Fallout Creator Tim Cain Says “Other People Have Made Way More” On His IPs Than He Ever Did
James Lucas is an Executive Editor from Newcastle, England. They have written for sites like IGN, NME, GaymingMag, and VG247, with a special focus on FPS games, Soulslikes, and survival horror.
Tim Cain set one of the most popular RPG series into motion back in 1997 when he created the original Fallout, and between the resounding success of the TV series, his rejoining Obsidian, and the adoration fans have for New Vegas, which carried the torch of the original Interplay games into the Bethesda era, there’s one question that keeps cropping up: ‘Why not make a new one?’ Or better yet, a new IP in the vein of his classic games, a la Arcanum and The Temple of Elemental Evil.
“I love making games,” Cain said in a new video discussing the query (as first reported by PC Gamer). “So, it really confuses people when they’re like, ‘Why are you not making games, new IPs?'” His answer is something that’s unfortunately pretty common among most creators: “Other people have made way more money off of IPs I’ve created than I’ve ever made. It’s not by a little. It’s by a lot […] IPs I made years ago, people who just work on them in a team make more money than I got to even create the IP.”
Tim Cain also co-founded Troika, the studio behind the iconic role-playing classic, Vampire: The Masquerade — Bloodlines.
So, while he noted that it would be fun to board the luxurious IFS Zephyr back to Arcanum and its Tolkien-esque fantasy world (something he’s asked about a lot), there’s not much reason for him to, even if he did have the rights – which he doesn’t. “I’m not bitter about it,” Cain explained. “You have to imagine what it must be like to be asked this question over and over and over and over, and you can say you’re not bitter a thousand times, but after a while, on the thousandth time you’re asked, ‘Well, what do you think about this IP doing so well when you’re not involved anymore?’, at some point I’m exacerbated with the question. I’m kind of done.”
Cain likens it to being a painter, improving his craft with each new piece of artwork, until eventually someone comes along and offers him $100 for one of his earlier pieces. He, of course, sells, and that money helps him to create another 100 paintings, turning his hobby into a living. But he soon finds out that the buyer resold his painting for $10,000.
He decides there and then, ‘I’ll sell them direct’ – that way, he can make a comfortable living from his art by cutting out the middle-man. The only problem is that it’s far too expensive to do it alone, and if he asks for help, “The guy who’s making the frames is making more money than me.” The painter concedes he’s not good at business, he’s good at painting, and chooses to keep selling to a middle-man, all while quietly funding a nest egg that will allow him to focus on the “fun little doodles” he started with, cutting them out for good.
Or, in Cain’s case, he decided that working on big IPs to line a publisher’s pocket just wasn’t what he was interested in, and he would much rather make the games he’s passionate about by himself.
Why would I work harder to make you even richer and just make me a little more okay-er. I don’t see what my incentive is in this.
“If you really care about what I want, I’m still making toys and I love them and they make me happy,” he spelled it out. “I’m over making people really wealthy with my own creations. Could you give me a reason other than a very selfish reason—like you want something new, or those other people want to make more money—that I should just not keep painting whatever I feel like?”
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When Tim Cain rejoined Obsidian in December, he announced that he had begun work on a new project, though he urged fans, “Don’t bother guessing, you’re not going to guess right”. Judging by his comments today, it’s hard to imagine that he returned to work on Fallout again or any of his old IPs, even if we’re all clamoring for New Vegas 2. And while he isn’t bitter per se that fans keep asking about it, it’s fair to say Cain is capable of a lot more than this one post-apocalyptic RPG, as he proved last time he was at Obsidian with The Outer Worlds, so it’s exciting to imagine what he’ll cook up now he’s back out of retirement.
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