My extent of game related knowledge begins and ends at playing them. Yet here I am watching every one of your videos and taking notes like I’m about to crank out the next Skyrim.

You are completely correct about the cluelessness of the young of what a director’s or in fact any personal management role involves. I must confess I was a victim of my own arrogance until I had to lay people off and that hit hard. A sudden realization that my decisions some of them made not at 100 percent focus could effect people’s livelihoods was a great reality check.

I know this isn’t an interview channel and you’ve already got folks you want to talk to, but I’d like to see you and Josh Sawyer talk eventually. He’s done some great UKposts videos like what you are doing, which is why it comes to mind. Love the videos!

In one company I worked in we had something called ‘Escalation Manifesto’. The tenant of it was that if you have a disagreement with your coworker, after going back and forth for a few times, if there’s no sight of quick resolution escalate it to your manager or tech lead. They will see arguments from each side and make a decision. That decision is then final.

Explaining Fallout's art style to Leonard is the funniest thing I've heard in a while. That's like explaining to Tim what the C language is all about, lmao.

I really appreciate the idea of tim doing a mission for somebody to bring them an important artifact, only to throw it into the lava directly in front of them

Explaining the difference between objective and subjective is really helpful and something I struggle with a lot. I really like the way that you outlined it and I think it'll help me better communicate when I'm critiquing something. Loving these videos!

Interesting insights. I think the decisions that a director working for a studio in a project that he is not funding himself will never be the same as the decisions one would make working in his own game. The director will always be reminded of having to deliver a "commercial enough" product that will appeal to a large audience and perform as expected or better, making a return on the investment. On the other hand when you are programming your own game engine and game, making your own art, licensing or even making your own sound effects and music yourself, you do experience a complete different level of freedom that a director of a big studio will never get to experience. The beauty of self-funded independent games and digital distribution is that it made this possible professionally. If you make something that is appealing to a certain audience and that audience is large enough, you don't need to make it more "commercial". When I was young and played all of the 90's CRPGs (including yours, great games), I think I would love to work on a big studio. But today I don't think I would like to do that anymore. Making something independently seems much more appealing now, it's like going back to when you folks programmed games in your bedroom on the Apple II and tried to sell it in floppy disks wrapped in plastic bags to retail stores, but now we actually have a way to make it viable as a career. Thanks for the video.

Some good lessons here. The unwillingness people show, that they don't want to start low - thinking they're _too good_ for some positions, despite lacking any experience. Has a lot of overlap if you apply it to society in general. The normalization of narcissism..

Hey Tim! I'm absolutely loving your channel. As a newb gamedev, there's plenty of golden lessons and guidance here. Would indeed ask you to tell all stories you can - especially from Wildstar and Carbine. Your definition of Objective and Subjective decisions was awesome, and videos about matters like that would also be great. In other words, keep'em coming. And thanks for all the insane amount of work, hours and anger you had to put in the name of fun and games. Have a great one!

Hey, Tim. I just wanted to say listening to your videos while I fall asleep has been a highlight of my evenings lately. I'm not sure what it is about the way you talk but it's so fascinating hearing what you have to say about whatever you're talking about. Please keep making these videos!! They're so entertaining and borderline addicting!

Really loving your videos Tim! It's like walking in to your office and chatting.

In my opinion the art style of Fallout 1 and 2 was actually "gritty, pixelated but not blocky" with alot of natural colors, and a fair amount of rust. It would need varying degrees of Sharpen filters used these days, and Contrast too.

That's a very insightful experience, thanks for sharing.

The Ego thing is something I saw a lot in Animation when I was hiring people. And usually.. the problem comes from the Teachers. I saw many people come out of school who were not even qualified to do entry level work ask for $1000 per week.... because that is what their Teachers in school told them to ask. They would tell them that because they went to College.... they should ask for no less then $1000 per week. Which made it very challenging to hire people for an entry level job that paid $450 per week. And the worst part is that..... before I would argue over salaries... i would give them a test. No point arguing over salaries not knowing if they can even do the job or not. And sadly..... they did not even have the skill level needed to do an entry level job but still they would ask for $1000 per week?? Heck out of a whole crop that came out of school.... about 100 people..... None of them had the skill level to do an entry level job that paid $450 per week.... but still they would ask for a $1000. In that case.... the real issue was the Teachers. They were telling their students to ask for $1000 per week because it seems they were trying to drive the salaries up. But all it really did was make a lot of people fresh out of school unemployable. :(

inXile quote 'We’re excited to reveal Clockwork Revolution-a time-bending steampunk RPG, from the creators of Wasteland and Arcanum.' Hope you're getting some remuneration :)

It would be interesting to hear Tim's thoughts on modding in games. For example, you can mod Skyrim so much that it can feel like a different game to the original.

