During university, myself and some friends decided to take a year to try and make a indie game. We set it up with guidance of those more knowledgeable than us. We had a budget and a plan. Ultimately we were too ambitious, at the time we had no idea by how much. By the end we were able to make a prototype, when really we should have a finished product. The year was a failure but I could ask everyone of us the question ‘was that year good?’, we would all say yes, that year was full of memories and we learned so much. We have since split off and found jobs in the games industry. I learned so much and that failure is invaluable. We gained respect and experience for the games industry.

I *really* hope Robert Kurvitz is watching these and we get as many great games in the future from him as we did from you after Fallout

I still call Vampire Bloodlines flat out the best vampire game ever made. Shame that the company didn't had an easier time, but they put out some great games.

My grandfather was recently diagnosed with late-stage Troika. Please pray for him.

Hey Tim, do you feel some level of regret that you weren’t as involved in the design end of things for Vampire The Masquerade-Bloodlines? It’s my favorite Troika game and I’ve always wondered to what extent you where involved in its development.

A lot of what you went through with Troika is similar to things I was trying in my own studio, and I'd like to echo that post-mortems and especially post-mortem feedback is incredibly valuable for anyone in any role. Experience is highly valuable to one's growth, and feedback is a form of refinement for that.

I liked your rambling :) This is great stuff that many people can relate to and learn from not just in the gaming industry.

You can't take responsibility for other people's insecurities and self-doubts. A team must always work with each other and lean into everyone's unique strengths, so even though I disagree with them feeling like they had to prove themselves against you, I do understand why they would feel like that. But regardless of how they felt, that particular issue was their responsibility to resolve within themselves, and it would be extremely unfair to pass any accountability onto you. How can you make them feel better about how they feel about your past accomplishments that they had nothing to do with? You can't do anything about that, even if you wanted to. Instead of being intimidated by your accomplishments with Fallout, they could have changed their perspective to visualize themselves potentially being part of another big successful game like that. I think it's better to be a small part of something great, than a big part of something mediocre. I also agree that it's important to have someone making decisions. Even a bad decision is better than a vague decision, because at least a bad decision can be quickly recognised, defined, and adjusted into a better decision. Without the ability to clearly spot decisions that aren't working, you end up vaguely trying to navigate the ocean with no real destination. It was Seneca who said, “If a man knows not which port he sails, no wind is ever favourable.” I think you did great, Tim. You nailed it at the end. You will make mistakes. The key is to make the mistake, learn what caused it, learn how to solve it, and then never repeat the mistake again. Eventually you'll have made so many mistakes, and learned how to solve them, that you won't make any more mistakes because you've already made them all and run out lol

I can't help but laugh a bit to hear that you only just found recently that you're a legend and that can be intimidating.

I do like your rambling Tim, it's very insightful. Thank you

I played dungeons and dragons temple of elem evil as a kid I found it in a thrift store, complete in box. The box artwork was something really special I remember how magical the game felt , I didn't complain about the bugs but I blamed it on my old computer , there was a magic to it' the dungeons ' the dialogue, however even in my young mind the game felt incomplete , but that is what made the game so much more special, so much more expansive, the vast emptiness of the chambers, in my heart and memories that game never ended . I'm in there somewhere in a dungeon with a scared little wizard, a brave bard, a female archrees, and a half naked half orc prisoner trying to fight some elemental slimes that are simply desecrating us. All because of me 😂 LOL and my limited strategic mind. Thank you Tim I had no idea I would ever find one of the creators on KZfaq. It is so random how life works sometimes I am grateful for your lessons and willingness to be open. All growth is painful , in order to grow we need to step into the pain then splash ourselves after with water so that we may grow. Hope you had a Happy Thanksgiving . A party after fallout 1 would have been another great side or hidden ending 🎉 cheers my friend

It's definitely useful to hear those good stories about Feargus -- are there any other managers or businessmen who you grew exceptional respect for during your career?

That part about how having someone who can be the final say on what gets done and what decisions get made really helps with project coordination is why all of the most successful open source projects have a "benevolent dictator" role that does exactly that.

Always good to hear stories about Troika

Absolutely love these videos. They are better and more authentic than any Ted Talk.

Fallout's ending is one of the greatest ever! 🥳

In a flat hierarchy, instead of one single voice, you get many more "louder" voices which may or may not be really great that. Those voices not only potentially silence other (and perhaps better) opinions; but they also create confusion, indecisiveness, a lack of focus, and ultimately, an unclear vision. I know how intimidating (and also risky!) a benevolent dictator can be, especially for people who are lower down in the hierarchy but feel just as much ownership, but as long as they're trying to hear other voices (even with prejudice) I think it's the better option. And frankly, as a developer myself, I'd always rather have one person with a proven track record, and significantly more skills and experience than me in making difficult decisions, gatekeep everything and be as challenging as possible so that only the "best" decisions make it through.

