Cain on Games - Tim Cain's new YouTube channel

[Infinitron]

I summarize my career, starting on my 16th birthday in August 1981 until today in September 2023.

 

[0sacred]

Is it just me or is Tim getting really in the zone when he's pleased with himself

 

[turkishronin]

gay and jolly

 

[Roguey]

Re-affirming what we knew from those old NPD numbers:
Bloodlines: didn't sell well
ToEE: didn't review well but sold better than Bloodlines
Arcanum: Most successful on both counts

Interesting downward trajectory.

"I did do some design stuff, all of it went through Josh Sawyer, who - [is a] really good designer."

"The stronghold design, although that got a lot of modifications from Josh." Passing the blame?

"Tyranny was a super fun game."

Tim had a lot of fun with Tyranny because he was just left alone to code (in contrast to some of the narrative designers who seethed over how much reactivity they had to do according to Avellone).

Tim worked more on Murder on Eridanos than Peril on Gorgon and liked its humor. Makes sense that he would want to stick with his hag from Carbine (also he mentioned in a previous video that he disagrees with Patel's thoughts on game management).

He wanted to stay as an Obsidian employee when he moved to Seattle but they're not set up for that, so he switched to being a contractor. The contract didn't say he couldn't work for other studios, so he spread his wings a bit (still can't say what the project is).

 

[Harthwain]

Tim had a lot of fun with Tyranny because he was just left alone to code (in contrast to some of the narrative designers who seethed over how much reactivity they had to do according to Avellone).

That's funny, because reactivity was one of the better parts of Tyranny.

 

[turkishronin]

Tyranny is the best original Obsidian game and I hate that it's never going to get a sequel

 

[agris]

Tyranny is the best original Obsidian game and I hate that it's never going to get a sequel

alpha brotocol would like a word with you

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about game development time, how it has increased for some games and how this affects game franchises.

 

[Roguey]

Tim had ideas for Pillars that didn't get in because Josh rejected them.

As far as I'm concerned, the fewer Bethesda Fallouts there are the better. In fact, they should just stop making Fallout games altogether.

 

[caffeine]

As far as I'm concerned, the fewer Bethesda Fallouts there are the better. In fact, they should just stop making Fallout games altogether.

A very real possibility after Fallout 76. And anyway, after the lukewarm reception of Starfield, if TES VI flops it might spell the end of Bethesda. Microsoft's special touch of death is universal and no internal studio escapes it.

 

[skaraher]

Alpha Brotocol is vastly superior to Tyranny.

As far as I'm concerned, the fewer Bethesda Fallouts there are the better. In fact, they should just stop making Fallout games altogether.

One don't kill the golden goose.

 

[Roguey]

One don't kill the golden goose.

They can just do TES and Starfield every 5-10 years.

 

[Delterius]

Tyranny is the best original Obsidian game and I hate that it's never going to get a sequel

i am in charge of a kickstarter fund to sacrifice 6,666 greeks at a temple to athena in order to summon the harpies and make them enact revenge against feargus urukhart's underfunding of tyranny

i also named one of my deadfire ships 'feargus' folly' for a real feeling of gotem

 

[skaraher]

One don't kill the golden goose.

They can just do TES and Starfield every 5-10 years.

You think Starfield will take over the NuFallout demographic ?

 

[Roguey]

You think Starfield will take over the NuFallout demographic ?

Sure why not? Given Fallout 4's synth plot, Bethesda isn't even interested in telling post-apocalyptic stories anymore.

 

[Bad Sector]

I talk about game development time, how it has increased for some games and how this affects game franchises.

One con he didn't mention about long development times is how a large part of your active life is wasted on a single game that may not even have players play it.

Another con is that chances are your "fresh new idea" has become an overdone cliche by the time you finish.

Another con is that existing team members move on to other places and new members come in and nobody aside from the lead (assuming they aren't also replaced) is really invested in the game. From a programming perspective this also has the extra bonus of ossifying any system written by someone who left that has been around long enough to have gameplay designed on it.

And of course an obvious con is that the longer develpment times mean more expensive development which mean more demands for sales which mean the game needs to be designed so that it can target the largest audience. Actually i should have thought this first.

There are really lots of cons IMO. According to Masters of Doom (book about the development of id software), John Romero once thought (in the 90s) that spending a year on a game was crazy - and in a way i agree with it.

I also agree with Tim that there are things you can't do in a short time frame - but as he said, you don't need to have everything in a single game. And since he brought up Monarch, personally i'd say that making it larger than it was wouldn't make the game any better (chances are it'd make it worse).

Of course that is all pretty much against the AAA+ trends which are all about having the largest games with the largest numbers (world size, quest count, map icons, polycounts, etc) made by the largest teams with the largest budgets for the largest possible target audience. Often for the largest price and followed by the largest number of DLCs and microtransactions :-P.

 

[0sacred]

Tim bashing romances, Kodex Kool Kredits gained

 

[Hace El Oso]

There's absolutely no point talking about current-day development times unless you're going to talk about this (image taken from Stavrophore):

Which isn't something that you can just fit into a short video composed of banalities like 'you can fit in more features'. Games take multiple times longer to make with far more manpower, cost many times more to make and the result is crappier. You see this everywhere and with everything. It's a 'big picture' issue.

 

[Butter]

There's absolutely no point talking about current-day development times unless you're going to talk about this (image taken from Stavrophore):

Which isn't something that you can just fit into a short video composed of banalities like 'you can fit in more features'. Games take multiple times longer to make with far more manpower, cost many times more to make and the result is crappier. You see this everywhere and with everything. It's a 'big picture' issue.

Maybe part of the reason AAA companies don't want to downscale. If their games were more comparable to 90s games in scope and scale, it would be easier to compare them and show just how much they've declined.

 

[Infinitron]

I tell stories about the development of South Park: The Stick Of Truth.

 

[Diggfinger]

Wanted to know more about what Tim did on Pillars 1, but seems it was limited to:

- programming
- Some limited design work; monk, cipher, stronghold (the latter Josh changed)
- He worked 2-3 months on Deadfire, then switched to Outer Worlds as Game Director

It's funny though how Tim (and his games!!) were such a big part of the initial Kickstarter.
Wonder if his role/involvement was supposed to have been larger than just programming and some design

 

[Roguey]

Tim says coding for xbawks was easy, PS3 was hard, common refrain.

Funny how Feargus screwed up Tim's schedule by promising his involvement in Pillars when South Park wasn't done. He moved to Pillars and then had to move back because he had to be responsible for his own code.

 

[Abu Antar]

I am way behind on the videos, but I just watched the one where Tim talks about ideas for Arcanum 2, like grand masteries and so on...

 

[Infinitron]

I talk about my thoughts on VR, where it is and where it might go, and how I am really waiting for AR.

 

[Redshirt #42]

I'm now in my fifth decade of working on games

Will the next generation of game developers get to semi-retire too?