Hey Tim! I was curious if you could make a video on why you are currently a Contractor for Obsidian (or anywhere else you might be Contracting), rather than taking on a full-time role? Are there creative / executive decision tradeoffs that come with this employment switch? I ask because I have been a Software Engineer in a Contractor capacity in the past, and I really disliked that I was basically a coding grunt which had very little say in the project's direction. Thank you!

been enjoying these lately , thanks sir , troika the GOAT

I worked at a company and if we created a great team and had an awesome manager they would quickly break-up that team to spread the talent to other deficient and underperforming teams. It sucked, you finally had trust and performance working on all cylinders and they would ruin it. But in hindsight being able to adapt to any team and lead is an invaluable lesson. Thanks

Hey Tim! Would love to see a video about your time at carbine and wildstar. That was one of my favorite MMO’s in highschool and would love to hear what your experience there was like. Even if it might be a negative one. Keep up the videos!

Hey Tim can’t thank you enough for sharing your experience and insight. You touched on when not to apply to be a creative director but could you share when it might be a good time to apply to be a creative director? What kinds of roles/experience should one have to prepare for such a big undertaking? I’m guessing that you might want to become a lead in your respective discipline first for leadership experience (for hiring/firing/salary adjusting experience like you mentioned) but I am unsure.

I love your team videos. PLEASE! Talk more about teamwork and collaboration and management and how to think. I've been loving watching all your videos. Carmack for programming T-Cain for team work.

This was really informative, thank you for making this.

Hey Tim been playing Fallout for years and I'm now directing a Sci-fi Indie Rpg called Within Cold Stars. Your videos have had inspired me a ton in my work thank you for your stories

Your videos are very enlightening and I'm glad you're making them. Thanks. Regarding the woman explaining the Fallout 1 art style to Leonard, I can see that making sense. Someone creating something doesn't always mean they understand it from an outside perspective. Sometimes the perspective of something from the inside misses the forest for the trees view of someone from the outside. Sometimes, the magic of the whole of a thing is apparent to someone who views the thing without awareness of all the disparate parts and deliberations that went into it, and it's seen as what it is by them without all the mess or memories of mundane daily life that a person who created it associates it more with. And I think Fallout 1's graphics in Outer Worlds, or another 3D game, would be fantastic. I've lamented how games as a rule rely on insincere art styles these days, and miss what I think of as more integrity or seriousness in style (or a lack of intentional irony or flippantness) that can be found more often in older games' art styles.

Hey loving the channel , i would love to see a video where you could share some technical insights as a developer like do you think programming has evolved from 90s to today or is it more or less the same , how new hardware effects the programming , why new AAA titles comes of buggy and such , would love to hear the developer side of things. Thank you.

This is great stuff please keep it up I hope you talk about bloodlines development

The lay offs, the hard decisions..It must be haunting on some occasions, for sure. What I've noticed in games nowadays is that marketing does most of the PR these days anyway. When a creative director steps up to talk or defend something in said game, it can be a bit of a dangerous position for him/her in regards to the players and it can go badly very quickly. My personal belief is that It's hard for a director in today's industry to get a sincere and reliable message across because of the business models these days and the 'shuffle' mentality to keep a game pushing forward. I'm still not happy about over saturated colors though. *Just thought I'd let that in* ;) Have a good day, Tim.

I'd love to hear about Wildstar and Carbine when you have the time to talk about it.

I think of Tim as this incredibly kind and soft spoken person and the i see THAT thumbnail 😂

I've been a hardware tech for 25+ years and recently go promoted to a regional management position. The lessons I've learned to get here, and while I've been here, are very similar. As a lifelong gamer I've dreamed about being in game development but you remind me to think practically: I have no artistic skills and my brain is not the kind to code. I have to be content enjoying the amazing art created by those who can. And that's fine.

