I read a presentation I gave in 1996 to other Interplay producers titled "How To Build A Motivated Team", based on my still-ongoing experience as producer of Fallout.
The contrast between getting praised for running a high morale team and later getting punished for protecting said team from upper management sure is something.
Leonard Boyarsky just seemed to be your average art student who got into gamedev. So basically you want an artist or a great game designer. They tend to be artists. Hugo Martin came from a school of design and is a visual artist.
Much of game development TH-cam is a lot of outside-looking-in and theoretical thought experiments or surface level analysis. It is so refreshing to hear from a veteran of those trenches who is both pleasant and deferential to the many other people who come together to make magic happen. A big kudos to you, sir.
Man this motivates _me_ to be a better lead for my team. Granted, it's just me and three other engineers working on our game's build system, but it's a testament to the quality of this advice that it can still apply to this very niche discipline. Thank you for sharing this!
A follow up video discussing what you think is wrong or could be improved on in regards to the content of the talk would be good. Thank you for making these videos
Hi Tim. Thank you for these daily videos. You often reference your notes from all of these years ago, and I'm interested in your note-taking process and organizational structure. I would love if you could gloss over it in a future Q&A session! :)
Mentioning phony milestones reminds me of certain systems that require arbitrary, regular deadlines. Working under that made it feel like the work itself had a sort of negligible priority, and nothing felt impactful, like you were just wading through an endless mire. It also made it harder for individuals to put weight on what they were doing, they knew a dictum would come down and they could slack on it to recuperate because they knew it wasn't a priority and risk being called out, or they could work hard on something that in the next week might fall by the wayside and be spent when things got more intense. Learned in my brief time running a specific design within a bigger game that motivation and involvement really mattered. Getting artists to talk about what they wanted to see, making sure their own input was valued and integrating things collaboratively rather than a strict pecking order I think had a good effect on morale and helped bring out some cool ideas without compromising pacing. Sometimes stuff like writer's block comes directly from *having* to do a thing rather than wanting to. You can't make someone want to do something they don't want to do, but if they have a personal investment in it I think it makes it easier to find reasons to add to a project and want to keep at it. Good stuff, thank you.
every person who's considering any kind of people managing position should be made to listen to this yeah, it's specific to the games industry, but it absolutely translates to many other collaborative jobs
Thank you so much for the time and effort put into your videos. I'm a huge fan, and your stories are a wonderful window into my favorite games of all time. I wish I had more bosses like you through my career. God bless you and yours.
Hi Tim. I just wanted to leave this comment on your latest video as I only discovered your channel (via a tweet from Chris Avellone) earlier today. I've not yet watched this video as I intend to work through your uploads in order. I've recently (as of 2021) dipped my toes into the games industry as a level designer with 3D Realms and would love to be able to go full time at some point, hopefully working on immersive sims/RPGs similar to your previous titles. I just wanted to say many thanks in advance for putting your time and effort into these videos. I look forward to hearing what you have to say from your decades of experience. All the best, Andy.
I'm finding these team organisation videos extremely helpful. I'd really appreciate if you could expand on the concept of a catalyst - I've found as a part-time Scrum Master that one of the widest rivers a team needs to ford is understanding and empathising with eachother's roles. I'm fascinated by the idea of having one multidisciplined person facilitating that. Thanks again for these videos
Hey Tim, these videos have been awesome and helped give me some of my drive back recently. I had a question about the particular kind of humor in Fallout vs Fallout 2. You've mentioned a couple of times how the humor in Fallout could be appreciated without understanding the reference, while in Fallout 2, after your departure, there would be jokes that players might not get if they didn't understand or pick up on the reference. Do you mind giving an example? It doesn't have to be actual instances, but I'm curious how they compare side-to-side, since I've never happened to notice it (although granted I haven't made it through much of Fallout 2, it's a daunting game even after having played through Fallout). Appreciate everything
1: Not loweing their wage for petty reasons. (As per the previous why you left fallout video). That was just disrespectful. Edit: Good video! Im going to take some aspects of this video and try to apply it to my team.
