I had a friend, she told me her story, her parrents were alchogol addicts, like in a bad way... And her childhood were nightmare, and only videogames saved her from insanity, she was comming home from school, and dive in fantasy worlds, hidding from harsh reality, and that is was her only possible escape. So videogame is not just a game.. For some one, that is only way to find safe place for their minds.
I’m really surprised someone actually asked you why you aren’t out curing diseases or whatever. Tons of the games you’ve made are really profound and have not only inspired people to make their own games but actually helped people. I know for me, when I found Fallout I was kind of in a dark place. I have pretty bad clinical depression and at the time it wasn’t under control at all. Playing Fallout and wanting to see what happened next or just having the distraction that’s more stimulating than watching TV or playing a shooter legitimately helped me at that time. And I became a life long fan. I’m doing much better now but I’m just so grateful for that game. I’m a musician, and I see music the same way. Music got me through a lot of dark times and if my music could help someone like it helped me, I’d be happy. If I had the stomach to be a doctor or the intelligence and drive to be a lawyer I would do those things. But I was kind of naturally good at music from an early age so I did that 🤷♂️ I’m really grateful for your games Tim. So whoever asks you that is ridiculous. You are helping MANY people. Even now with these videos. Also, The Good Place is sincerely one of my favorite shows of all time!!!!
It might not be my place to say, but I'm hoping the dark place you used to be in is far behind you, and that you're happy with your life. And if not, then I hope you know your goals, how to achieve them, and that you'll leave all bad nonsense behind.
@@ChadVulpes thank you! Life will never be perfect but I’m doing much better than back then. Also I don’t want to Imply all I did was play video games. I eventually sought out professional help and today I’m doing as well as I could ask for 😊 Music and Video Games got me through a lot of the beginning and still continue to help, in addition to therapy, medication, and being a bit more social.
You are one of those wonderful people who start talking about their individual experience, but in the process the listeners learn about life in general. Thank you!
Your comments about giving of your skillset instead of curing illnesses reminds me of what Stan "The Man" Lee said about comics, something to the effect of "At first I felt kind of guilty because I felt like I wasn't contributing anything to the world. Nothing serious. Then I realized that people that were out there doing tough jobs could read my comics and it would prevent them from going insane." Video games distract us from physical and emotional pain. Thank you, Mr. Cain, for making some of the great ones.
@@nuodso Speaking from my personal experience as a person with a painful autoimmune disorder, video games absolutely have distracted me from my physical pain, and anxiety as well. But, I think it's right to say that I desired that distraction because as you say, art nourishes the soul. I would say it nourishes the mind, it inspires and awakens the imagination. It certainly got me into art!
"Rah rah, why aren't you curing cancer instead of making silly computer games?" "Uh.. why aren't YOU curing cancer instead of making silly youtube comments?"
There's an essay called "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" by Peter Singer that essentially argues the utilitarian point you are arguing against. I was surprised not to see someone else mention it in the comments yet. Its known for "feeling" incorrect while being very difficult to actually argue against. In this video, you do a very good job of it. You brought up a lot of points I hadn't considered.
Really? I honestly think it seems very easy to argue against - at least, as someone who's basically only just heard of it. The basic logic seems perfectly in-line with the justification of a massive authoritarian nation-state who seeks to conquer others out of a sense of moral superiority. (One commenter noted that sort of utilitarian argument is in line with The Master.) For decades, hundreds of billions of dollars has been donated to African relief - to no avail. Gifts, it seems, are not the solution to suffering. The poor and hungry may not be at fault for their suffering... but then why does it happen? Perhaps their land is unsuitable for living - in which case the aid does nothing, if not increases suffering. Perhaps their nation is deeply corrupt - in which case, the answer would be war, so was there ever a moral solution to begin with? I'm sure there's a ton of other arguments against it.
Some pushback to “market forces will correct that”. Unethical sales models, nickel and diming, etc. are all things where people willingly take part not because they have a lack of control or are unintelligent, but because the sales model and method itself is designed specifically to exploit the buyer as much as they will tolerate. There’s a real difference between “this game is $60, take it or leave it, or maybe get it on sale or second hand” and “this game is digital only, you have to buy it, also it has a subscription, also it has tonnes of MTX, and our sales model is specifically built to extract as much money as possible, far more than would be reasonable to charge for a game at face value.” So it’s not so much the case that the only options are thinking customers are dumb or incompetent, it’s thinking that studios/publishers that engage in it are unethical and people should be told. The industry invests millions into marketing, sales tactics, and feedback loops in design, that are as a whole so much more effective than consumers are at identifying exploitation. Let’s not pretend the lootbox phenomena was something that would have simply righted itself without threat of (and in some cases, actual) external intervention. So as much as those sales models have a right to exist under something more laissez-faire, I think an entirely “customer is responsible” attitude is a bit naïve. The customer often cannot know what they’re getting into through no fault of their own. If it was that easy, whales wouldn’t exist.
I hope we arrive at a time where some behavioural psychology has made it into the high school curriculum. It might help people understand the manipulation of lootbox gambling-type game elements, timed exclusive skins or items to roll for, and so on. And maybe some biology of traditional addiction, too.
@@sorceproject Speaking of perception management, an interesting exercise is going through the comments section on a video (or article or blog post or what have you) and noting how many responses to one or another are hidden from view, generally without either the "content creator" or poster or perhaps even the social media company administering the app even knowing they've been hidden. For example, a comment will show that there has been 'x' number of replies to it. Yet, when you click on the link to read those correspondences, only a select few actually show up whereas the comment still appears in your personal comment history if the comment just so happens to be yours. It's been surmised that the others contain keywords various social media algorithms are flagging as "controversial" in some way and are automatically being hidden from public view. I have to wonder at this point if even the social media companies adminstering the applications we use every day are aware of how much important social discourse is being affected by their own "AI" algorithms. :/ They've obviously come under legal scrutiny of late for supposedly not doing enough, if anything, to curb so-called "disinformation", online bullying and the like whereas I have to question if that's their responsibility or ours. Most will consider it a conscious form of censorship, of course, but is it, really? Or is it simply yet another example of unconscious and unconscionable "AI" being given authority over public discourse it can't possibly control?
I remember transcribing all the FO holodiscs and terminal references to my paper notes so I could try asking NPCs about specific subjects in said discs.
I'll be honest, I was expecting this to be about some sort of spectrum of video game stories being taken too seriously by the community or devs vs now being stories that can't be taken seriously due to poor writing or something, but this turned out to be entirely different, and far more enriching. Thank you, Tim.
Tim you’re a national treasure! As someone who’s turning 50 and starting my own Indie Studio, you are helping me a lot! I appreciate your thoughts on everything, including game development. Anyway, you’re great! Thank you so much and please keep doing what you do! ❤
My grad advisor said the same thing when I said I wanted to go into games around 2009. "You wasted our time here because we focus on serious uses for computer engineering skills, not video games. You should do bioinformatics and make games in your free time." So I stopped with the MS and didn't pursue the PhD as I originally planned and went right into the industry. Glad I did because the degree wasn't as valuable as I thought it might be (for me, might have been more valuable for others in other paths).
Oh, I thought this was going to be about the interesting part of taking games seriously, like how game design comes together and intricacies of gameplay and player interaction.
Hi Tim, as someone who works to both prevent/treat infectious disease I think what you do and other artists do is incredibly important. I'm lucky enough to have worked on ttRPGs during my PhD and was split on my efforts I asked a friend if they thought it was worth while to work on art. They said "you're making culture, and that's important." I've enjoyed Fallout, and Arcanum, and Outer Worlds. It's art that gives people the meaning to fight against the uglier things in life so I'm glad you chose that path.
I had some old clipping from long ago, whether attributed truly or not, from Aristotle or Plato to the gist of "The only logical reason for gainful employment is in the pursuit of pleasure". We only do the hard things so we can get the fun things. Playing a game to have some fun is good for a person. Like everything, moderation of course.
Tim it makes me happy to hear it from you saying it's OK to get into game making and what your capable of with your skill set or what you enjoy, it does bother me on occasion that I may have made the wrong career choices but this is good motivation to continue trying to make a project/game and art etc.
As someone currently pursuing a Ph.D to study and teach about games, I want to thank you for this video. Sometimes it's easy to feel like all I'm doing is not important compared to everything going on in the world. Oh, and thanks for your work on Fallout-it ended up being half of the focus ofmy master's thesis!
I wonder how many of the people who usually comment that we should instead be working on curing diseases, growing food, solving wars, etc. actually work doing that. And I couldn't agree more with you, that this extreme form of utilitarianism misses something that is critical for human development: culture, art, and fun!