Having only ever worked on two tiny projects, one having a director and the other being a more fluid, collaborative space, being able to manage a team is absolutely imperative to the long term survivability of your project Dealing with the morale vampires (both in terms of parts of the project, and the people involved) is a horrible task and I do not think I handle it very well at all I watched a GDC talk from 2017 by Warren Spector recently on the development of Deus Ex and it was really interesting to see him go over a lot of the things that you've been talking about in your videos. His humour isn't to my taste but to anyone who's interested in these videos, they should definitely give it a watch for some keen insights into projects, how they're made, and the people who make them

Finding a good Game Director is becoming more and more rare. You can identify the really great ones because they're able to repeat success and it's not a one-off accident (usually thanks to the real direction from their team members.) They're also able to understand objective fun.. a concept that few developers possess. Do you really know what "fun" means? The general approach now is simply to imitate and clone the successes of others, and many directors feel like they've been promoted from the marketing department.

well, it's easy because it's like movie director - the person creatively in charge of the project they may go to aproducer and say "I want this to do this" and the producer can be like 'no that's not in accordance to the studio's guidelines' and such, but, the director, directs

I think I’m going to need a video about your chocolate blog and how you managed to hold onto wrappers dating back to 1993. I need that level of commitment

the confidence it would take to come right from school and defend oneself as a prospective tech director is astonishing. also, i cannot imagine why on earth thats the role one would want to jump into straight from school??? this kind of thinking can only be done by those who truly do not comprehend even the fundamentals of leadership and cooperation.

To be fair, if the students who apply directly for tech director positions are not getting screened by HR and get sent through to you - it's not the student who is wasting your time, you and HR are wasting your time. A student is going to shoot their shot, it's up to your studio to have some filters in place and not have the uber-bosses interview students who should not even be considered for the position

I'm so glad TOW has a different art style from Fallout! Let it be its own thing! You can still see the Fallout influence in it, but there are also a lot of new and different things, and I love those things!

You gotta make a top 10, Tim! 😀 (If you haven't already.)

Could you talk about the audio side of game production? Things like what you look for in game audio designers and engineers and the overall audio of your games?

Can you talk about the day-to-day of being a part of a project and/or the director of a project? Thanks

Oh umm by the way with the greybox thing you bring up from your last video, a thing you might be able to do to get new recruits and other people to play those levels is change the color, which I know, colorblindness but hear me out, as I used to play CSS alot and alot of the gungame maps were straight greyboxes, except they were orange, IE orange box and had a static blue skybox attached to them, and that combined with the props and simple things in the level just worked and made those games playable for hours upon hours, like it felt weird going back to a normal level because now things are hidden and you cant see anything and that could work and help with the development work by doing that, as valve used to be the best in the business at modular game design and testing with the tower of ductape that is the source engine, which was just the quake gold engine, updated and updated again so those designs and testing philosophy's worked for well over 20 years like that. also a good idea for helping with the ideas is if an idea doesnt work and someone is passionate about it but it just doesnt work, have a blackboard in the back with ideas purely for the sequel or a spin off, that way they see their input does have value, even if it does get shot down as one of the most fun and rejuvinating things for a game development team is when you do something out of left field from the norm, just like an actor or a group from a tv show, and can often result in something great, like interstate 76 came about purely as a guy on the mechwarrior team wanted to buy a muscle car Ion Fury, the guy at gearbox is a douche, and woke moron extrodinare and they wanted to make badass games again, but he wont let go of duke, even though he thinks its trash, and regularlly taunts people over it no less too. so they made kind of a badass bitch with demolition man judge dredd vibes to her with a kick ass soundtrack to boot with a revolver that looks like its a super version of what Tom Savini had in from dusk till dawn when the vampires attack lol 11:49 also so that's why I cant get rid of that damn quest item despite completing the quest that weighs a pound in new vegas right now, that robots programing for the guys in freeside, I got it from mick and ralphs but found the other way to do it for the atomic rangler did that and now I'm stuck with that quest item that I cant drop lol like quest items no weight please lol and that's after dead money stripped me of everything else, like I go atleast I got rid of that damn tape, I go to look and insert a good old archer NOPE here lol

Love the thumbnail. Very “show me your war face”.

are you able to talk about the times when you went to game directors to point out issues? i'm curious what choices you were opposed to.