@necronut oh: "Former Obsidian Owner Wants Microsoft to Fire Its Leadership" Oh yeah the way Chris was treated is just downright horrendous given how he won a libel case against his accuser.
@@theepicduck6922 Yeah. They did Chris dirty. Some of the greatest RPGs ever made under his belt but one dirty word and they just erase him without question. More power to him now, a free agent in a seller's market... the industry is mostly expensive shovelware trash these day, imo.
@@theepicduck6922 what was the accusation anyways? I never bothered to look into it since I assumed it was trumped up (looks like I was right again, sadly)
My local university gamelab course had that mentality of throwing inexperienced people into a team and see who could swim. The already talented people shone and the rest floated along. Some improvised on the fly. Grabbing stuff online and slammed them into the project.
I really hate when universities do that. (with the exception of open universities, in which it's always quite clear what you're supposed to do on your own and what's expected of you and of the universities) Potential talent is not always correlated with the ability to swim on your own... and this bullshit excuse is often used by incompetent leaders who don't want to or can't guide their students.
Wonder if there are studios out there nowadays akin to early Interplay. It seems like studios are either comprised of a one or two members making an indie game, or 100+ people whose each unique potential and talent gets smothered. Definitely a time capsule, though a warm and fuzzy one.
We are a team of 5 currently, with more people planned to join later this year. And we know many indie studios that have anywhere between 5 to 15 team members.
Hey Tim, i've already asked this question in previous videos, but i really hope to hear your answer on this one, soooooo... Do you guys tried to ask Jason Anderson back to work with you again?
Hey Tim, can you please tell us about the story writing process and a 'writer' means? Because I'd assume Mark O'Green be more mentioned but I don't hear anyone talk about him. And maybe a story about Mark Morgan please?
Hi Tim! I know this is a late comment on an old video, but have you ever considered reaching out to the Video Game History Foundation to see if they’d take a copy of that? I’m not sure exactly where it would fit in their archives if at all, but I feel like this is an interesting part of game history that gives a glimpse into the state of a developer and its employees.
I’ve heard of them, and I might do that one day. I have a lot of stuff I could donate or even leave to them in my will (which sounds morbid but with no heirs I need to think about those things).
@@CainOnGames I personally think that would be the perfect cap for your awesome career, or anyone’s career that’s as storied as yours is. Thanks for all of the awesome advice, stories, and lessons! Looking forward to tomorrow’s.
Hello sir, thanks for the great content :D Do you have any insights or thoughts on how to assure quality of games. Any stories regarding QA on your projects? The business now seems to ignore importance of quality early in development since they always can patch their games after shipping
i belong to a software development team and feel unmotivated all the time. i work in the telecomm and find it boring, soulless, and harmful to society even (yes, excessive tech development is bad and i see we are developing products without any care for general well-being of humanity, just to sell products). i can see my performance being poor, my comprehension skills being subpar, because my mind is always somehwere else, but i still am doing "ok enough" like C-. the money is good though. however, i am not exactly sure how much longer will i be able to take it. i dont ask for any advice. just pain of rotting alive already despite not even being 30 yo.
Hey Tim I started working in the game industry as a writer and I am currently moving into narrative design. I would like to get your take on the discipline and what tips you would give to people starting in the industry
Leonard проделал замечательную работу с говорящими головами. Такие разные образы. Все запоминаются. Особенно Gizmo и Harold. Помню как увидел фотографии этого процесса. Когда ещё не понимал какой труд за всем этим стоит. А учитывая, что для Леонарда это все было ещё новым, хочется ещё больше похвалить. Отличная работа!
These days being given an opportunity to work on a project you want is rare, especially if we are talking about big outsourcing/outstaffing companies. But definitely working after hours should fix this issue :D
nah, it's better this way, you can always turn youtube video transcript into a book if you want to later. I mean it's better because we don't have to wait forever and this is essentially free, for anyone to enjoy.
he says in the previous vid that his stories were put into a 500pp book he gave some people to review, and they said he comes off as needlessly mean in writing, so he gave up on it altogether
The contrast between getting praised for running a high morale team and later getting punished for protecting said team from upper management sure is something.