Paying the bills is the key which opens the door to gaming paradise. Not paying them closes the door to everything and brings the arrival of the teacher of consequences.
I am listening to you and I am still not believing I get to meet you, sort of. You are a legend to me. Fallout 2 is among first games I played, and definitely first rpg. And fallout, arcanum and Vampires left such an imprint on me, I can't describe. They leave you with such good feeling, such incredible vibe. It's combination of freedom, excellent story, good mechanics and good lore. Other RPGs that left such imprint on me are M&M VII, Neverwinter nights and Morrowind. I am currently playing Baldurs gate 3 (never played much 1 and 2 because I preferred turn based) and Cyberpunk 2077. I would like for you to comment them. BG3 gives you so much freedom, it reminds me of your games. And Cyberpunk is giving me so much Vampires vibe, it's incredible. Thanks for everything man. It would be incredible if you would make at least one more masterpiece.
i'm obsessed with having perfect runs for narrative with your games. easy to do with yours. like having the most sense-making character and playing him out. like i won't ever take energy weapons as a starter skill on Fo2
Thank you Tim. You inspire me. Heard the same stuff from others on many endeavors I have pursued. We are a culture that loves to hate artists and devalue their contributions to society. There is a long history of this and it's woven into many different layers of our society I won't go into. We love to accost others with those cheap rhetorical tricks and fallacies: "But why do X when not even Y yet? Gotcha!" There are so many hostile implications to all these little ways people like to accuse one another of things. Our society is desperately in need of seeing value in the arts, whether they are more traditional forms, or other forms of expression. Arts improve the functioning of our nervous systems in so many different ways. Thank you for not listening to others who charged you with abandoning humanity and "squandering your talents" on "games." I wonder if they looked in the mirror every morning and held themselves to the same standards they were attempting to project onto you!
Fantastic! Really helpful, as I get friends and family who think it a waste of time unless I'm making money or helping others. I'm hoping that attitudes are changing.
There were 2 subreddits, each about a certain game series, that I ended up leaving because every other day, someone would post a long rant about why a particular entry in that series was their least favorite. At first I actually didn't mind, and I even agreed with some of the criticisms, but after like 4 weeks, it really sucked the fun out of being there, so I left. While I think there's always room for criticism, I think that level and density of criticism every other day was a little too serious for me.
The thing that irks me sometimes is when I'm told video games have no value, and the people that say that like to watch movies, tv series, and sports. It's all entertainment, and it all enriches our lives.
I'm with you on this, Tim. Do what you like doing. And your games are contributing to society a lot, they made thousands or maybe even millions of people happy, guided them through hard times in life or just gave them something to do and to remember.
I agree with you Tim. For explorer type like me, it's common for me to play a game, complete it then move on to next game and never return to that game again. Even if I were to replay a game, I'd do it to unlock stuffs I didn't find before not to take the game too seriously.
How are we supposed to live through diseases and hardships without art? Living is more than a bodily function. I'm glad your mom supported you in your endeavors!
Games like any other piece of art can be inspirational to the point of saving lives as well. Nobody knows exactly how the human mind works and what can inspire us to be better. Very balanced answer to this i like it.
Turning the world into a giant cornfield because someone somewhere is hungry is not going to help anyone in the long run just make things more dysfunctional.
Depends what you mean by "taking it seriously". the way you described it in the beginning is one way. You can take a game seriously the same you take a book seriously. I believe you can easily hold video games to a high standard as books and movies. To me, Fallout 1 - 2 and New Vegas are easily as interesting and packed to the brim with themes and artful expression as something from Jules Verne. When movies came out, they were probably viewed the same way, as something childish and not as interesting as a book. But here we are, a hundred years later looking back at movies made by Akira Kurosawa or Kubrick and labeling them as classics.
My Main beef with people that don't take games seriously (or they do/are in a twisted way), is when they disrespect the series as it is, for what it is, when they find it; and also disrespect all the different kinds of players, that found the series before them, are enjoying it as is, and have formed a community around it. Typically, the kind of change these people bring about is completely, fundamentally, at odds with the spirit of the game and what the playerbase expects. And expect that they should, they are the ones funding the series up till this point, and they are the ones the developers and people in charge owe their jobs and lifestyle to every time they've purchased a game in the series. When the way they [aforementioned people] interact with games, it lowers the quality across the board for all future releases in that series; this [the quality going down] can also happen right before they show up because the latest release, at that time, has new elements, (and or fewer quality elements typical of that series and or that game's genre), that appeal to that kind of person, intentionally done by the devs to appeal to them, or someone else, or for some otherwise reason. Meanwhile said current release is also a downgrade in every aspect, in a noticeable way by previous and even some eagle-eyed new players, typically done to get a broader less niche audience for more money. Gameplay, story, graphics/art style, OST (original sound track/the music), level design, combat encounters, UI (user interface), voice acting, translation (or Gaea forbid "localization" aka censorship begins to happen to the series under their influence), nothing gets spared when the people in charge start generalizing, in an attempt to appeal to the aforementioned people [which is typically two groups, tourists and those with malicious agendas trying to change the series], adding what's trendy to the game/series, and shoving monetarily successful elements from one game, into a completely unrelated game or series that it does not belong in. P.S. I copied and saved this in case it gets deleted or shadow posted/banned. So it's not getting erased forever, even if it's not here.
"Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. Yet, I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers in a silly panic of ignorance and greed charging public libraries for an e-book six or seven times what they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience and writers threatened by corporate fatwad. And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books accepting this; letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant and tell us what to publish and what to write." -- Ursual K. Le Guin, acceptance speech at the 65th National Book Awards, November 19, 2014. Once again, substitute the word, games, for books and we can form an excellent impression of the atmosphere and environment in which video game developers also toil every day. Exceptional speech by Ms. Le Guin. Highly recommend.
I do it for the only multiplayer genre I like nowadays: Fighting Games. If you wanna get better and win on those games the process is slow and you need discipline, it's like learning to play a music instrument, but it's very satisfying.
3:20 regarding this, I'd say the line is muddier than that. I've seen a lot of people act like they're a deep-diving fan, or worse yet, someone who has played the game when they haven't - this becomes an issue for one reason. They start lying. At that point, in truth, it's less about taking a game seriously, and more about being offended because you've now found out that you're talking to someone who will lie to you casually.
Fallout kept me company in a very difficult period of my life. It also made me think and ponder on it's themes. A thing I wouldn't normally do since I am bored to death of reading
With the recent Palworld discourse it would be interesting to hear your perspective on Plagiarism vs Inspiration - where do you draw the line? Can parodies be plagiarism? If you could fit in the inspirations for your different projects as examples that would be neat too.
Man, don't let anyone tell you that video games don't do anything "meaningful." I at least partially learned how to be a good person, how to not give up, how to find creative solutions, etc, all from RPG's. They literally helped shape my moral compass.
Making games is one of the most important things you can be doing to improve the world. Games give people a way to escape it. They build extremely important human traits like inspiration, hope, and probably the most important, honor. They enforce the idea that it always pays to keep fighting, regardless of how hard things get. They teach us to strive to overcome things, instead of endlessly complaining about them. I could go on, but I honestly think that anyone who has spent a large portion of their lives playing games can already sense the positive traits they gave us, because no one else seems to have them but us.
The thing I don't like is when a game allows you ways to skip the lore dumps then it will at some point create a challenge where you have to know the lore to complete the challenge. This ends up pushing me to some external source for quick answers.
Playing new vegas at the moment. Having a blast with my own mod (and restored npcs on the strip, more people in casinos). Having fun is important. We who have had played Fallout for decades sure have a lot of fun!
Yes! I think it's important to do what matters to you, rather than try to force yourself to do things that others might consider important. It will be more difficult, at least emotionally, to stay determined compared to people who actually care and identify with their work. Academics sounds prestigious at a glance, but most profs have a relatively small impact, and a bitter or otherwise misplaced prof is actually a problem for students. Being reluctant, unfulfilled and regretful is probably not going to benefit those around you. And I don't like anyone's chances of being the best at anything they don't honestly want to prioritize! The other thing is that you can't necessarily predict the effects of your work. Who knew that video game console development would give rise to GPUs and their important benefits for computing? It may have sounded like a frivolous adventure for such technically knowledgeable people at the time, but not now. We can't see the future. You simply have to go down a road to find out what lies further ahead, and you won't see anything if you're always looking back at the crossroads wishing you went the other way. My theory is that you should be sincere and focus on doing something well. What we don't need are people half-heartedly keeping up appearances all their lives; I don't want to ride in a plane or cross a bridge designed by an engineer who never ever daydreams about his work in his free time, and who just "does it for the money". A bored surgeon sounds like a liability. There seems to be an entirely different level of focus available when you genuinely find something interesting. Worry about how you will feel in three to five years, and what your reliable skills will be, and not how people will react to the shallowest glance at the name and associated stereotype of your career path right now. You can just play your character.