8:58 Every professor these days will tell you to do that on your resume. A lot of places won’t even let your foot in the door, unless you flat lie. Is it good? No. Is it required for a lot of jobs these days, especially tech jobs? Kinda. Is it incentivized by professors, to make it feel like the education you HAD to pay for was worth it and at this point kind of need to be in your chosen field? Abso-fucking-lutely.

Great thumbnail ;)

I’m not sure what the work life is at Obsidian. From the outside it seems great to me. However, lots of companies no longer really have upward mobility. That could explain why some inexperienced people are asking for higher positions. I’m not saying that they should get said higher position at all! I’m just offering a possible reason.

Can you do a video on how you would've wrote the story of Fallout 3 and Fallout 4 different if you were in charge of it (only rule is the time and location must stay the same)

I gotta ask, what do you think about Bioware. I often see it was one of the main companions compared to Obsidian back in the day and now. The reason I ask is because of how many people seem to use the comparison as way to hate on the other (or often the case Bioware) and wondered what you thought about it.

cant wait for carbine stories

WHAT THE HELL!? I need to hear Leonard's side of that conversation, Tim! Was he silently laughing his butt off? What was going through his head???!!!

I approximately 1000000% agree with that woman

I'm gonna check out the video later, but the thumbnail looks like a good game director should tell a lot. 😂

It's Tim-time! The best content of the day

I know you know this, but I'm gonna say it. Outer Worlds art direction was PERFECT. I love fallout 1/2 and it would have felt so bland if it looked like yet another fallout game. I loved the lush colors, the space suits. All of it.

carbine stories gotta be a couple of videos... at least! haha

Dude, I had no idea you like Level design on a side!? Can you tell more about your levels or how you contributed to some levels?

At 1:28, someone fact check me, but wasn’t it Leonard who would talk about Tim and him being benevolent dictators during their Troika days? It’s entirely possible that I’m wrong or that they’ve both said it, but I was just curious of someone else had some input.

She was right.

Since working in the industry as a senior art director (and quitting it) my feelings could be summed as: "You can have the best freaking team on the planet, but that sure as heck won't save you from a producer's notes, their moments of "inspiration" and a companies desire for profit over people." Entertainment. It's a brutal industry.

I would love to hear the story about you walking away from Wildstar. 6:35

Question: How would one gain tech director experience in the first place if they never applied to be a director anywhere? I guess I'm trying to say that there has to be a first time for everything. In the restaurant industry for example one may apply to be the manager and have no prior management experience at times.

I had to google "benevolent dictator" because this is the third time I've heard it. The first time was about Linus Torvalds (inventor of Linux) and the second time was about Guido van Rossum (inventor of Python). When I googled it, I found this: "A benevolent dictatorship is a government in which an authoritarian leader exercises absolute political power over the state, but is perceived to do so with regard for benefit of the population as a whole, standing in contrast to the decidedly malevolent stereotype of a dictator who focuses on their supporters and their own self-interests. A benevolent dictator may allow for some civil liberties or democratic decision-making to exist, such as through public referendums or elected representatives with limited power, and can make preparations for a transition to genuine democracy during or after their term."

On the Mansplaining thing: I use "Correctile Dysfunction" hahahaha And it works for all genders! 😊😂

I’m personally really looking to get into the games industry through writing, however I often find I’m overlooked because of a lack of experience within the industry. I do understand that of course but how am I supposed to break into an industry that requires experience but won’t give me any lol. I am a published author so it’s not like I don’t have any credits or work to my name.

It's so hilarious that a professor told a student to be a game director as their FIRST JOB. lmao The irony of good leadership is that the best leaders often don't want to be leaders. They become leader because they are the best person to do the job and even though they dislike it, they take on the challenge for the betterment of the team.

Please tell the stories about WildStar

11:30 just want to point this out, but in arcanum it is not possible to finish the game if you have a low intellect because the only thing you can do is attack the NPC that portals you to the Void, and so you don't have the item to defeat the final boss.

