Lessons By Company

1. Pegasus/Cybron (1981–1986, ages 16–20)

Tim's first job ever, working on Grand Slam Bridge during high school and college summers and breaks. He contributed code, algorithms, and design ideas — but was left out of the credits entirely. He only discovered this years later when an Interplay interviewer (future producer Thomas Decker) pointed out he wasn't credited on the game he claimed to have worked on.

Lesson: No one will give you something unless you ask. This applies to raises, resources, tools, books, and credits. If you don't ask, don't expect it.

He also learned early "adult" lessons: not all adults are mature, not all liberal adults are gay allies, and not everyone gets treated fairly.

2. Interplay (1991–1998, ages 25–32)

Tim's first time running a project — Fallout. This is where he learned management lessons.

2.1. Team cohesion matters

Everyone on the Fallout team was making the same game. Tim noticed and appreciated how coherent the vision was, and it shows in the final product. Fallout is a remarkably coherent game.

2.2. Guard your project from inappropriate ideas

People both on and off the team would suggest (and nearly order) changes that didn't fit. Even well-intentioned ideas can derail a project or kill its momentum. Shoehorning in ill-fitting features wastes the team's effort.

2.3. Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan

Once Fallout shipped successfully, everyone wanted credit. His less successful game Rags to Riches? Nobody claimed involvement. Tim quotes Tacitus: "Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan."

3. Troika (1998–2005, ages 32–39)

Tim co-founded Troika with Leonard Boyarsky and Jason Anderson. Most of his 30s were spent here. The lessons were about business and creative self-awareness.

3.1. He was not a good businessman

Tim could keep books, manage schedules, and pay bills — but he was terrible at networking. He didn't go to GDC to schmooze. He just wanted to make games.

3.2. Failure teaches more than success

Troika's games have been called "flawed masterpieces." The flaws taught him more than the masterpiece elements. Arcanum and Temple of Elemental Evil taught him more about game development than Fallout, because many things in Fallout "just fell into place" — they got lucky and didn't realize it until later projects went differently.

3.3. Know your limitations

Tim thought he was a good writer because he wrote Fallout's opening. He wrote half the character dialogues in Temple. They were not very good. He also learned he needed an editor — Arcanum was his "kitchen sink game" because every idea went in without restraint.

3.4. Run a company to make money, not just games

Troika was run to make games, not to make money. Tim says this sounds noble but is actually harmful — if a company doesn't make money, everyone suffers: employees, employers, everyone. Eventually Troika wasn't a going concern anymore.

4. Carbine (2005–2011, ages 40–45)

A very stressful period that deeply affected Tim.

4.1. Teams must pull in the same direction

Carbine underscored the team cohesion lesson from Interplay, but from the negative side. It doesn't matter how talented your people are — if they're pulling in different directions, the project goes off the rails. Some of the most talented people Tim ever worked with were at Carbine. It didn't matter.

4.2. Some people are irreplaceable

Management treated developers as fungible — easily replaceable. Carbine proved that some people cannot be replaced, and if you lose too many of them, things crumble.

4.3. Money is not worth stress

Tim stayed at Carbine at least a year longer than he should have because of financial anxiety — a mortgage, a previous refinance for Troika, high interest rates. Looking back, he would tell his past self: the money isn't worth the stress.

5. Obsidian (2011–2020, ages 46–54)

Tim's last company as an employee. By now he was deep into middle age and seeing things with more nuance.

5.1. Publisher relations matter

Watching Obsidian's founders (Feargus Urquhart and others) handle publishers made Tim realize that Troika was probably seen as a "trouble developer." Obsidian managed those relationships far better than he ever did.

5.2. Carbine's scars lasted

It took a long time before Tim felt ready to lead again. At Obsidian he was mostly head-down coding, contributing to design only when asked.

5.3. Big teams are hard to steer

As games got bigger in scope and team size, they became much harder to control. Like a large boat — slow to react, slow to change direction. You can see problems coming but struggle to avoid them.

5.4. Some people won't take responsibility

Tim tells stories of accepting blame for things that went wrong — even other people's mistakes — because he was the lead. But he watched others actively look for someone to throw under the bus rather than own their failures, even when they were obviously responsible. This bothered him deeply.

6. The Publisher Lesson

Tim's two highest-scoring games — Fallout and Pillars of Eternity — were both made without publisher interference. Fallout was developed in a dark corner of Interplay with minimal oversight. Pillars started as a Kickstarter with no publisher until distribution. Tim notes this pattern but says the lesson is "for the publishers, not for me."

7. References

• Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGwAez5SNd0