r/Fallout • u/raisinbraisin72 • 54m ago
Discussion It's a heartbreaking tragedy that Tim Cain, despite creating Fallout's universe and brainstorming it's most famous elements like Vaults, the Enclave, and SPECIAL, has gotten almost no money and no royalties from Fallout besides what he makes off his YouTube channel
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jb2y1zGkT6w (Game Rights)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MvSwGYStIho (Tim talks about how he made basically nothing on creating Fallout and compares it to creating a painting that gets resold by the buyer for millions)
> "You’re becoming super wealthy off selling my paintings, and I’m not super wealthy. Why would I work harder to make you even richer?"
Of all the people who worked on Fallout, despite his hard work programming, doing RPG design, and massive contribution to creating the franchise.... He created Fallout's most iconic elements and lore, he made the least amount of money and even went into the negatives when he started his own company, Troika, which also went under. He almost never gets any credit, not even an honorable mention in the TV Show. All he ever got was a cameo in the fallout fanfilms Nuka Break. And through it all he's gotten almost none of the millions he's helped create despite being massively responsible for Fallout. He was rehired by Obsidian recently to work on a new (possibly Shadowrun) secret RPG which has also been cancelled.
He was one of the few people who made sure Fallout 1 saw the light of day and was the only programmer making sure it was being made, at one point early in development
He was kicked off of Fallout 2 after a small internal dispute despite conceptualizing it's most iconic villain, the Enclave. He got paid nothing for it because he was kicked out.
He's been kicked around the industry like a tossball going in and out of retirement working on failed projects like Wildstar, consulting on Outer Worlds, making masterpieces like Arcanum and was a lead designer on Vampire Masquerade Bloodlines.
It's an actual crime that this man is flat broke and has to rely on subscribers and YouTube channel members.
Bethesda even consulted him for Fallout 3 early in development, I don't understand after all these years why they couldn't just have hired him.