Cultural Changes

tim-cain game-design world-building cultural-references future-proofing fallout the-outer-worlds longevity

Abstract

Problem: How do cultural shifts over time affect the longevity and relevance of video games?

Approach: Tim Cain shares personal stories illustrating how dramatically culture changes across generations, then connects this to the risk of embedding cultural assumptions — especially predictions about the future — into game design.

Findings: Games that depend on predicting future technology or social norms will inevitably look "laughably wrong" far sooner than developers expect. The safest approaches are fantasy/historical settings (no prediction needed) or explicitly divergent timelines that signal "this is one possible future, not a prediction."

Key insight: Don't try to predict the future in your games — either avoid it entirely with fantasy or historical settings, or use a clear timeline-divergence point (like Fallout's vacuum tubes) so players understand you're exploring a "what if," not making a forecast.

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

The Problem with Cultural References

Cain opens by connecting this topic to his existing video on cultural references. His core objection: cultural references make players feel excluded. A joke about a politician or musician might land today, but within 5–10 years, new players won't get it. They'll feel like outsiders — "the game is having fun and I'm not invited to the party." Cultural changes pose a similar but broader risk to game design.

A Photo from 1950

Cain shares a personal story — he's been going through family photos on the 11th anniversary of his mother's passing. One photo shows his mother at a "jeans dance" in high school, around 1950. All the dancers are girls (it was a girls-only activity), some dancing in socks because they couldn't afford the special-soled shoes required for the gym floor.

The striking detail: it was called a "jeans dance" because girls were not allowed to wear jeans — or pants at all — to school. A girl who showed up in pants would be sent home, and her parents might be called. When Cain went to high school in the early 1980s, jeans were practically a uniform for everyone.

His sobering observation: the people in that photo were 15–17 years old. Some of them are still alive. Some of them still think that way. Some of them still vote.

The Phone Call Revolution

Cain offers a second example from his own lifetime. Growing up with landlines, the rule was simple: if the phone rings, you answer it. You scrambled to pick up. Answering machines introduced screening. Cell phones with voicemail made it normal to simply not answer. Today, Cain rarely picks up unless he recognizes the caller and is expecting the call.

This is a massive cultural shift that happened within a single lifetime — from "you always answer" to "you almost never answer."

Something in Your Room Will Disappear

Cain challenges viewers: look around the room you're in right now. Something there will be gone or unrecognizably transformed in 20–30 years. Kids born today will either not understand it or view it as laughably archaic — like today's YouTube videos of children baffled by Game Boys and Walkmans.

What will it be? The TV? The game console? The smartphone? Maybe it won't be tech at all — maybe it'll be a societal norm. Cain speculates about clothing printers making reworn clothes seem gross, or future people looking back at our assumptions about gender as absurd.

The Trap of Prediction

This is where Cain drives the point home for game developers: stop here. Don't try to guess where culture is going, because you're probably going to guess wrong. That's the entire point.

If your game depends on predicting cultural changes — hedging your design on assumptions about future technology, social norms, or values — you will be wrong. Not just a little wrong: "laughably, horrifically wrong." And your game will look dated far sooner than you expect.

Safe Approaches for Game Settings

Cain recommends specific strategies for avoiding the prediction trap:

Fantasy, Cartoon, and Historical Settings

These genres sidestep the problem entirely. A game set in 14th-century medieval Europe uses the technology and norms of that period — no guessing required. Fantasy and heavily stylized games similarly don't need to predict anything.

Divergent Timeline Futures

If you want to make a future-set game (as Cain did with Fallout and The Outer Worlds), the key is to present it as one possible future with a clear divergence point from our timeline:

  • Fallout: Technology never moved past vacuum tubes — transistors were never invented. The retro-futuristic aesthetic is a deliberate "what if," not a prediction.
  • The Outer Worlds: Corporations and monopolies were never regulated, so the future grew around monopolistic corporate practices.

This framing tells the player: "This is not what I think our future will be. This is a thought experiment." It insulates the game from looking dated when real-world culture moves in unexpected directions.

The Bottom Line

Don't try to predict what the future will definitely be. Either make a timeline-divergent future or stick to settings that require no technological, social, or cultural predictions. Your game will have longer legs because of it.

References