Fun fact: My father and grandfather both played Fallout. But Grandfather wasn't even 50 yet when he played it.

One of the greatest things about your videos is that, even when it's a subject that I'm not super interested about, or (in this case) a subject that I already have an opinion that I think is set in stone, you always give me food for thought and make me look at things in a new light. Thank you.

I think what you said about "too relaxed up to the deadline" is a problem of how people focus etc. Towards the end of the deadline they are more inclined to save their skin and work. But also not really willing to make "imperfect cuts" to something and work like "well I do my best, it has to be enough", which is a stress avoiding strategy. Also in my case I tend to wander off into many tangents, detours, start to develop some random thing and end up in something parallel. If I try to enforce staying on a certain path my mind goes blank and I run into road block really fast. The closing deadline is basically the only thing that lets me kill off deadends, replace something I run into blocks with with something that is "a good enough replacement" etc. Probably a devastating part of it is "laziness" and wanting a "chill time". But certainly not all of it. There are also cognitive and methodical reasons to it. You spend 80% of the time to discover and gather creative thoughts and the last 20% are picked to choose and implement the best in a way that is bearable and manageable. Of course this strategy has a massive potential to fire back.

Something else you didn't mention about long development cycles is burnout. If folk have been working on the same game for a long amount of time, they may just lose interest. I've seen a few games with weak endgames, or final chapters and I suspect a loss of focus is a part of that.

Also hard to respond to feedback or iterate on failures with such long dev times, problems get half-addressed in DLC if you're lucky. Feel bad for Cyberpunk's level designers who realized after launch the problems they had, or Fallout 4's writers who spent 5 years writing 4 identical variations on every line of dialogue.

I'm impressed that you resisted the temptation to mention Duke Nukem Forever.

Hi Tim, long time fan of many of the games you've worked on and really enjoying this video blog series, it's enriching my morning coffee routine :)

comparing these awkward in-game romance options with slot machines is hilarious😂

I really want Bethesda to let someone else make a Fallout again. Perhaps with Microsoft that can be possible now.

Thank you for reading my question!!! Happiest day in my life :D

We love to think in black & white simple truths: "It's done when it's done." "Should've just have bigger budget."

Hello Tim, I just wanted to thank you for how much your games shaped my childhood. Fallout and VTMBs were games I played over and over again. Vampire's facial animations still look fantastic.

Great video. Thanks Tim.

The last part about decade long release cycles of certain IPs is interesting. That's why I think they should be willing to sell the IP to other companies faster. And not keep them as cash cows. The issues of course is a creative one. Are they going to be faithful to the vision or on point to possibly future directions.

The last part about games being dated by the time they come out is something I've already noticed happen with fashion and certain aesthetic trends! Because the trend cycle of fashion has become increasingly fast like never before in history, especially in the last decade, but especially the last few years, and game developers aren't all exactly fashion buffs, some games look incredibly dated in terms of these things, it's almost impossible to keep up with it. But the thing that happens is that, let's say a game took 5-4 years to make and the concepts they used are from that time span of the first two years of development, and the devs at that time weren't exactly up to speed with trends either, when the game comes out, that trend ends up being

Thank you, you touched on one of my questions but can you get more into the publisher and developer relationship? Who has what control or say? Who sets certain milestones and/or content? What are the ramifications of not meeting some or any of those?

Thank you for the great video Tim!!

Hey Tim! So far I've been loving your channel but there's one question that I always wonder how you would answer. On numerous occasions, you talk about romance systems, and how most RPGs do it wrong. I was wondering if you were to dedicate time to a romance system, how would you go about it? And do you have any examples of games that nailed their romance system (pun unintended)?

Thanks for another great video!

I was definitely that person in high school but not in college