Very interesting, as always Senór Cain. Btw this is roughly the tenth video of yours that I've watched.

Fantastic insights. Feeling inadequate around somebody is a double edged sword. On one hand you feel insignificant and need to prove yourself, on the other hand you grow insanely. This mixed bag is always present in my work life. Having this insight given by former colleagues give you a new perspective. You have been lucky, yes I said lucky, that you were already higher up in the hierarchy, otherwise you would probably find yourself being let go or described as a “not a team player” and “impossible to work with”. Yes you made your own luck on that one, no denying in that. As you described in another video about your photographic memory, you are probably highly gifted person (high IQ). People feel insecure for good reason around yourself. My experience is that if you have the smarts but not social smarts, you need someone higher up in the hierarchy to cover for you AND/OR freedom to do things your way.

I appreciate, Mr. Cain, you taking time to talk about the Human Factor in game development. Too often, people talk about development through a corporate or technical lens, while glazing over the fact that people with personalities were involved. Even more, you admit you were imperfect and indeed maybe are too hard on yourself, but better that than hubris. I especially like the anecdote about the programmer who admitted he felt intimidated by working with a guy who was a big part of a big game and not just a little part of a big game, however flawed their reasoning could be seen as. It was their reasoning and it had an impact on their performance. THAT is the sort of thing that we need more of in all development industries: acknowledging people's personalities and working with people as people, not as mere parts of a corporate machine to be traded in and out.

Love the wisdom!

Tim can you talk about the development, choices made and any other trivia to do with the music choices in Arcanum? It's a wonderful soundtrack.

You seem like a decent person. I hope if anyone still has any hard feelings toward you you're able to work things out.

I caught myself thinking about certain games as Tim Cain games tbh. Maybe it is because I watch this channel constantly and most other programmers don't do such channels so I don't think about them as much. I realized that I should credit everyone and not just the guy talking about things on KZfaq, no matter how much I love that guy.

Late stage Troika sounds like a terminal condition

I can understand "cult classic" is cold comfort in one sense, but it must be emphasised just how many people I know who both work in the industry and who don't whose top 5 games of all time includes at least one of those games. They might not have reached as many people at the time as was hoped but the people they did reach tended to feel the effects!

"it's weird to get advice from people who never tried things but love to give you advice on it" KZfaq comments section: *nervous laughter*

I recognize a lot of this from my time, both in the software and games industry with people feeling challenged by me, even though I am just doing basic critique to develop the product in the direction that is best for it. People have a hard time separating themselves from their ideas, which is unfortunate, because critiquing their idea becomes like critiquing them, which is not the intention, the intention is to either improve their idea or see if it actually holds under scrutiny, and otherwise, let a better idea be implemented. As for getting advice from people who have never tried anything themselves, I've always said that you can actually learn something from everyone. So even though they have no experience or little experience, perhaps they'll say something that gets you closer to the "truth", not because they've said something completely correct themselves, but perhaps you can use some of what they say and put it together with what you know in a different way that makes sense to you.

Would like for you to break down the different roles in game development all from software engineer to sound designer and their purpose in the development of a finished product.

Tim, consider doing a video on what would you do different today if you were to make a new troika. Reflect on your mistakes.

Despite your many insistances that you won't... I think it's finally time to get the band back together Tim!

I bought like 3 CD copies of Arcanum, if it didn't sell well, it's likely someone else's fault.

"Sir, you do not ramble. It has been [our] pleasure."

Hey I was ten years old when the company closed its doors and I still think about Troika

Hello Tim Do you think we could get an arcanum remake or sequel? Can't say I played the game yet but the story sounds amazing. I am crossing my fingers on the new vampire game. The first one was just so good. The mods helped.

Oh shoot, was the Blizzard guy you talked to at Carbine Mark Kern? He's a cool guy.

Hello Tim, i have a personal question for you cuz i am in a weird situation. I am quite young, only 22, and i do project management for games in an online course, now most of the people are older than me. So they don't respect me, or my insight, they're even denying me access to their game's discord servers and playing attitude games. I don't have the time nor the interest to play these pointless games, i just wanna do my job, but these silly things are becoming a huge obstacle for me. Your advice on how to deal with this situation would be really helpful. They don't do anything to my face, but behind my back they have no respect for my opinions or methods, and they insult and mock me and take me lightly simply because of my age. PS: I'm not asking this because this hurt my ego or anything, i don't care about things like that, im simply asking because if they are focused on things like these then that makes me worried about their commitment and seriousness. Cuz im not there as an obstacle, im literally there to help them make their games.

howdy tim, wanted to ask, did you ever have any bugs you ran into over the years, but found they were too funny/essential to take out of the game?

