straight going through his notes of complaints during a meeting. Like what did he expect was going to happen? Is he a complete autist?

Probably he was just trying win over the other decision makers. It's hard to gauge from his video if he truly thought that the art director would've taken the criticism to heart, or if he was just trying to underline the problems for everyone else to see and maybe act on it. Judging by the fact that other high position people quit around the same time as him it's obvious that the problem was with the top not snipping the problems at the bottom and letting the people who actually know their shit to work in peace. The game came out and died almost instantly, so it's no surprise that it had such a troubled development. All it takes is for one bad egg to ruin a work environment if he's being enabled by the people who have the power to do something about it.

I realise what he was trying to do, I'm saying that they way he went about it was stupid and not going to convince anyone. The belief that it would suggest a lack of social skills and/or immaturity.

Tim seems like a good guy and it was unfortunate for him that he was thrust into leadership positions he was seemingly not very well suited for. He would probably have been both a lot happier and more productive as senior programmer or programming lead.