Working In Another's Game IP

tim-cain arcanum game-development ip fallout pillars-of-eternity temple-of-elemental-evil interpretation game-design-philosophy

Abstract

Problem: What is it like to work within a game IP you didn't create — and what challenges arise when others interpret your work?

Approach: Tim Cain shares personal stories about watching strangers explain his own games to him, and reflects on the difficulties of interpretation, extension, and transposition when working in another creator's game world.

Findings: Working in someone else's IP requires humility, careful interpretation, and acceptance that your reading may be deeply personal rather than universal. Extension is hard because one data point doesn't reveal a trajectory. Transposition — changing medium or format — inevitably alters the original's character.

Key insight: Everyone sees games through their own lens, and the hardest part of working in another's IP is distinguishing factual content from personal interpretation — especially when people present their interpretation as the creator's intent.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTQxb8p0BCc

1. The Arcanum Presentation Story

Years after Troika Games closed, Tim was invited to a mysterious meeting. The host was vague — "I think it will interest you greatly." The meeting turned out to be a pitch presentation where a stranger proposed making a non-RPG game based on Arcanum.

Tim sat in a large conference room as this person explained Arcanum's setting to him — the person who created it. The presenter didn't have the license (he was "in negotiations with Activision," which Tim translates as "no"). The person who invited Tim wasn't watching the presentation — he was watching Tim. Tim was his "reaction video."

1.1. What the Presenter Got Right and Wrong

The factual elements were mostly correct: countries existed, races were portrayed roughly as designed, political tensions were acknowledged. But the interpretation — what Arcanum meant, what the setting was about — was "so not what we had intended that it was sort of bizarre." The presenter was cherry-picking the parts of Arcanum that supported his non-RPG game concept, reshaping the IP's meaning in the process.

Tim never corrected him. Afterward, when asked what he thought, he said only: "That was really surreal."

2. The Lens Problem

This experience crystallized something Tim had encountered repeatedly:

  • People have explained what Fallout means to him "countless times," often presenting their interpretation as the team's intent (covered in his videos Capitalism and Intent).
  • He watched someone explain Fallout's visual style to Leonard Boyarsky, the art director. As a "color blind programmer," Tim had no stake but found it fascinating.
  • These encounters reveal that everyone sees games through their own lens — and many people refuse to acknowledge anything that doesn't fit their interpretation, forcing square pegs into round holes.

Tim contrasts this with his own approach, which he admits has earned him the label "wishy-washy." When presented with ideas, he gives pros and cons rather than decisive proclamations. He argues this is actually valuable — people who force everything into their lens ignore faults, shipping games with problems that could have been fixed.

3. Working in Others' IPs: Case Studies

3.1. Lord of the Rings (Troika)

When Troika worked on a Lord of the Rings game, the publisher sent a Tolkien expert with incredible breadth of knowledge. Even then, the team found factual errors — Jason Anderson had recently skimmed The Silmarillion and caught one. On interpretation, though, Tim deferred to the expert.

3.2. Temple of Elemental Evil

Tim got to speak with Gary Gygax about his intent for the original module. He could read the facts from the source material, but the vague areas required understanding the creator's intent — and he went straight to the source.

3.3. Pillars of Eternity

Tim designed classes for Pillars but considers it Josh Sawyer's IP, not his own. He loved getting Sawyer's feedback, and his initial designs were changed based on it. He embraced this: "I would never tell any of those creators that their ideas were wrong."

3.4. Fallout 3 (Bethesda)

After being invited to E3 for a preview of Fallout 3 and having lunch with Todd Howard, Pete Hines, and Emil Pagliarulo, Tim sent Bethesda his postmortems for Fallout 3 and 4 — covering what worked and what didn't. He never heard back. He emphasizes these postmortems were for Bethesda, not for the public, and he won't share them.

4. Interpretation, Extension, and Transposition

Tim identifies three core challenges of working in another's IP:

4.1. Interpretation

Interpretation is easy to do but hard to do well. Your reading may be so personal and non-universal that nobody else agrees with it. A good, universal interpretation is very hard to create.

4.2. Extension

With only one game, you have a single data point — you don't know the trajectory. The Arcanum presenter "didn't know what direction we were going to go." Two games give you a line, but even that could be a straight line or a parabola. You can't predict where the series would have gone.

4.3. Transposition

Borrowing from music (guitar transposed to piano), Tim uses "transposition" for format changes that require converting many interconnected systems. His prime example: BioWare turning turn-based AD&D into real-time for Baldur's Gate. In Tim's view, "that's not AD&D — AD&D is turn-based." It's a valid interpretation, but it fundamentally changes the character of the original. Similarly, going from isometric to first-person requires significant adaptation.

5. Conclusion

Tim's preference, if given complete freedom, would be to only make new IPs rather than work in someone else's game world. The combination of interpretation challenges, extension uncertainty, and transposition compromises makes it inherently difficult — though he clearly finds value in collaboration with IP creators who are available for feedback.

6. References