Management positions tend to attract people who should never be managers, and they're too often hired by people who should have never been managers.
@@thescatologistcopromancer3936 Those who crave power are unfit to yield it.
@@Peremptor Well said dude
@@Peremptor You got that from a book or something I refuse to believe a youtube commenter can come up with a phrase that sounds that cool.
@@kirbles2035Some commenters can come up with a phrase that sounds that cool, but I'm pretty sure they heard it, as it seems they misspelled wield.
Tim: They were wondering why we had a good working atmosphere, so I asked the team for feedback-
Me: Mystery solved!
These days the manager will probably ask the algorithm or HR lmao
Using Leonard Boyarsky as an example is cheating. How many producers are going to roll a Leonard Boyarsky at the start of a campaign? 😁
Ooh ooh I know this! It's gotta be a Nat 20, so 5%!
Leonard Boyarsky just seemed to be your average art student who got into gamedev. So basically you want an artist or a great game designer. They tend to be artists. Hugo Martin came from a school of design and is a visual artist.
"If you only have one egg don't make an omelette" is really great advice. ESPECIALLY for gave devs.
Much of game development TH-cam is a lot of outside-looking-in and theoretical thought experiments or surface level analysis. It is so refreshing to hear from a veteran of those trenches who is both pleasant and deferential to the many other people who come together to make magic happen. A big kudos to you, sir.
I love the titles they give me it's always sunny in Philadelphia vibes.
I appreciate being identified as a catalyst! 😊
J.T.
Man this motivates _me_ to be a better lead for my team. Granted, it's just me and three other engineers working on our game's build system, but it's a testament to the quality of this advice that it can still apply to this very niche discipline. Thank you for sharing this!
I wish you and your engineers the best with the project
A follow up video discussing what you think is wrong or could be improved on in regards to the content of the talk would be good. Thank you for making these videos
Hi Tim. Thank you for these daily videos. You often reference your notes from all of these years ago, and I'm interested in your note-taking process and organizational structure. I would love if you could gloss over it in a future Q&A session! :)
"Hi everyone, it's me Tim"
Another wonderful talk, thank you Tim!
It's amazing how simple wisdom is most easily forgotten
Mentioning phony milestones reminds me of certain systems that require arbitrary, regular deadlines. Working under that made it feel like the work itself had a sort of negligible priority, and nothing felt impactful, like you were just wading through an endless mire. It also made it harder for individuals to put weight on what they were doing, they knew a dictum would come down and they could slack on it to recuperate because they knew it wasn't a priority and risk being called out, or they could work hard on something that in the next week might fall by the wayside and be spent when things got more intense.
Learned in my brief time running a specific design within a bigger game that motivation and involvement really mattered. Getting artists to talk about what they wanted to see, making sure their own input was valued and integrating things collaboratively rather than a strict pecking order I think had a good effect on morale and helped bring out some cool ideas without compromising pacing. Sometimes stuff like writer's block comes directly from *having* to do a thing rather than wanting to. You can't make someone want to do something they don't want to do, but if they have a personal investment in it I think it makes it easier to find reasons to add to a project and want to keep at it.
Good stuff, thank you.
every person who's considering any kind of people managing position should be made to listen to this
yeah, it's specific to the games industry, but it absolutely translates to many other collaborative jobs
Thank you for sharing your time with us, Tim!
This is astounding and a great insight into your production time. Thank you, Tim!
Thank you so much for the time and effort put into your videos. I'm a huge fan, and your stories are a wonderful window into my favorite games of all time. I wish I had more bosses like you through my career. God bless you and yours.
Thanks for doing these. You're quickly becoming my favourite TH-camr. So much nostalgia.
