Why Timothy Cain creator of Fallout left Fallout 2 during development

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGfaCXEu0tE

by shmde • 3 years ago

104 46 3 years ago

nailer• 3 years ago

Short version: he’s the lead dev (and lead designer, and project leader, created fallout, and much more).

There is a showstopper bug that is hard to reproduce they effectively bisect the code until they find it.

They fix the bug. He is asked whose error it was by his boss, and to protect the person, he says it’s not important. His bonus - keep in mind he created a new successful IP from scratch - is drastically reduced as a result.

rowanG0773• 3 years ago

Wow. Insane that he lost his bonus for being a good lead dev.

Some dev had put the classic `<=` instead of `<` in a for loop check and the for loop body promptly corrupted some memory leading to heisencrashes. It took weeks to narrow down with 10+ hour days. Once they did and fixed it the boss asked for a name who had written the offending code. Timothy did not bend. Boss was salty and cut his bonus.

zabzonk4• 3 years ago

whenever i see '<=' in code, my bug detectors start twitching. to begin with, doing effectively two tests in one always seems to over-complicate things.

rgbgraph• 3 years ago

This form is basically always used for enumeration.

Might as well just do (x != y); unless you're specifically looking to guard against erroneous bitflips that would be caught by the prior (x < y), but not the former. But at that point -- it's likely your result is going to be garbage.

In essence they're the same; but one you never have to think about whether you're using it correctly.

Can anyone find a reason not to swap out (x < y) for (x != y)?

thrwy413• 3 years ago

Perhaps it was him (and that is what they assumed when they cut his bonus)

pimlottc• 3 years ago

The title has been changed from first person to third person, making it sound like it's a piece from some video game history vlogger. In fact, it's actually a first-hand account from the man himself.

"Timothy Cain: Why I Left Fallout 2" would be a better title.

hartator• 3 years ago

Seems super unfair indeed.

thrwy413• 3 years ago

Is it? As the tech lead, it is his responsibility or fault either way that such errors do not make it the code or find them if that happens. If the project is delayed and you miss some big sale day or something, it does not sound so unfair that his bonus is cut.

I am not fully sold on the idea of him losing a bonus is 100% because he defended the person who did it.

thevagrant• 3 years ago

Considering how successful the game was, it was unfair.

It would be different if it had flopped or the bug was released and impacted sales significantly

h0l0cube2• 3 years ago

Is it?

It absolutely is. Timothy brought the company a whole new profitable franchise. Based on that alone it would have been fair to compensate him well. That he was also in the middle of building the sequel under duress made it also the sensible thing to do. Late 90s and 00s games companies were toxic places to work, and getting demoted or fired due to a simple off-by-one error in a memory unsafe language is not reasonable, it’s extreme. But it was still the norm for the unhinged management of these games companies that couldn’t grasp the huge risks involved with games development, and were also unwilling to appropriately budget or compensate their staff for it.

gravypod2• 3 years ago

If the project is delayed and you miss some big sale day or something, it does not sound so unfair that his bonus is cut.

If the Goose needs a few more days to lay the golden egg should you reduce it's food budget?

Seems kind of short sighted to punish your high performers. I can think of multiple times this happened in my career.

I am not fully sold on the idea of him losing a bonus is 100% because he defended the person who did it.

He seems to say in the video that part of it was not fingering who did the bug and the other was that his boss wanted someone else's bonus to be higher so he removed some of Tim's bonus.

adql• 3 years ago

The point of a bonus is to motivate worker to give their best.

But if they are already doing that (say, they are making a video game and it is their passion), work extra hours, and on top of that get their bonus cut coz of nothing they can reasonably affect, that just kills morale

sogen4• 3 years ago

Just read newest Zelda game got delayed 1 year to polish it.

wyldfire2• 3 years ago

I think you can read your boss - if they look pissed that you don't disclose the name or they keep asking - that's pretty plain.

Is Cain responsible for the quality? Yes. But IMO the boss should have delegated handling of the issue to him instead of retaliating for apparent insubordination.

He could legitimately complain that Cain provided insufficient process and controls to prevent junior devs from making critical errors. But looking for a scapegoat is indicative of bad management.

ajkjk• 3 years ago

Sounds like a better outcome would be firing his boss for the stupid idea that someone's bonus should depend on a largely unpredictable process working predictably.

throwaway5959• 3 years ago

Blameless postmortems are blameless for a reason. People shouldn’t get fired (or really even reprimanded) for bugs. It sets up the wrong incentives.

otikik• 3 years ago

Forgive me for saying this, but you don’t seem to know how programming works. Requiring that a program doesn’t have bugs, or that the bugs are found immediately, is like asking the wind not to blow.

syngrog662• 3 years ago

Fallout fans might be interested in a game I've been building. (see my bio if curious.)

Fallout, Idiocracy, HHGG and The Princess Bride are all heavy inspirations and influences on both its style and world design.

sogen4• 3 years ago

Turn-based?

wyldfire2• 3 years ago

Well...sort-of. it's definitely not realtime ;)

Took a look and it seems like it's text-based IF like Infocom games.

jsiepkes• 3 years ago

I encourage everyone to also look at his follow-up video called "Listening To My Stories With Nuance":

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VyQgWh-XAxs

gmerc• 3 years ago

Interplay was bad all around.

They lost BioWare to similar reasons. They cheated on the sales metrics (underreporting sales to Bioware ) on Baldurs Gate and other titles to scam them out their royalties but got caught.

The resulting situation involving lawyers with Bioware walking with the in progress game and IP, the D&D 3.0 title Neverwinter Nights to Atari leaving Interplay without its even more successful innovator and dooming Black Isle.

Fun fact - The master server design for neverwinter multiplayer was to large parts put in place to detect publisher royalty cheating not because of piracy concerns. And sure as hell Atari once tried to sell a large bunch of NWN expansion pack in Germany with copied keys, not understanding that the master server design meant uniquely issued keys rather than the 90s algorithmic ones.

To this day Interplay lives as a zombified parasitic scam organism trying to attach itself to new opportunities every once in a while.

Why Timothy Cain creator of Fallout left Fallout 2 during development

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