Haha speaking of feedback, I wonder if you had kept the company small and finalized arcanum a bit more before getting a publisher if the game and company would both have gone further. Maybe that was not in the financial cards, though.

5:20 I've always thought you started Troika so you could be more independent. But you say that it was an experiment of a bunch of different things. What were they? You obviously wanted to try a structure similar to Valve's. What else were you experimenting with?

I suppose that the way other people felt around you is a form of imposter syndrome. It's hard not to feel it even when someone like you that is a big industry name isn't around.

Hey Tim! Q: What happens with an IP usually? Do ex owners earn from sales from GoG for example after a studio closes?

given what that programmer guy said about people thinking of wildstar as a tim cain game, are you ok with a lot of people thinking of vampire the masquerade bloodlines as a tim cain game? since it seems from what you've said in videos that you didn't do that much on it and were reluctant (to a certain degree) to do what you did do. or because it's troika and everything are you happy with it being in your legacy or résumé or whatever? ty, just curious.

Tim, what game would you make if you had infinite time and infinite budget?

tim why put cult classics in air quotes? it's 100% true. all three troika games are stone cold classics and we are grateful to have them

Hey Tim, I've noticed that the "Producer" and "Executive Producer" credits on games seem to go from "deep hands on involvement" to "funded a good chunk and wants a return on investment" to "literally just tagged in the credits to collect a paycheck". Is there any consistency in those titles from project to project?

This sounds like a terrible disease Tim hope you get better 😉

I've learned working with people that I should listen to what everyone says , bring it with me home and sleep on it. Because many times it's been the case someone I thought couldn't offer anything of value, did. In the same way I myself have collaborated with ideas, educated guessing and brainstorming on subjects I wasn't well versed, like business logic, and it helped unlock stuff. But it helped more that people were willing to listen to me.

Hey Tim can you give us your thoughts on the current industry state? Companies laying off workers. Workers getting paid lower than inflation raise ect?Also really good video currently listening while i work on my personal games and also at work. Keeps me sane :)

You will be successful. If your okay with someone else claiming credit for your success.

Would you re-open Troika if you had the money?

Very brave of you to make videos like this.

This partially feels like an extension of the "bad guy" video.

There's something to keeping a high bar, but there is also something to be said for establishing psychological safety in a team. People may keep their wackier and more interesting ideas to themselves if they're worried about showing weakness. They may also cause delays because they're afraid to ask for help. Big fish are scary to smaller fish so I think big fish should keep their own bigness in mind.

if we didn't like your rambling, we wouldn't be here :)

Where else did Tim talk about the Benevolent Dictator concept? It's the first time i heard about it and i've watch most of his videos :(

It’s a sad thing when saying very reasonable and justified things people get intimidated by those words… I know that too well…

The title of this reads like you're suffering some major illness ha

Temple of Elemental evil is definitely an unappreciated classic that I feel turned out better than Arcanum. It could have used a bit more polish but much like the earlier SSI goldbox games, it did a great job of capturing the pen&paper experience of DnD. Unfortuntely there was a view in the industry at the time that turn based RPGs were out-dated and too old-school so the game didn't get the attention it deserved. DnD just wasn't mainstream then but for people who grew up with those modules it was an amazing experience. Vampire Bloodlines is probably my favourite of the troika games but TOEE is one I've actually done most playthrouughs and I would love to see a modern remaster/remake (along with of course Arcanum).

reopen it and make bloodlines 2. lol ...a travesty has been happening with that ip.

I think the passion is what is part of what made Arcanum and Fallout so great. Others may get defensive and so on. Everyone gets their feelings hurt in a too personal way even though you are just talking about mechanics in a game. They take it personally. Now more people walk on eggshells maybe and people are "friendlier" when they make games (no passion) and it may be part of why games now are so boring.

Regardless of how i feel about temple (i had ok fun with it when it released a few playthroughs but i think it is a mediocre game) i had the impression it is not a cult classic like bloodlines and arcanum (arcanum is one of my favorite games ever and i would rate bloodlines insanely high but not as Arcanum or Fallout) but rather just tossed into the fame of the other two games as troikas third game.

The name of the game is bad. It doesn't describe what it is so no wonder it didn't do so well.

What that conversation shows is that no matter how nice or fair you are, just having more experience is enough to make an entire team of sensitive and smarmy cowards look at you with malice and insecurity. I’d never work on a team with weak minded people because all they’ll do is turn you into their villain for no reason

You should have a livestream where you stream whatever you want but take questions for videos for later