What’s your pc setup? Do you enjoy building computers? Not asking for a deep dive into computers, just Tim’s experience with building and any fun stories to share.
This might be a very lengthy topic but I'm really interested to hear you talk about the research phase of game development. I have a couple of sub-questions about it. Obviously, research is very important for games that are set in historical settings or games that want to accurately depict real modern day cities, so how important was research in Fallout, Arcanum and The Outer Worlds which aren't tied down in that way? Does research happen only during the early stages of development or does it last throughout the production? Can there be additional research during the later stages of the production if the need arises? Which were some of the things you personally researched while designing your games (I think you may have touched on this a bit when you talked about FEV)?
Being a father of three, i have maybe one or two hours a week for gaming, and i am not spending it reading lore! These days i am back playing the classics that i know by hearth... And its great! Just played fallout, playing arcanum now.
Hello Tim, thank you very much for your work. It's not the same subject, but with a common denominator: Serious Game (I don't know if you use the same term, but in France we call "Serious Game" "software" that enables learning in a playful way rather than through traditional, tedious processes, which is different from video games as entertainment). My question is very specific and relates to the healthcare field (because, why not?): do you think that Serious Games and playfulness can be used in Cognitive Remediation Therapy (= stimulating cognitive functions that have been damaged)? Do you know of any research linking ludism and CRT? Thanks again for sharing, you're a wealth of knowledge!
3:44 the best argument I've heard against the "vote with you money" argument was that in games with *microtransations* (this is essential to note as this only applies to this specific type of games) a player that spends hundreds of money in them will have, indirectly, a bigger say in the direction of the game compared to someone who just purchases the base game. Basically, one whale will out do tens of regular John. I might be mistaken but I think Asmongold is the guy I've heard this from.
Hey Tim, love your vids, love your work, keep it up! That being said, I have to disagree with your conviction that voting with our wallet works. There is simply way, WAY too much money spent on marketing campaigns for many people not to just compulsively buy a product without giving much of their own thought into it. Not to mention developers/publishers who prey on people with gambling proclivities and put money fueled FOMO-flavored skinner boxes in their games, and hey guess what it works; through devious tactics they get loads of money from susceptible people and then other companies see that and go "hey that works let's drain some suckers for ourselves". If voting with our wallets worked we wouldn't need like a million gambling regulations worldwide. Anyway, love ya thanks for your input
I love Tim's videos as well, but I'd also like to add that since "voting with your wallet" has no limits on how many "votes" you can cast, it is much harder to push back against a game if it has such exploitative practices with gambling and FOMO-flavored Skinner-boxes. A massive boycotting campaign for instance is rendered moot if there are a few large enough whales and/or a bigger marketing to push past it. Heck, back where I'm from, I've seen churches literally buy tickets in bulk to send their followers to watch one of their movies just to make it seem more popular than it otherwise would have been. Anyway, loved Tim's many other points such as the need for art.
Hi tim. Huge fan of your work and would love some advice. When you make a fictional world and want the worldbuilding to feel organic and make sense what kind of blueprint base do you start with? Is it okay to not have all the main ideas and get to it eventually? Can you name an example of how you would research a topic you were unfamiliar with while working on your story? That feels like alot but would love your opinion.
I'm also fan of "vote with your money" and i agree with all your said. I'm just think that issue with those people sometimes is for some reason they cannot deal with the fact that something is liked by others (like really popular) which they don't like (and don't buy maybe). The example would be, imagine a person don't like lets say Baldur's Gate 3, and he doesn't buy it, doesn't play it, doesn't watch it etc. But everybody around likes it and plays it and tweets it etc. And that like strongly bothers such person, which ties to prove that the game is bad and you all wrong (making maybe hate videos). I mean, if you see yourself in this person, the issue is not in game, or in people who like it, the issue in persone who cannot accept the fact that for some reason its not hes cup of tea. There are miriad of things in the world for everyone, its totally fine not liking something. I would even think its wrong if you like everyhting out there :)
I got so many great games between 1990-2010 and the advances were huge in just a few years (between 1999 to 2002 etc). Then everything went lateral for years. Now it is a going down. Now bg3 isnt a bad game. It entertained me a little. It wasnt a waste of time. But it wasnt good like super mario bros was. Or Fallout 1. Or Zelda on nes. Or resident evil on ps 1. Or a hundred other games. And it was way worse than bg2. Soemhow so many years. So much better graphics and so many more people worked on it. That is just a travesty if you look at it in one way. In another it was half decent fun for a while. Having said all that compared to the other new games it was MUCH better. What does that say about many other new games?
@@CainOnGames Dota 2 was my most bad game ever i mean, games that were literally just bad... how could i remember them so addictive love hate games are bad games to me ive had some people call them abusive relationships others call them an addiction sadly kinda prominent to make such nowadays i totally get that companies need to keep making money if the game is meant to keep running and being relevant but when someone cant get himself to stop playing it because whenever you want to stop something youve put alot of time into, trained to get better put money into it periodically over all that time and see all of that and stopping feels like invalidating all of that for many people at that point it was all a waste so yeah some points that im really not enjoying in practices we currently see alot in the industry are made to make people take games too seriously, or is that wrong? of course im mostly having mobas, mmos and alike in mind with that
@@ytmanb "some points that im really not enjoying in practices we currently see a lot in the industry" -- All have been written about and all have names. Sunk cost fallacy; Skinner box game design; microtransaction monetization models; etc. All this and more amount to "a plethora of shady practices and *poor game design* that has *become a standard* in the gaming industry." ('Quote attribution: Tiankuo Zhang, That Little Parasite in Your Wallet: The Problem of Micro-transactions in the Modern Video Game Industry') And, now, they're invading even the single player experience by design. This abject insistence that it's all about personal preference is preventing any and all "serious" discussion of the associated devolution and devaluation of quality in the video game medium. If professional game developers don't care, I can only conclude they're fine with it.
Games make people happy, and that improves the World. Life is much more than just eating and sleeping. You, my dear Tim, definitely have made lots of people happy. Therefore, you are making the World a better place. And I'm sure this is more of what can be said about most "extreme utilitarians" like those you mentioned. Thank you for everything
I play for the game for fun, not the lore. For my 'lore' fix I study history, International relations, and real politics. For my technical fix I learned to read medical studies.
Enjoyable view as always. I want to ask if you are interested in sharing about your cooking/favorite recipes. Maybe what you used to bake for your team earlier in your carrier. Have a pleasant day.
The question is really fascinating and i think games should be taken seriously by their creators because it is hard to care if they are not. I feel it a lot with modern iterations of franchises where it is so obviously a product that it is hard to care anymore, because why should i care when the creators do not? One of the good things about games is that especially in indie and AA, there's still that "out of mainstream"-spark. And in the same way, it makes me so sad when it's announced that a company known for unique games now goes to work on franchise shit. Recently, Arkane Studios was announced to develope Marvel's Blade... -_-
I think its time to remember that creating art is just as important as doing something good that deals with an issue right now, why? because without art and culture we would be mindless savages with no hopes or dreams, art is medicine for the soul and yet is the first thing that looses its value in the eyes of people all the time, so I call to remember every day that your day has been made better because of a piece of art, be it a game, a movie, a book, a poem, a song, etc
Terry Pratchett had something good to say about this in Hogfather: "We need to believe in things that aren't true; how else can they become?" ruclips.net/video/cIfCGf_suxs/видео.html The power of fiction and fantasy has literally driven us to the stars, and games are the most immersive medium for it. It is silly to dismiss it as a worthless pastime.
Games make the world a better place: 1. It is a form of escapism that helps you get through difficult moments. I have a friend in a combat zone who says that this greatly helps soldiers not fall into PTSD. 2. This is the most complex form of art, allowing you to work through complex issues in a playful way. 3. Games allow you to maintain mental flexibility and serve as a preventive measure for certain diseases. 4. Games help socialization; people often found friends or couples in online games. Here you can hone your communication and stress resistance skills. This is not true for all games and not for all people. But this is the benefit that I observed for myself and those around me.
Heres a question from someone trying to make a fallout based RPG: How did you organize and visualize quest and story progress throughout your game's dialogues? To what extent did you map out the interaction of flags? Any tools to recommend?
I always have trouble with deciding what kind of project I want to make - one that benefits people plainly or a game that I want to make. I've decided that the best way to live my life is by doing things that I like to do, then donate or start charities if i have any money to spare after my family. At the end of the day we aren't robots that can live for everyone else with 100% of our life.