Thanks so much for sharing! This is very inspiring as project manager/director working with teams day in and day out. 🙌🙌🙌
Thank you for this! Amazing!
I ❤ these videos, they're so insightful !
Love these very much Tim!
We work in very different industries but I shared this video with my team. Thanks for sharing
Tim: Hello everyone
everyone: HELLO TIM
I love your videos. They are an inspiration for me
Amazing video, so much insight!!!
Thank you for this channel, mr. Cain! Btw these are very nice glasses, they fit you very well!
Hi Tim. I just wanted to leave this comment on your latest video as I only discovered your channel (via a tweet from Chris Avellone) earlier today. I've not yet watched this video as I intend to work through your uploads in order. I've recently (as of 2021) dipped my toes into the games industry as a level designer with 3D Realms and would love to be able to go full time at some point, hopefully working on immersive sims/RPGs similar to your previous titles. I just wanted to say many thanks in advance for putting your time and effort into these videos. I look forward to hearing what you have to say from your decades of experience. All the best, Andy.
Awesome vid! Really enjoyed it!
I'm finding these team organisation videos extremely helpful. I'd really appreciate if you could expand on the concept of a catalyst - I've found as a part-time Scrum Master that one of the widest rivers a team needs to ford is understanding and empathising with eachother's roles. I'm fascinated by the idea of having one multidisciplined person facilitating that. Thanks again for these videos
Thank you for the insight! ✌
This is very insightful.
Nice interview. It would be nice to see you interviewing Brian Fargo in the future.
Absolutely relevant to this day
This is great advice for project management.
if we have come a long way since then and learned a lot, what would the 2023 version of this look like?
Hey Tim, these videos have been awesome and helped give me some of my drive back recently. I had a question about the particular kind of humor in Fallout vs Fallout 2. You've mentioned a couple of times how the humor in Fallout could be appreciated without understanding the reference, while in Fallout 2, after your departure, there would be jokes that players might not get if they didn't understand or pick up on the reference. Do you mind giving an example? It doesn't have to be actual instances, but I'm curious how they compare side-to-side, since I've never happened to notice it (although granted I haven't made it through much of Fallout 2, it's a daunting game even after having played through Fallout). Appreciate everything
An icon of your face has been on the desktop of pretty much every computer I've ever owned bc Fallout. Lol.
Hey Tim why did you move to Seattle? Are you from there?
1: Not loweing their wage for petty reasons. (As per the previous why you left fallout video). That was just disrespectful.
Edit: Good video! Im going to take some aspects of this video and try to apply it to my team.
2: Don't threaten to "de-owner" your co-owners. *shots fired*
If you don't know, use quotation marks and google "Obsidian" "de-owner" and enjoy.
@@necronut Not sure what this is referring to.
@necronut oh: "Former Obsidian Owner Wants Microsoft to Fire Its Leadership" Oh yeah the way Chris was treated is just downright horrendous given how he won a libel case against his accuser.
@@theepicduck6922 Yeah. They did Chris dirty. Some of the greatest RPGs ever made under his belt but one dirty word and they just erase him without question. More power to him now, a free agent in a seller's market... the industry is mostly expensive shovelware trash these day, imo.
@@theepicduck6922 what was the accusation anyways? I never bothered to look into it since I assumed it was trumped up (looks like I was right again, sadly)
Hey Tim! Would you ever consider releasing your notes as a sort-of history of the time? It would be super interesting to read along with your videos!
I love your channel
My local university gamelab course had that mentality of throwing inexperienced people into a team and see who could swim. The already talented people shone and the rest floated along. Some improvised on the fly. Grabbing stuff online and slammed them into the project.
I really hate when universities do that. (with the exception of open universities, in which it's always quite clear what you're supposed to do on your own and what's expected of you and of the universities)
Potential talent is not always correlated with the ability to swim on your own... and this bullshit excuse is often used by incompetent leaders who don't want to or can't guide their students.
Thanks!
Thank you!
