Abstract
Problem: How should game developers handle insults and backhanded compliments they receive over the course of a long career?
Approach: Tim Cain shares eight insults and three backhanded compliments he found while reviewing his personal archive of daily notes and meeting notes from decades in the game industry.
Findings: Most insults stem from the other person's anger, insecurity, or misunderstanding rather than any real failing of the recipient. Backhanded compliments usually come from people who mean well but frame things poorly.
Key insight: If you're in the industry long enough, you will get insulted to your face — and that's okay. Evaluate whether there's truth in it, but recognize that most of the time it's about the other person, not you.
The Academic Trilogy
Three of Tim's insults were related to his master's degree in computer science appearing on his resume.
"You're a temp here. People like you don't stay in the game industry." A colleague told Tim this because he believed academics don't belong in games — they don't stay and they think they're better than everyone. Tim recognized this person had personal issues with academia and was using Tim as a punching bag.
"You think you're so smart?" Another coworker had gone looking through Tim's resume on a network folder, saw the master's degree, and confronted him about it. Tim's response: years of academic training in programming has clear relevance to being a professional programmer. Leaving it off would be a misrepresentation.
"I'm tired of your false modesty." After Tim was complimented for picking the right feature for a game and responded humbly ("I think I just got lucky"), a colleague accused him of false modesty. A mutual coworker later explained: this person was someone who always takes credit and can't comprehend genuine humility — he assumed Tim was fishing for a double compliment. The colleague never complimented Tim again, believing he was "on to him."
The Bob Incident
A producer ("Bob") asked Tim to spend two days on a task, claiming Tim's boss had approved it. Tim casually mentioned it to his boss on the way out — who knew nothing about it. It turned out this was the third HR complaint against Bob in two months, and Bob was fired.
A friend of Bob's later confronted Tim in a stairwell: "What's the color of the sky in your world?" — accusing Tim of being oblivious to getting Bob fired. Tim's view, then and now: Bob lied, and when that lie was innocently passed along, Bob's pattern of behavior caught up with him.
Post-Fallout Reactions
After Fallout shipped to great success (despite being repeatedly labeled a "grade B title" during development), a producer warned Tim: "You're getting too used to early success. It's going to your head." Tim pointed out that Fallout was his fourth game, at his second company, 16 years into his career. He told the producer he was damn happy about the game and proud of it.
About three years later, while Tim was at Troika working on Arcanum, someone from the original Fallout team called him angrily: "You need to stop resting on your laurels." The trigger was an ad from Arcanum's publisher that read "from the creators of Fallout." Tim noted the statement was true, the games were similar, and the whole reason he started a new company was to make new things — not rest on Fallout. Ironically, this same person later had Fallout prominently listed on his own resume.
Book Smarts vs. Common Sense
Someone told Tim: "You just have book learning smarts but no common sense." At that point Tim had over 20 years in the game industry and was running his own company — something he was never academically trained to do. He believes people assume he'll be more academic than casual, when in reality he's quite practical.
The Most Direct Insult
At Carbine Studios (during WildStar development), an artist walked into Tim's office, sat down, and said: "I heard you suck at design." This was from an artist who had never designed anything, relaying something from another artist who had never designed anything, neither of whom knew Tim's actual design history.
Tim recognized the "I heard" framing as a manipulation tactic — someone with an agenda getting others to spread a belief. Rather than taking the artist to HR, Tim had a long conversation with him, which he found more productive.
The Backhanded Compliments
"You have a good personality for a programmer." A boss genuinely trying to praise Tim's team leadership, but inadvertently implying programmers generally have bad personalities. Tim notes that many programmers are, in fact, "crazy funny people."
"You're taller than I expected." Tim is 6'1" (now 6' — "you shrink when you get older, kids") and has no idea what impression of his height people form from seeing him sit in chairs in photographs.
"You're better looking in person." Someone explained that Tim's face is more animated in person than in photos. Tim remains genuinely unsure what to do with this information.
Lessons
Tim distills two takeaways from decades of insults and awkward compliments:
People say things when they're angry, surprised, or not thinking. If you're in the industry long enough, you will get insulted to your face. Evaluate whether there's truth in it and try to improve if so, but recognize that most of the time the insult is about the other person's state of mind.
Be careful what you write down — because years later, you're going to read it.
References
- Tim Cain. YouTube video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=enHHbnf02tA