Fallout 3: Press Event and Launch Party

E3 2007: First Look at Fallout 3

On July 13, 2007 — exactly ten years after Fallout 1 shipped — Tim Cain drove to Santa Monica for E3, held that year in a hangar at Santa Monica Airport and surrounding hotels. Bethesda had set up private showings at The Fairmont, a beachside hotel, running Fallout 3 demos on Xbox 360.

Cain saw a 45-minute demo, then went to lunch with lead designer Emil Pagliarulo, executive producer Todd Howard, and VP of PR Pete Hines. They spent an hour geeking out about the game and its predecessors.

"We Imagined It Looking Very Similar"

Cain told the Bethesda team that when he, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson had discussed making Fallout into a 3D game back in 1994, they imagined it looking very similar to what Bethesda had built. Ten years after Fallout shipped, he was seeing that dream made into reality.

His emotional state was layered: "really excited, somewhat jealous, and a little sad." Fallout was not his anymore. He acknowledges that many would argue it was never his — "and they would be correct in a legal sense, and wrong in every other way."

The Launch Party: October 16, 2008

Bethesda threw the launch party at the Los Angeles Center Studios, a major film and TV studio in downtown LA (where Mad Men was filmed). The venue spanned roughly four city blocks, with six sound stages, a theater, a club room, and a huge outdoor deck.

The Scale

The party was enormous by any standard:

• Approximately 1,500–2,000 attendees
• Around 15 bars scattered across the venue, all open and well-stocked
• A literal red carpet entrance with ~20 photographers
• The Foo Fighters performing a full concert on a roped-off street with an erected stage
• Four separate parking lots plus a VIP underground lot with private entrance
• Fallout 3 logos projected onto nearby office buildings at the 10th–15th story, animating across building faces so they were visible from everywhere

Decorations and Atmosphere

Bethesda went all-in on theming:

• Big power armor statues along the red carpet (slightly redesigned from the game)
• An Airstream trailer surrounded by mannequins in Vault Suits — the "Fallout 3 nuclear family"
• Flat screens showing new artwork on walls throughout
• Old-fashioned black-and-white TVs playing 1950s-style Vault-Tec commercials
• Three stations of four TVs each, dressed up as "Radiation King" brand televisions (the same brand Homer Simpson watched as a child), where guests could play Fallout 3 while waitresses brought drinks and snacks

Celebrity Sightings

Cain arrived on the red carpet to photographers who looked up, shrugged, and went back to talking — until Lauren Conrad from The Hills appeared behind him and caused a frenzy. Other notable guests:

• Linda Carter (Wonder Woman) — wife of ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman. Cain noted she "looked fabulous, especially for being 59," and spent most of the evening chatting warmly with guests on the public deck rather than hiding in the VIP balcony. He found this "really classy."
• Will Sasso (Mad TV) — friendly, chatting with people around him
• David Spade (SNL, Just Shoot Me) — "seemed to be going after the ladies"
• Unseen VIPs reportedly included Gerard Butler, Courtney Cox, David Arquette, Dane Cook, and Geoff Keighley, mostly sequestered on a private balcony

The Ink Spots and The Foo Fighters

The evening opened with The Ink Spots performing near the first bar. The original members had passed away by 2008, but the lead singer was the son of an original member. Cain chatted with them after their set.

The Foo Fighters took the stage at 11 PM. Dave Grohl congratulated the developers, saying all game developers were "living the American dream of doing what they wanted and getting paid for it," before launching into a full set of hits. Cain had to move back because it was "just incredibly loud" — a moment where he jokes: "this is where you can call me Old Man Cain."

The Programmer Connection

Of all the people at the party, Cain connected most with Bethesda's lead programmer Steve Meister. The two wandered the party together for hours, equally amazed at the scale and expense. Cain notes this was natural — Steve was "basically like me, a programmer who worked on this game and liked it a lot." They shared a bond that transcended the celebrity spectacle around them.

Reflections: The Walk Back to the Hotel

Cain stayed until about 1:00 AM, then walked back to his hotel "tired and just a little bit tipsy." During that walk, he reflected on the surreal arc of his career:

He started Fallout 14 years earlier, alone in a room, trying to get sprites to move along a hex grid displayed isometrically. Now he was leaving a star-studded LA party filled with people who had no idea who he was but were thrilled about the new Fallout game.

He felt happy that the Fallout IP was thriving rather than "collecting dust in a file cabinet somewhere, like Arcanum was — and still is." A whole new generation of gamers would discover Fallout for the first time. But there was "a nagging part" that wished he was more a part of it.

"I Lied"

Cain later told Leonard Boyarsky that when he said he was "leaving Fallout behind" after they all left Interplay in 1998, he had lied. There was always a part of him that felt: "This is my baby, and it's been adopted."

Gratitude

Throughout the video, Cain expresses genuine gratitude to Todd Howard and Pete Hines for inviting him to both events, calling it "really, really cool" that they included the original creator in these milestone moments for the franchise.

References

• Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WC4PxA7bTu4