Thank you for your great answer. May I ask a follow-up question? How seriously should game makers consider their job? Let me explain the context of this question. In the film industry, directors like Lynch, Kubrick, and Tarkovsky view art as something 'bigger than life.' I don’t recall the exact phrase David Lynch used, but the gist was this: Many people are capable of creating great art and telling wonderful stories that come from within. There are millions who could do this better then average director, and the primary reason a director does what they do is because he got lucky. Since it's mostly luck rather than skill, you should be grateful for your fate and strive to do the greatest work possible and never sacrifice artistic freedom. And if someone is doing it just as a job, he wouldn't want to speak with that person. You've done really great things for the art of game dev (and I am very grateful for the many games you've created), but it seems to me that you value work relationships higher than some idea of a 'mission.' Is that impression accurate?
People dont realize the doctor cant save lifes all day. Entertainment is essential to the recreation of all the 'important' jobs. Same with Service industries. They give people who have highly useful or specialized skillsets the time to do those things and also help them to stay focused on their 'important' job.
Tim, I regularly notice game mechanics get simplified in sequels. This seems like a double-edged sword, because it may turn away part of the fan base, but at the same time it opens the game up to a wider audience. I suppose another reason would be portability/playability on different platforms (PC, consoles). During the development process, how do you find and agree on the complexity sweet spot? Is that even a thing? Also, when might that come into play, as I presume it would inform decisions about game-mechanics very early on.
To those who make the argument that you should be fully focused on curing diseases and other ails of humanity, I just say, "Yeah, and those that are gifted doing that are going to need to something to take their minds off everything when they take a break." People tend to forget the amount of support people it takes for one person to make the leaps and bounds. Also, some of the great advancements have been inspired by art. Art gives the direction, Science paves the way.
Regarding game lore. In my gaming experience I found myself always reading wiki and watching lore videos about games I liked. And I thought that these materials are like external parts of the game. Just like physical manuals that games had before. And I think why don't developers intentionally put the lore into youtube and wiki. It's like if lore of Inscription(which is ingeniously made) would be not inside the game, but literally in youtube. It's like game world mysteriously leak into our world.
3:00-3:10 there's a lot of belittling in pvp games and metagaming 4:50-5:35 people are very quick to nihilize things they don't know, understand, personally value, and have been told they should nihilize. 6:10-7:00 we live in a world dominated by analytic strictly-quantitative philosophy and people who think X and Y are necessary; nobody can do anything else but the necessary. What's necessary? Whatever your nearest authority thinks. Distractions, deviations, wastes, are defined based on that.
Exactly game development is the place were you try and technology first, then it trickles down to other fields, wow came before social networks, architecture visualisation tinkers down from game engine advancements, in australia one of their big game studios works with their govt for defence system visualisation and training etc Steam came before cloud stores for apps. Game dev is the top end of tech were people play around with latest tech and seee what happens.
I took extensive notes while making my games, including what people said...especially funny things they said. That's where those quotes came from. I have a video about my note-taking: ruclips.net/video/P0NKR9R0XTg/видео.html
Apologies if you've already spoken about this before, have you/will you ever speak on fallout 1's removed 500 day time limit? Do you regret the change or do you feel like it was necessary? You've spoken on the changes you'd make to fallout 1 in the event of a remake, and offhandedly mentioned removing frictional parts but didn't elaborate, so maybe that includes the time limits. How would you go about implementing a mechanic/system like that in the future? My understanding is after fallout 1 released, people got mad about the time limit and pressure caused it to be removed (or set to 13 in game years). I replayed fallout not too long ago with the timer enable and didn't find it too oppressive, while others seem to go into a panic over just the 150 day water chip quest. However unlike the chip quest you aren't directly told about the 500 day thing except for vague hints from the overseer and the water merchants. I also ask because I personally feel like there aren't really bad mechanics, just poor implementation of said mechanics. Just like how not every movie trope is inherently bad. Or maybe it's just a good idea in the wrong game.
This isnt exactly about the main videogame topic, but I wanted to put out there my own personal critisim of vote with your dollars around games, spesificly to do with scale. When you dont buy from a smaller scale business, like a local cafe or an indie studio, yeah it holds up, but when you are dealing with these massive corperations with massive game studios and marketing teams that sell games all over the world, boycotting them just becomes logistically unviable. Your not gonna get everyone to stop buying COD on a global scale for it to really, really hurt the company, unless they are already fucking up so bad that the game just isnt fun for anybody, and at that point its more likley that the whole franchise dies than what we really want, which is for it to get better. There is also the fact that many big games have whole teams devoted to designing the game to exploit human physcology to keep ypu playing and buying microtransactions and get poeple addicted, which only further adds to the porblem. There is also just that most poeple arent gonna be fired up enough to get involved in an organized boycott for something that isnt really critical to thier day to day lives at all, its not cuz poeple are stupid or not capable or shills, its simply that most normal poeple have other more important shit to get fired up about, like making rent. Imo if you want to un-fuck the AAA games industry, the best way to do it is getting devs uinionized on a large enough scale that they can demand certin standards, like how the hollywood strike forced some rules around AI, combined with some goverment regulation. When your working with organized labor, its a smaller number of poeple, so logistics are easier, they are much more personaly invested in the fight, and it simply has way more leverage per the amount of effort ya put in, and thus is much more effective.
"combined with some goverment regulation" -- Here's the thing about government regulation of "massive corperations": they're transnational. It would take unprecedented cooperation among nations to regulate them properly and, as we've all too often seen of late, nations are far more interested in rushing to claim and vying over dwindling resources. As it is, those European countries actually trying to make a dent are attempting to regulate them with existant gambling laws that don't apply to the issue at hand rather than authoring contemporary laws that do. Strangely enough, the cinematic intro of Fallout 4 actually captures the zeitgeist of our time. Of course, the game proper is utterly disconnected from it and how that happens, I'm sure I don't know. But there we are.
I have a *need* to be creative. Me not being creative makes me depressed, and in that state I make the world a worse place. In a hypothetical post-apocalyptic scenario, in a small community, maybe I'd be a doctor, because there was nobody else to do it. But I don't live in that world, there's plenty of people who want to be doctors, and since they do it voluntarily they'll automatically be better at it than I ever could, if forced.
7:30 - The argument does actually take into account peoples' needs. I can tell you what Singer would say: your needs are not going to be as severe as the needs of a starving/sick child that you could be helping. I'm not saying I agree with this kind of utilitarianism, but I am saying it is logically consistent. One way to get around this argument is to say that reducing suffering is not actually a top priority for human beings.
Kudos to Mama Cain who was immediately understanding and supportive at such an early stage.
The older I get, the more I realize just how awesome she was.
I had a friend, she told me her story, her parrents were alchogol addicts, like in a bad way... And her childhood were nightmare, and only videogames saved her from insanity, she was comming home from school, and dive in fantasy worlds, hidding from harsh reality, and that is was her only possible escape.
So videogame is not just a game.. For some one, that is only way to find safe place for their minds.
Dated a girl that had the same experience.
People who say “Do something valuable for the society” usually underestimate what others do and overestimate what they do themselves.
"why aren't you doing something more valuable" he said, commenting on a RUclips video, aka doing god's work.
Tim- you’ve left the world a better place for having been in it. Thank you for all of the fun!
Wait, is that Raycevick, the guy with the gaming channel? Would be pleasantly surprised if so.
I think it is, actually.
Maybe its me..
I think it's the same guy, yes!
Was looking for that commment. Like, THAT Raycevick? damn!
Exactly what I was thinking too
I’m really surprised someone actually asked you why you aren’t out curing diseases or whatever. Tons of the games you’ve made are really profound and have not only inspired people to make their own games but actually helped people. I know for me, when I found Fallout I was kind of in a dark place. I have pretty bad clinical depression and at the time it wasn’t under control at all.
Playing Fallout and wanting to see what happened next or just having the distraction that’s more stimulating than watching TV or playing a shooter legitimately helped me at that time. And I became a life long fan. I’m doing much better now but I’m just so grateful for that game.
I’m a musician, and I see music the same way. Music got me through a lot of dark times and if my music could help someone like it helped me, I’d be happy. If I had the stomach to be a doctor or the intelligence and drive to be a lawyer I would do those things. But I was kind of naturally good at music from an early age so I did that 🤷♂️
I’m really grateful for your games Tim. So whoever asks you that is ridiculous. You are helping MANY people. Even now with these videos.
Also, The Good Place is sincerely one of my favorite shows of all time!!!!
It might not be my place to say, but I'm hoping the dark place you used to be in is far behind you, and that you're happy with your life. And if not, then I hope you know your goals, how to achieve them, and that you'll leave all bad nonsense behind.