9:05 -- "You have that professor call me, because what you are doing is tantamount to fraud." It's not just fraud -- it can *endanger* *core* *life* *relationships.* When someone enters an exceptionally hellish job search with a mindset influenced by assurances that they're overqualified, it means that the hellish time-span of job searching *will* exert a deep strain on their familial, friend, and romantic relationships. After all, if their actual mentors told them these things, then why *shouldn't* their loved ones have been expecting a solid job to land already? To be very clear, I'm not speaking ill of any mentors across the world (or even implying that this isn't a matter of applicant's own mistakes). It's just an angle I think is important to point out.

You know that's a very interesting claim, you'll play anything so long as it plays well, no matter how bad it looks. So what do you think of Cruelty Squad.

I don't know if this was answered, but do you or have you ever done the "rubber ducking" trick, where you're trying to find an error or bug in code and you find it by talking through the code to something--some inanimate object--and explain what each line of code does to said object?

8:10 That person thought he has [Speech 100] in real life.

there wasn't a ding in the beginning!!! what the hell?!

Wait, can you clarify? What exactly about Fallout's art style was she wanting to replicate? That old school 90s CG look?

It's hard for me to imagine being a game director assigned to a project that I don't really like.

Fallout New Vegas said it: "The hard part is letting go"

kinda agree with her, the art style is too silly, too much Futurama for its own good. Its doesnt feel real is proably what she terribly tried to explain.

In my very subjective opinion, Leonard should have listened to that artist. I found the art style of TOW very off putting.

Wow, professors are encouraging people to apply as leads, using student projects as the basis for that? That's a horrific way to educate people.

If a game crashes and has been released it is objectively a bad product.

3:16 The term you were looking for would be _womansplaining._ Right?! Seriously, only use that word if you're being satirical. It is not a thing. "Being condescending" is not a gendered phenomenon.

Oh nooooooo ;-; the spammers have found your channel and have started impersonating you in the replies to other comments 😔

First time I find myself disagreeing with you. If the game is crashing a lot, it is objectively bad. Being able to work around an issue does not mean the issue is not objectively detrimental. If you had a car that broke down every week, would you accept it as a good car, because you can walk or take public transport to wherever you were going? You might have merely chosen a poor example, but in the wider scope of current state of the game industry, seeing this kind of argument come from a seasoned game design veteran is... triggering.

person-splaining works for all genders it seems ;)

Tim ware you good game director? All 3 trojka games ware kind of unfinished and only 1 properly took off but too late for the studio I m not sure if your games didnt failed (commercially, i kind of love them) as results of your decissions

This may hurt you Tim, but I will say it anyway: I have not yet played Outer Worlds.😅 I don't really play modern RPGs they usually suc. Fallout 3 imo was pretty bad, it was linear and soulless. I really prefer the old games, like Fallout 1 and 2 and Arcanum. When OW came out I asked my brother which had played it if it was any good and he told me it was 'meh' and that the game narrative was terrible, that the characters were stereotypes 'good vs evil' and the game was kinda 'sjw' or feminist. So I haven't touched it yet, I'm planning on buying it soon and check it out, since I found your channel and like your stuff, but for now I'm playing GOG Fallout 1 😎 good stuff!

Tim, the term you were looking for is womansplained.

03:02: So what you're saying is that someone tried to save you from the horrible, *horrible* art style of The Outer Worlds, but you were so far up your own asses and huffing your own farts so bad that instead of listening to her, you dismissed her on the basis that you people were involved in the creation of the alternative to begin with? The irony of her explaining why the aesthetics and art style of the original Fallouts were superior to Leonard Boyarsky pales in comparison to the irony of Tim Cain explaining to literally anyone how to be a "good" game director; an irony hopefully not lost on anyone.

mansplaining should be called peoplesplaning or just splaining to be inclusive and not sexist 😅

I saw Avowed gameplay yesterday and i can tell you already its not directed by you nor Josh Sawyer . I have no idea who is , but it was underwhelming . Art style and tone of game is as if it is made for kids - pegi 12. Completely opposite from first teaser 3 yeas ago.

A sequel to outer worlds when there are less than 300 average players on steam the last 30 days. Rather than a Fallout spinoff. Haha brilliant.

First 😎 love you Tim

first

Imagine explaining the art style to Leonard, which he created... Сказочная ТПшка.

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I didn't buy Outer Worlds because of the game not being on Steam, nothing to do with you though. I just dislike EGS.