Feargus planned to give Fallout 2 to the producer of Descent to Undermountain if I didn’t take it. While I personally liked that producer, I hated Descent. I thought the sequel would suffer under similar direction. I told Feargus that I would do the sequel and began working on a design.
Before leaving for Thanksgiving, I informed Feargus that I was thinking of quitting. I wanted him to know how I was feeling about development and how deeply I had been affected. I was worried that the same problems I had experienced during the development of Fallout would persist during the making of Fallout 2. Feargus said he understood.
When I returned, he asked if I had made a decision. I had not, and so I began work on Fallout 2. I worked out a new design and made an aggressive schedule to get the game out by the end of October 1998. I then started working on the game as lead designer and producer.
But the same problems resurfaced. For example, to save time and money, I had decided to have the same internal artists make the box for Fallout 2. Feargus was upset that I had made such a decision without consulting him, but when I talked to Marketing, they were fine with the idea. But then Sales decided to change the box size and style, which would create problems for making the second box look similar to the first. In a meeting with Sales where Feargus was present, I was told that the decision was made and “there will be no further discussion on it.”
I decided I had enough. Leonard and Jason, who could tell I was unhappy, had told me weeks earlier that they were unwilling to work on the sequel without me. Rather than simply quit, I remembered that Brian had told me years ago, after a programmer had quit under bad circumstances, that he wished people would come and talk to him rather than quit.
I went to Brian in December and told him that I was unhappy and wanted to quit. I decided to be frank and honest, and told him that other people also weren’t happy and might resign with me. He wanted names. I told him about Leonard and Jason. Other people declined to be mentioned.
Throughout December and January, the three of us met with Brian to discuss the problems and see what solutions might be found. We wanted to meet with Brian as a group to prevent any misunderstandings that might arise from separate meetings. In fact, I wanted Feargus there, too, but Brian only included him once toward the end. Brian seemed surprised that I was getting resistance to doing Fallout 2 my way. His attitude was, “You did well on the first game, so just do it again on the second.”
Unfortunately, this meant running to Brian whenever anyone tried to force their own ideas into the game, which didn’t seem like a good working environment. We discussed this problem and raised other issues at these meetings, such as converting our bonus plan to a royalty-based plan. Brian did not like the idea of royalties. As for how to handle creative control, Brian said I could divide the responsibilities with Feargus, so I could handle Marketing and other departments directly, and they would have to effectively treat me as a division director. This seemed unsatisfactory to me, but Feargus seemed very unhappy that his own authority and responsibilities concerning Fallout 2 would be greatly reduced in this plan.
It was unclear how some issues would get resolved, such as budgeting for equipment and maintenance, since I didn’t have a division director’s budget. Brian handwaved these issues, saying that we’d work them out.
At that point, I regretted not abiding my original instinct to walk out and trying to work things out with Brian. In mid-January, I decided to leave the com-pany. I told Feargus, who accepted my resignation and asked me to work until the end of the month. We went to talk to Trish Wright, the executive producer, who was unhappy to see me leave but accepted it. She warned me that Brian might be very upset, but I wanted to tell him that day. I returned to my office and told Leonard and Jason that I had quit, effective at the end of the month. Then I went and told Brian.
As expected, he was not happy. We talked for an hour, but the meeting was cut short because I had a dental appointment. While I was at the dentist, Leonard and Jason also decided to tender their resignations. I didn’t speak to Brian after that day, and I finished out the month with my team.
My team was surprised and unhappy, having heard nothing of my months of meetings with Brian. I met with them to make sure the design for Fallout 2 was up-to-date. And I met with Feargus; my replacement, Eric Demilt, who would produce Fallout 2; and other designers, such as Chris Avellone and Zeb Cook, who would assume my design responsibilities.
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