@@ChadVulpes thank you! Life will never be perfect but I’m doing much better than back then. Also I don’t want to
Imply all I did was play video games. I eventually sought out professional help and today I’m doing as well as I could ask for 😊
Music and Video Games got me through a lot of the beginning and still continue to help, in addition to therapy, medication, and being a bit more social.
You are one of those wonderful people who start talking about their individual experience, but in the process the listeners learn about life in general. Thank you!
Your comments about giving of your skillset instead of curing illnesses reminds me of what Stan "The Man" Lee said about comics, something to the effect of "At first I felt kind of guilty because I felt like I wasn't contributing anything to the world. Nothing serious. Then I realized that people that were out there doing tough jobs could read my comics and it would prevent them from going insane." Video games distract us from physical and emotional pain. Thank you, Mr. Cain, for making some of the great ones.
I don't think "distract" is the right word, although they can do that. Art is nourishment for the soul, simple as that (in my opinion).
@@nuodso Speaking from my personal experience as a person with a painful autoimmune disorder, video games absolutely have distracted me from my physical pain, and anxiety as well. But, I think it's right to say that I desired that distraction because as you say, art nourishes the soul. I would say it nourishes the mind, it inspires and awakens the imagination. It certainly got me into art!
Ayo? Raycevick watches Tim Cain? That's awesome. I like his question and your answer too!
"Rah rah, why aren't you curing cancer instead of making silly computer games?"
"Uh.. why aren't YOU curing cancer instead of making silly youtube comments?"
There's an essay called "Famine, Affluence, and Morality" by Peter Singer that essentially argues the utilitarian point you are arguing against. I was surprised not to see someone else mention it in the comments yet. Its known for "feeling" incorrect while being very difficult to actually argue against. In this video, you do a very good job of it. You brought up a lot of points I hadn't considered.
Really? I honestly think it seems very easy to argue against - at least, as someone who's basically only just heard of it. The basic logic seems perfectly in-line with the justification of a massive authoritarian nation-state who seeks to conquer others out of a sense of moral superiority. (One commenter noted that sort of utilitarian argument is in line with The Master.)
For decades, hundreds of billions of dollars has been donated to African relief - to no avail. Gifts, it seems, are not the solution to suffering. The poor and hungry may not be at fault for their suffering... but then why does it happen? Perhaps their land is unsuitable for living - in which case the aid does nothing, if not increases suffering. Perhaps their nation is deeply corrupt - in which case, the answer would be war, so was there ever a moral solution to begin with?
I'm sure there's a ton of other arguments against it.
That (((Singer))) guy is a nutcase
As a philosophy graduate, I really, really hate that paper, and utilitarianism in general, lol
Spot on Tim. Being nasty and exclusionary is the pathology of taking games too seriously.
That's the case with any hobby, to be honest.
It's the pathology of two thirds of the internet on anything.
But better that than not taking anything seriously and having no strong opinions on anything. That would be a very boring world to live in
Music, art, games are some of the things that make life worth living. They can inspire, motivate and bring people together.
"computer go beep-boop" - hillarious. i'll find a way to use it in my gaming somehow, lol
Some pushback to “market forces will correct that”. Unethical sales models, nickel and diming, etc. are all things where people willingly take part not because they have a lack of control or are unintelligent, but because the sales model and method itself is designed specifically to exploit the buyer as much as they will tolerate. There’s a real difference between “this game is $60, take it or leave it, or maybe get it on sale or second hand” and “this game is digital only, you have to buy it, also it has a subscription, also it has tonnes of MTX, and our sales model is specifically built to extract as much money as possible, far more than would be reasonable to charge for a game at face value.”
So it’s not so much the case that the only options are thinking customers are dumb or incompetent, it’s thinking that studios/publishers that engage in it are unethical and people should be told. The industry invests millions into marketing, sales tactics, and feedback loops in design, that are as a whole so much more effective than consumers are at identifying exploitation. Let’s not pretend the lootbox phenomena was something that would have simply righted itself without threat of (and in some cases, actual) external intervention.
So as much as those sales models have a right to exist under something more laissez-faire, I think an entirely “customer is responsible” attitude is a bit naïve. The customer often cannot know what they’re getting into through no fault of their own. If it was that easy, whales wouldn’t exist.
I hope we arrive at a time where some behavioural psychology has made it into the high school curriculum. It might help people understand the manipulation of lootbox gambling-type game elements, timed exclusive skins or items to roll for, and so on. And maybe some biology of traditional addiction, too.
@@sorceproject Speaking of perception management, an interesting exercise is going through the comments section on a video (or article or blog post or what have you) and noting how many responses to one or another are hidden from view, generally without either the "content creator" or poster or perhaps even the social media company administering the app even knowing they've been hidden. For example, a comment will show that there has been 'x' number of replies to it. Yet, when you click on the link to read those correspondences, only a select few actually show up whereas the comment still appears in your personal comment history if the comment just so happens to be yours. It's been surmised that the others contain keywords various social media algorithms are flagging as "controversial" in some way and are automatically being hidden from public view. I have to wonder at this point if even the social media companies adminstering the applications we use every day are aware of how much important social discourse is being affected by their own "AI" algorithms. :/ They've obviously come under legal scrutiny of late for supposedly not doing enough, if anything, to curb so-called "disinformation", online bullying and the like whereas I have to question if that's their responsibility or ours. Most will consider it a conscious form of censorship, of course, but is it, really? Or is it simply yet another example of unconscious and unconscionable "AI" being given authority over public discourse it can't possibly control?
Taking games seriously is important part of immersion
I remember transcribing all the FO holodiscs and terminal references to my paper notes so I could try asking NPCs about specific subjects in said discs.
I, for one, am glad you chose to make games. Because you are good at it and they are an enjoyable way to spend some downtime.
I love this channel. Thank you for sharing your perspectives!
I'll be honest, I was expecting this to be about some sort of spectrum of video game stories being taken too seriously by the community or devs vs now being stories that can't be taken seriously due to poor writing or something, but this turned out to be entirely different, and far more enriching. Thank you, Tim.
Okay, from now on I'm not a "Game Developer" but instead I'm a "Computer Beep-Booper".
No matter how casual you make your game lore, there will be a lore-nerd that will take it seriously.
Tim you’re a national treasure! As someone who’s turning 50 and starting my own Indie Studio, you are helping me a lot! I appreciate your thoughts on everything, including game development. Anyway, you’re great! Thank you so much and please keep doing what you do! ❤
My grad advisor said the same thing when I said I wanted to go into games around 2009. "You wasted our time here because we focus on serious uses for computer engineering skills, not video games. You should do bioinformatics and make games in your free time." So I stopped with the MS and didn't pursue the PhD as I originally planned and went right into the industry. Glad I did because the degree wasn't as valuable as I thought it might be (for me, might have been more valuable for others in other paths).
Oh, I thought this was going to be about the interesting part of taking games seriously, like how game design comes together and intricacies of gameplay and player interaction.
Hi Tim, as someone who works to both prevent/treat infectious disease I think what you do and other artists do is incredibly important. I'm lucky enough to have worked on ttRPGs during my PhD and was split on my efforts I asked a friend if they thought it was worth while to work on art. They said "you're making culture, and that's important." I've enjoyed Fallout, and Arcanum, and Outer Worlds. It's art that gives people the meaning to fight against the uglier things in life so I'm glad you chose that path.
I had some old clipping from long ago, whether attributed truly or not, from Aristotle or Plato to the gist of "The only logical reason for gainful employment is in the pursuit of pleasure". We only do the hard things so we can get the fun things. Playing a game to have some fun is good for a person. Like everything, moderation of course.
Tim it makes me happy to hear it from you saying it's OK to get into game making and what your capable of with your skill set or what you enjoy, it does bother me on occasion that I may have made the wrong career choices but this is good motivation to continue trying to make a project/game and art etc.
art and mirth are necessary for human beings and help everyone else get through their own journeys.
As someone currently pursuing a Ph.D to study and teach about games, I want to thank you for this video. Sometimes it's easy to feel like all I'm doing is not important compared to everything going on in the world. Oh, and thanks for your work on Fallout-it ended up being half of the focus ofmy master's thesis!
I wonder how many of the people who usually comment that we should instead be working on curing diseases, growing food, solving wars, etc. actually work doing that. And I couldn't agree more with you, that this extreme form of utilitarianism misses something that is critical for human development: culture, art, and fun!
I take games more seriously than my rent
That isn't healthy heh
Paying the bills is the key which opens the door to gaming paradise. Not paying them closes the door to everything and brings the arrival of the teacher of consequences.