“Weve come a long way since then” made me unclench
SNAP I missed the 1996 alarm
Great teams do great things
@Tim
do you intentionally use the sound ding thingy in the beginning to make your videos addicting?
that's some master level subtlety
Wonder if there are studios out there nowadays akin to early Interplay. It seems like studios are either comprised of a one or two members making an indie game, or 100+ people whose each unique potential and talent gets smothered. Definitely a time capsule, though a warm and fuzzy one.
We are a team of 5 currently, with more people planned to join later this year. And we know many indie studios that have anywhere between 5 to 15 team members.
maybe supergiant?
Hey Tim, i've already asked this question in previous videos, but i really hope to hear your answer on this one, soooooo... Do you guys tried to ask Jason Anderson back to work with you again?
If you want a variation of Tim's advice here, look up the Electric Funstuff song The Next Big Thing.
nice
Hei Tim. What do you think about Fonline games, or other Fallout 1/2 based online games?
Tim, would this work well today? Thanks for the video!
Hi Tim!!!
Thank you for caring and sharing.
Hey Tim, can you please tell us about the story writing process and a 'writer' means? Because I'd assume Mark O'Green be more mentioned but I don't hear anyone talk about him. And maybe a story about Mark Morgan please?
You asked the Tim universe for a gift. And it told you ‘no’.
@@tren380 Gotta spam hard enough then!
Hi Tim! I know this is a late comment on an old video, but have you ever considered reaching out to the Video Game History Foundation to see if they’d take a copy of that? I’m not sure exactly where it would fit in their archives if at all, but I feel like this is an interesting part of game history that gives a glimpse into the state of a developer and its employees.
I’ve heard of them, and I might do that one day. I have a lot of stuff I could donate or even leave to them in my will (which sounds morbid but with no heirs I need to think about those things).
@@CainOnGames I personally think that would be the perfect cap for your awesome career, or anyone’s career that’s as storied as yours is. Thanks for all of the awesome advice, stories, and lessons! Looking forward to tomorrow’s.
Hello sir, thanks for the great content :D
Do you have any insights or thoughts on how to assure quality of games. Any stories regarding QA on your projects?
The business now seems to ignore importance of quality early in development since they always can patch their games after shipping
he already has told stories about QA, funny story was about no one playing nosferatu in vampires the masquerade bloodlines testing process.
Thanks, will watch it later today :)
Tim Cain reading
I remember when we were building a motivated team.
Not enough gold,
too much lumber.
i belong to a software development team and feel unmotivated all the time. i work in the telecomm and find it boring, soulless, and harmful to society even (yes, excessive tech development is bad and i see we are developing products without any care for general well-being of humanity, just to sell products). i can see my performance being poor, my comprehension skills being subpar, because my mind is always somehwere else, but i still am doing "ok enough" like C-. the money is good though. however, i am not exactly sure how much longer will i be able to take it. i dont ask for any advice.
just pain of rotting alive already despite not even being 30 yo.
Hey Tim I started working in the game industry as a writer and I am currently moving into narrative design. I would like to get your take on the discipline and what tips you would give to people starting in the industry
Leonard проделал замечательную работу с говорящими головами. Такие разные образы. Все запоминаются. Особенно Gizmo и Harold. Помню как увидел фотографии этого процесса. Когда ещё не понимал какой труд за всем этим стоит. А учитывая, что для Леонарда это все было ещё новым, хочется ещё больше похвалить. Отличная работа!
These days being given an opportunity to work on a project you want is rare, especially if we are talking about big outsourcing/outstaffing companies. But definitely working after hours should fix this issue :D
Knowing how most producers think... i bet 99% of this talk fell on deaf ears.
Complain to Allan.
I'm dead
You should take your words, and turn them into a book.
nah, it's better this way, you can always turn youtube video transcript into a book if you want to later.
I mean it's better because we don't have to wait forever and this is essentially free, for anyone to enjoy.
he says in the previous vid that his stories were put into a 500pp book he gave some people to review, and they said he comes off as needlessly mean in writing, so he gave up on it altogether