Tim Cain is a well-known name in the gaming industry. The legendary developer responsible for the two original Fallout games (not to mention his work on Pillars of Eternity, The Outer Worlds, and more) has blessed us all with a delightful YouTube channel, where he often goes into detail about his prolific career.
Most recently, Cain has gone all-in on describing his work routine back in 1995, when the very first Fallout was in active development. To be blunt, it sounds wild. Talk about driving yourself over. But it was a personal choice, Cain insists — and yes, it matters.
It all starts with a cat
Tim Cain woke up at about six in the morning to a cat lying on his body, not unlike a sphinx. After addressing the cat, he would shower and go to work. Sounds pretty far. He would even bring a loaf of freshly baked bread. How nice!
He would return home from lunch, but apart from that he was in his office from around 7am to 7-7.30pm. A lot of coding happened, but a lot more meetings too. Co-workers would go to lunch, but Cain couldn't afford such extravagances, so he cooked himself. (To be fair, he was paying off the mortgage on a house he had bought!)
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Cain describes living “paycheck to paycheck,” which is pleasantly familiar to your truth. And, no doubt, lots of other people. Even after he got home at night, he wrote down notes about the day's work, as well as his agenda for the following day. “Because those notes existed,” he adds, “that's why this channel exists.” Decades later, and he pulls from what he worked overtime to write down for our collective benefit.
“I worked on Saturdays too, even this early, because there was so much to do.” That's six days this guy pulled, and even though Saturdays in particular weren't necessarily 12-hour shifts, he'd still hang around and talk to people who needed help or had ideas. “On a normal Saturday I would have tried to be out by 4pm.” Cain insists it was all his choice, so it's not quite like the industry crisis we've always heard about. But it's still a hell of a thing.
“The last six months [of development]Saturday and Sunday were all day, too,” he continues. Then we're talking 80 hours or so. “I would often go shopping at two or three in the morning” to cope with that craziness. “Some of you are horrified; “it's crunch, it's abuse.” All I can say is that nobody told us to do this. We wanted to do it. We loved what we did.”
Cain concludes by hoping that we can all experience something that compels us so strongly, though he clearly recognizes the difference between the momentum derived from genuine passion versus the painful burnout of months of corporate-imposed hell.
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