Lol
I like that your comment doesn't imply that you don't take your rent seriously, but everyone seems to think that it does.
I am listening to you and I am still not believing I get to meet you, sort of. You are a legend to me. Fallout 2 is among first games I played, and definitely first rpg. And fallout, arcanum and Vampires left such an imprint on me, I can't describe. They leave you with such good feeling, such incredible vibe. It's combination of freedom, excellent story, good mechanics and good lore. Other RPGs that left such imprint on me are M&M VII, Neverwinter nights and Morrowind. I am currently playing Baldurs gate 3 (never played much 1 and 2 because I preferred turn based) and Cyberpunk 2077. I would like for you to comment them. BG3 gives you so much freedom, it reminds me of your games. And Cyberpunk is giving me so much Vampires vibe, it's incredible. Thanks for everything man. It would be incredible if you would make at least one more masterpiece.
i'm obsessed with having perfect runs for narrative with your games. easy to do with yours. like having the most sense-making character and playing him out. like i won't ever take energy weapons as a starter skill on Fo2
Thank you Tim. You inspire me.
Heard the same stuff from others on many endeavors I have pursued. We are a culture that loves to hate artists and devalue their contributions to society. There is a long history of this and it's woven into many different layers of our society I won't go into. We love to accost others with those cheap rhetorical tricks and fallacies: "But why do X when not even Y yet? Gotcha!" There are so many hostile implications to all these little ways people like to accuse one another of things. Our society is desperately in need of seeing value in the arts, whether they are more traditional forms, or other forms of expression. Arts improve the functioning of our nervous systems in so many different ways.
Thank you for not listening to others who charged you with abandoning humanity and "squandering your talents" on "games." I wonder if they looked in the mirror every morning and held themselves to the same standards they were attempting to project onto you!
Fantastic! Really helpful, as I get friends and family who think it a waste of time unless I'm making money or helping others. I'm hoping that attitudes are changing.
There were 2 subreddits, each about a certain game series, that I ended up leaving because every other day, someone would post a long rant about why a particular entry in that series was their least favorite. At first I actually didn't mind, and I even agreed with some of the criticisms, but after like 4 weeks, it really sucked the fun out of being there, so I left. While I think there's always room for criticism, I think that level and density of criticism every other day was a little too serious for me.
I love this video. Yes, videogames at their best are a form of art, up there with classical music. And the verb we use for both of these is "to play."
Thanks for these, Tim.
As a physician to be, we in healthcare also need art and katharsis at the end of the day to be able to do what we do.
The thing that irks me sometimes is when I'm told video games have no value, and the people that say that like to watch movies, tv series, and sports.
It's all entertainment, and it all enriches our lives.
I'm with you on this, Tim. Do what you like doing. And your games are contributing to society a lot, they made thousands or maybe even millions of people happy, guided them through hard times in life or just gave them something to do and to remember.
Well, now we know what Raycevick’s next videos gonna be on. 😁 can’t wait to see you in it, Tim!
I agree with you Tim. For explorer type like me, it's common for me to play a game, complete it then move on to next game and never return to that game again. Even if I were to replay a game, I'd do it to unlock stuffs I didn't find before not to take the game too seriously.
Taking Tim's games seriously has been extremely rewarding for me as a player. There is so much more to experience.
How are we supposed to live through diseases and hardships without art? Living is more than a bodily function. I'm glad your mom supported you in your endeavors!
Games like any other piece of art can be inspirational to the point of saving lives as well. Nobody knows exactly how the human mind works and what can inspire us to be better. Very balanced answer to this i like it.
Turning the world into a giant cornfield because someone somewhere is hungry is not going to help anyone in the long run just make things more dysfunctional.
Depends what you mean by "taking it seriously". the way you described it in the beginning is one way. You can take a game seriously the same you take a book seriously. I believe you can easily hold video games to a high standard as books and movies. To me, Fallout 1 - 2 and New Vegas are easily as interesting and packed to the brim with themes and artful expression as something from Jules Verne.
When movies came out, they were probably viewed the same way, as something childish and not as interesting as a book. But here we are, a hundred years later looking back at movies made by Akira Kurosawa or Kubrick and labeling them as classics.
So, there's a Triwizard Tournament reference in Tulla, which gets overshadowed by the reference to a guy in machined plate who brings the water gem.
I love when my computer goes Beep Boop, thanks Cain
My Main beef with people that don't take games seriously (or they do/are in a twisted way), is when they disrespect the series as it is, for what it is, when they find it; and also disrespect all the different kinds of players, that found the series before them, are enjoying it as is, and have formed a community around it.
Typically, the kind of change these people bring about is completely, fundamentally, at odds with the spirit of the game and what the playerbase expects. And expect that they should, they are the ones funding the series up till this point, and they are the ones the developers and people in charge owe their jobs and lifestyle to every time they've purchased a game in the series.
When the way they [aforementioned people] interact with games, it lowers the quality across the board for all future releases in that series; this [the quality going down] can also happen right before they show up because the latest release, at that time, has new elements, (and or fewer quality elements typical of that series and or that game's genre), that appeal to that kind of person, intentionally done by the devs to appeal to them, or someone else, or for some otherwise reason.
Meanwhile said current release is also a downgrade in every aspect, in a noticeable way by previous and even some eagle-eyed new players, typically done to get a broader less niche audience for more money.
Gameplay, story, graphics/art style, OST (original sound track/the music), level design, combat encounters, UI (user interface), voice acting, translation (or Gaea forbid "localization" aka censorship begins to happen to the series under their influence), nothing gets spared when the people in charge start generalizing, in an attempt to appeal to the aforementioned people [which is typically two groups, tourists and those with malicious agendas trying to change the series], adding what's trendy to the game/series, and shoving monetarily successful elements from one game, into a completely unrelated game or series that it does not belong in.
P.S. I copied and saved this in case it gets deleted or shadow posted/banned. So it's not getting erased forever, even if it's not here.
"Developing written material to suit sales strategies in order to maximize corporate profit and advertising revenue is not quite the same thing as responsible book publishing or authorship. Yet, I see sales departments given control over editorial. I see my own publishers in a silly panic of ignorance and greed charging public libraries for an e-book six or seven times what they charge customers. We just saw a profiteer try to punish a publisher for disobedience and writers threatened by corporate fatwad. And I see a lot of us, the producers, who write the books and make the books accepting this; letting commodity profiteers sell us like deodorant and tell us what to publish and what to write." -- Ursual K. Le Guin, acceptance speech at the 65th National Book Awards, November 19, 2014.
Once again, substitute the word, games, for books and we can form an excellent impression of the atmosphere and environment in which video game developers also toil every day. Exceptional speech by Ms. Le Guin. Highly recommend.
Hearing Tim say the name of another gaming RUclips channel I follow was quite a surprise.
I do it for the only multiplayer genre I like nowadays: Fighting Games.
If you wanna get better and win on those games the process is slow and you need discipline, it's like learning to play a music instrument, but it's very satisfying.
3:20 regarding this, I'd say the line is muddier than that. I've seen a lot of people act like they're a deep-diving fan, or worse yet, someone who has played the game when they haven't - this becomes an issue for one reason. They start lying.
At that point, in truth, it's less about taking a game seriously, and more about being offended because you've now found out that you're talking to someone who will lie to you casually.
Fallout kept me company in a very difficult period of my life. It also made me think and ponder on it's themes. A thing I wouldn't normally do since I am bored to death of reading
With the recent Palworld discourse it would be interesting to hear your perspective on Plagiarism vs Inspiration - where do you draw the line? Can parodies be plagiarism? If you could fit in the inspirations for your different projects as examples that would be neat too.
Man, don't let anyone tell you that video games don't do anything "meaningful." I at least partially learned how to be a good person, how to not give up, how to find creative solutions, etc, all from RPG's. They literally helped shape my moral compass.
Making games is one of the most important things you can be doing to improve the world. Games give people a way to escape it. They build extremely important human traits like inspiration, hope, and probably the most important, honor. They enforce the idea that it always pays to keep fighting, regardless of how hard things get. They teach us to strive to overcome things, instead of endlessly complaining about them. I could go on, but I honestly think that anyone who has spent a large portion of their lives playing games can already sense the positive traits they gave us, because no one else seems to have them but us.
The thing I don't like is when a game allows you ways to skip the lore dumps then it will at some point create a challenge where you have to know the lore to complete the challenge. This ends up pushing me to some external source for quick answers.
Watching this video about taking games too seriously as a pokémon with guns ripoff game is blowing up amongst my friends is kinda hilarious
I tend to take anything too seriously and that makes life a drag. It's best to have fun.
Playing new vegas at the moment. Having a blast with my own mod (and restored npcs on the strip, more people in casinos). Having fun is important. We who have had played Fallout for decades sure have a lot of fun!
Yes! I think it's important to do what matters to you, rather than try to force yourself to do things that others might consider important. It will be more difficult, at least emotionally, to stay determined compared to people who actually care and identify with their work. Academics sounds prestigious at a glance, but most profs have a relatively small impact, and a bitter or otherwise misplaced prof is actually a problem for students. Being reluctant, unfulfilled and regretful is probably not going to benefit those around you. And I don't like anyone's chances of being the best at anything they don't honestly want to prioritize!
The other thing is that you can't necessarily predict the effects of your work. Who knew that video game console development would give rise to GPUs and their important benefits for computing? It may have sounded like a frivolous adventure for such technically knowledgeable people at the time, but not now. We can't see the future. You simply have to go down a road to find out what lies further ahead, and you won't see anything if you're always looking back at the crossroads wishing you went the other way. My theory is that you should be sincere and focus on doing something well. What we don't need are people half-heartedly keeping up appearances all their lives; I don't want to ride in a plane or cross a bridge designed by an engineer who never ever daydreams about his work in his free time, and who just "does it for the money". A bored surgeon sounds like a liability. There seems to be an entirely different level of focus available when you genuinely find something interesting.
Worry about how you will feel in three to five years, and what your reliable skills will be, and not how people will react to the shallowest glance at the name and associated stereotype of your career path right now. You can just play your character.
What’s your pc setup? Do you enjoy building computers? Not asking for a deep dive into computers, just Tim’s experience with building and any fun stories to share.
This might be a very lengthy topic but I'm really interested to hear you talk about the research phase of game development. I have a couple of sub-questions about it.
Obviously, research is very important for games that are set in historical settings or games that want to accurately depict real modern day cities, so how important was research in Fallout, Arcanum and The Outer Worlds which aren't tied down in that way?
Does research happen only during the early stages of development or does it last throughout the production? Can there be additional research during the later stages of the production if the need arises?
Which were some of the things you personally researched while designing your games (I think you may have touched on this a bit when you talked about FEV)?
I love that the thumbnail was the least serious face I might have ever seen. Cheers Uncle Tim.
Being a father of three, i have maybe one or two hours a week for gaming, and i am not spending it reading lore! These days i am back playing the classics that i know by hearth... And its great! Just played fallout, playing arcanum now.
Hello Tim, thank you very much for your work.
It's not the same subject, but with a common denominator: Serious Game (I don't know if you use the same term, but in France we call "Serious Game" "software" that enables learning in a playful way rather than through traditional, tedious processes, which is different from video games as entertainment).
My question is very specific and relates to the healthcare field (because, why not?): do you think that Serious Games and playfulness can be used in Cognitive Remediation Therapy (= stimulating cognitive functions that have been damaged)? Do you know of any research linking ludism and CRT?
Thanks again for sharing, you're a wealth of knowledge!
3:44 the best argument I've heard against the "vote with you money" argument was that in games with *microtransations* (this is essential to note as this only applies to this specific type of games) a player that spends hundreds of money in them will have, indirectly, a bigger say in the direction of the game compared to someone who just purchases the base game.
Basically, one whale will out do tens of regular John.
I might be mistaken but I think Asmongold is the guy I've heard this from.
Hey Tim, love your vids, love your work, keep it up!
That being said, I have to disagree with your conviction that voting with our wallet works. There is simply way, WAY too much money spent on marketing campaigns for many people not to just compulsively buy a product without giving much of their own thought into it.
Not to mention developers/publishers who prey on people with gambling proclivities and put money fueled FOMO-flavored skinner boxes in their games, and hey guess what it works; through devious tactics they get loads of money from susceptible people and then other companies see that and go "hey that works let's drain some suckers for ourselves". If voting with our wallets worked we wouldn't need like a million gambling regulations worldwide.
Anyway, love ya thanks for your input
I love Tim's videos as well, but I'd also like to add that since "voting with your wallet" has no limits on how many "votes" you can cast, it is much harder to push back against a game if it has such exploitative practices with gambling and FOMO-flavored Skinner-boxes. A massive boycotting campaign for instance is rendered moot if there are a few large enough whales and/or a bigger marketing to push past it. Heck, back where I'm from, I've seen churches literally buy tickets in bulk to send their followers to watch one of their movies just to make it seem more popular than it otherwise would have been.
Anyway, loved Tim's many other points such as the need for art.
Hi tim. Huge fan of your work and would love some advice.
When you make a fictional world and want the worldbuilding to feel organic and make sense what kind of blueprint base do you start with? Is it okay to not have all the main ideas and get to it eventually? Can you name an example of how you would research a topic you were unfamiliar with while working on your story?
That feels like alot but would love your opinion.
Currently putting in effort too be an unserious game writer (term we used in the 80's).
I'm also fan of "vote with your money" and i agree with all your said. I'm just think that issue with those people sometimes is for some reason they cannot deal with the fact that something is liked by others (like really popular) which they don't like (and don't buy maybe).
The example would be, imagine a person don't like lets say Baldur's Gate 3, and he doesn't buy it, doesn't play it, doesn't watch it etc. But everybody around likes it and plays it and tweets it etc. And that like strongly bothers such person, which ties to prove that the game is bad and you all wrong (making maybe hate videos). I mean, if you see yourself in this person, the issue is not in game, or in people who like it, the issue in persone who cannot accept the fact that for some reason its not hes cup of tea.
There are miriad of things in the world for everyone, its totally fine not liking something. I would even think its wrong if you like everyhting out there :)
I completely agree with you. I might do a video on "bad games"...
I got so many great games between 1990-2010 and the advances were huge in just a few years (between 1999 to 2002 etc). Then everything went lateral for years. Now it is a going down.
Now bg3 isnt a bad game. It entertained me a little. It wasnt a waste of time. But it wasnt good like super mario bros was. Or Fallout 1. Or Zelda on nes. Or resident evil on ps 1. Or a hundred other games. And it was way worse than bg2. Soemhow so many years. So much better graphics and so many more people worked on it. That is just a travesty if you look at it in one way. In another it was half decent fun for a while. Having said all that compared to the other new games it was MUCH better. What does that say about many other new games?
@@CainOnGames Dota 2 was my most bad game ever
i mean, games that were literally just bad... how could i remember them
so addictive love hate games are bad games to me
ive had some people call them abusive relationships
others call them an addiction
sadly kinda prominent to make such nowadays
i totally get that companies need to keep making money if the game is meant to keep running and being relevant
but when someone cant get himself to stop playing it because whenever you want to stop something
youve put alot of time into, trained to get better put money into it periodically over all that time and see all of that and stopping feels like invalidating all of that for many people
at that point it was all a waste
so yeah some points that im really not enjoying in practices we currently see alot in the industry
are made to make people take games too seriously, or is that wrong?
of course im mostly having mobas, mmos and alike in mind with that
@@ytmanb "some points that im really not enjoying in practices we currently see a lot in the industry" -- All have been written about and all have names. Sunk cost fallacy; Skinner box game design; microtransaction monetization models; etc. All this and more amount to "a plethora of shady practices and *poor game design* that has *become a standard* in the gaming industry." ('Quote attribution: Tiankuo Zhang, That Little Parasite in Your Wallet: The Problem of Micro-transactions in the Modern Video Game Industry')
And, now, they're invading even the single player experience by design. This abject insistence that it's all about personal preference is preventing any and all "serious" discussion of the associated devolution and devaluation of quality in the video game medium. If professional game developers don't care, I can only conclude they're fine with it.
Games make people happy, and that improves the World. Life is much more than just eating and sleeping. You, my dear Tim, definitely have made lots of people happy. Therefore, you are making the World a better place. And I'm sure this is more of what can be said about most "extreme utilitarians" like those you mentioned. Thank you for everything
Thank you so much. Great video.
I play for the game for fun, not the lore. For my 'lore' fix I study history, International relations, and real politics. For my technical fix I learned to read medical studies.
Enjoyable view as always.
I want to ask if you are interested in sharing about your cooking/favorite recipes. Maybe what you used to bake for your team earlier in your carrier. Have a pleasant day.
The question is really fascinating and i think games should be taken seriously by their creators because it is hard to care if they are not. I feel it a lot with modern iterations of franchises where it is so obviously a product that it is hard to care anymore, because why should i care when the creators do not?
One of the good things about games is that especially in indie and AA, there's still that "out of mainstream"-spark. And in the same way, it makes me so sad when it's announced that a company known for unique games now goes to work on franchise shit. Recently, Arkane Studios was announced to develope Marvel's Blade... -_-
I think its time to remember that creating art is just as important as doing something good that deals with an issue right now, why? because without art and culture we would be mindless savages with no hopes or dreams, art is medicine for the soul and yet is the first thing that looses its value in the eyes of people all the time, so I call to remember every day that your day has been made better because of a piece of art, be it a game, a movie, a book, a poem, a song, etc
Terry Pratchett had something good to say about this in Hogfather:
"We need to believe in things that aren't true; how else can they become?"
ruclips.net/video/cIfCGf_suxs/видео.html
The power of fiction and fantasy has literally driven us to the stars, and games are the most immersive medium for it. It is silly to dismiss it as a worthless pastime.
Games make the world a better place:
1. It is a form of escapism that helps you get through difficult moments. I have a friend in a combat zone who says that this greatly helps soldiers not fall into PTSD.
2. This is the most complex form of art, allowing you to work through complex issues in a playful way.
3. Games allow you to maintain mental flexibility and serve as a preventive measure for certain diseases.
4. Games help socialization; people often found friends or couples in online games. Here you can hone your communication and stress resistance skills.
This is not true for all games and not for all people. But this is the benefit that I observed for myself and those around me.
Heres a question from someone trying to make a fallout based RPG: How did you organize and visualize quest and story progress throughout your game's dialogues? To what extent did you map out the interaction of flags? Any tools to recommend?
I always have trouble with deciding what kind of project I want to make - one that benefits people plainly or a game that I want to make. I've decided that the best way to live my life is by doing things that I like to do, then donate or start charities if i have any money to spare after my family. At the end of the day we aren't robots that can live for everyone else with 100% of our life.
Games are a form of art, just like books or movies. However many, many people still refuse to acknowledge this.
Thank you for your great answer. May I ask a follow-up question? How seriously should game makers consider their job?
Let me explain the context of this question. In the film industry, directors like Lynch, Kubrick, and Tarkovsky view art as something 'bigger than life.' I don’t recall the exact phrase David Lynch used, but the gist was this: Many people are capable of creating great art and telling wonderful stories that come from within. There are millions who could do this better then average director, and the primary reason a director does what they do is because he got lucky. Since it's mostly luck rather than skill, you should be grateful for your fate and strive to do the greatest work possible and never sacrifice artistic freedom. And if someone is doing it just as a job, he wouldn't want to speak with that person.
You've done really great things for the art of game dev (and I am very grateful for the many games you've created), but it seems to me that you value work relationships higher than some idea of a 'mission.' Is that impression accurate?
People dont realize the doctor cant save lifes all day.
Entertainment is essential to the recreation of all the 'important' jobs.
Same with Service industries.
They give people who have highly useful or specialized skillsets the time to do those things and also help them to stay focused on their 'important' job.
Genuinely shocked that Tim talked about obsessively utilitarian outlooks without making any jokes about The Master
Tim, I regularly notice game mechanics get simplified in sequels. This seems like a double-edged sword, because it may turn away part of the fan base, but at the same time it opens the game up to a wider audience. I suppose another reason would be portability/playability on different platforms (PC, consoles). During the development process, how do you find and agree on the complexity sweet spot? Is that even a thing? Also, when might that come into play, as I presume it would inform decisions about game-mechanics very early on.
To those who make the argument that you should be fully focused on curing diseases and other ails of humanity, I just say, "Yeah, and those that are gifted doing that are going to need to something to take their minds off everything when they take a break." People tend to forget the amount of support people it takes for one person to make the leaps and bounds. Also, some of the great advancements have been inspired by art.
Art gives the direction, Science paves the way.
Regarding game lore. In my gaming experience I found myself always reading wiki and watching lore videos about games I liked. And I thought that these materials are like external parts of the game. Just like physical manuals that games had before. And I think why don't developers intentionally put the lore into youtube and wiki. It's like if lore of Inscription(which is ingeniously made) would be not inside the game, but literally in youtube. It's like game world mysteriously leak into our world.
3:00-3:10 there's a lot of belittling in pvp games and metagaming
4:50-5:35 people are very quick to nihilize things they don't know, understand, personally value, and have been told they should nihilize.
6:10-7:00 we live in a world dominated by analytic strictly-quantitative philosophy and people who think X and Y are necessary; nobody can do anything else but the necessary. What's necessary? Whatever your nearest authority thinks. Distractions, deviations, wastes, are defined based on that.
Exactly game development is the place were you try and technology first, then it trickles down to other fields, wow came before social networks, architecture visualisation tinkers down from game engine advancements, in australia one of their big game studios works with their govt for defence system visualisation and training etc
Steam came before cloud stores for apps.
Game dev is the top end of tech were people play around with latest
tech and seee what happens.
Hi Tim. I was wondering if you could elaborate or give insight on the hidden developer quotes from Fallout. Thanks.
I took extensive notes while making my games, including what people said...especially funny things they said. That's where those quotes came from.
I have a video about my note-taking:
ruclips.net/video/P0NKR9R0XTg/видео.html
Apologies if you've already spoken about this before, have you/will you ever speak on fallout 1's removed 500 day time limit?
Do you regret the change or do you feel like it was necessary? You've spoken on the changes you'd make to fallout 1 in the event of a remake, and offhandedly mentioned removing frictional parts but didn't elaborate, so maybe that includes the time limits.
How would you go about implementing a mechanic/system like that in the future?
My understanding is after fallout 1 released, people got mad about the time limit and pressure caused it to be removed (or set to 13 in game years).
I replayed fallout not too long ago with the timer enable and didn't find it too oppressive, while others seem to go into a panic over just the 150 day water chip quest. However unlike the chip quest you aren't directly told about the 500 day thing except for vague hints from the overseer and the water merchants.
I also ask because I personally feel like there aren't really bad mechanics, just poor implementation of said mechanics. Just like how not every movie trope is inherently bad. Or maybe it's just a good idea in the wrong game.
To expand on this question:
Do you think a dividing line should be put in for gambling & mobile oriented games?
5:19 people who are good at what they do they do what they do for self-realization, not to impress or please other people.
This isnt exactly about the main videogame topic, but I wanted to put out there my own personal critisim of vote with your dollars around games, spesificly to do with scale. When you dont buy from a smaller scale business, like a local cafe or an indie studio, yeah it holds up, but when you are dealing with these massive corperations with massive game studios and marketing teams that sell games all over the world, boycotting them just becomes logistically unviable. Your not gonna get everyone to stop buying COD on a global scale for it to really, really hurt the company, unless they are already fucking up so bad that the game just isnt fun for anybody, and at that point its more likley that the whole franchise dies than what we really want, which is for it to get better. There is also the fact that many big games have whole teams devoted to designing the game to exploit human physcology to keep ypu playing and buying microtransactions and get poeple addicted, which only further adds to the porblem. There is also just that most poeple arent gonna be fired up enough to get involved in an organized boycott for something that isnt really critical to thier day to day lives at all, its not cuz poeple are stupid or not capable or shills, its simply that most normal poeple have other more important shit to get fired up about, like making rent. Imo if you want to un-fuck the AAA games industry, the best way to do it is getting devs uinionized on a large enough scale that they can demand certin standards, like how the hollywood strike forced some rules around AI, combined with some goverment regulation. When your working with organized labor, its a smaller number of poeple, so logistics are easier, they are much more personaly invested in the fight, and it simply has way more leverage per the amount of effort ya put in, and thus is much more effective.
"combined with some goverment regulation" -- Here's the thing about government regulation of "massive corperations": they're transnational. It would take unprecedented cooperation among nations to regulate them properly and, as we've all too often seen of late, nations are far more interested in rushing to claim and vying over dwindling resources. As it is, those European countries actually trying to make a dent are attempting to regulate them with existant gambling laws that don't apply to the issue at hand rather than authoring contemporary laws that do.
Strangely enough, the cinematic intro of Fallout 4 actually captures the zeitgeist of our time. Of course, the game proper is utterly disconnected from it and how that happens, I'm sure I don't know. But there we are.
I have a *need* to be creative. Me not being creative makes me depressed, and in that state I make the world a worse place. In a hypothetical post-apocalyptic scenario, in a small community, maybe I'd be a doctor, because there was nobody else to do it. But I don't live in that world, there's plenty of people who want to be doctors, and since they do it voluntarily they'll automatically be better at it than I ever could, if forced.
7:30 - The argument does actually take into account peoples' needs. I can tell you what Singer would say: your needs are not going to be as severe as the needs of a starving/sick child that you could be helping. I'm not saying I agree with this kind of utilitarianism, but I am saying it is logically consistent. One way to get around this argument is to say that reducing suffering is not actually a top priority for human beings.