Tim Cain (basketball)

Timothy Cain is an American video game developer and Youtuber best known as the creator, producer, lead programmer and one of the main designers of the 1997 video game '' Fallout''. In 2009, he was chosen by IGN as one of the top 100 game creators of all time.

Early life

Cain went to college at the University of Virginia and to graduate school in California. During this time, he helped out a friend programming a card game named ''Grand Slam Bridge'' for CYBRON Corporation which was released in 1986. In 1989, he received a Master's Degree in Computer Science at University of California, Irvine.

Career

Interplay Entertainment

In 1994 he started for a couple of months as the only employee working on a game that would later become the post-apocalyptic RPG game '' Fallout''. He laid out the basic concept based on the GURPS system and began programming the isometric game engine. He also took over the producer role from Thomas R. Decker who had to supervise multiple other projects at the time. With a development cycle of three and a half years ''Fallout'' was released in 1997. During this time he was also a programming consultant on ''Stonekeep'' (1995) and helped out coding '' Star Trek: Starfleet Academy'' (1997).

In an interview he criticized the bigger influence from sales/marketing department during '' Fallout 2'' development, saying, "We were losing part of the game to a larger group who had bigger plans for it." Cain corroborated further in May 2023 that he left the company bitter after he was forced to work on ''Fallout 2'' and did not get the bonus pay that was agreed upon after completion of the first game.

Troika Games

His next game reunited him with Thomas R. Decker, the original ''Fallout'' producer. As project leader and lead designer he produced within 20 months the Dungeons & Dragons game ''The Temple of Elemental Evil'' for publisher Atari in 2003. While he loved making the game he was disappointed that it did not turn out what he wanted it to be.

After Bethesda secured the ''Fallout'' license from Interplay in 2004, Cain expressed disappointment.

Cain had mixed reactions to '' Fallout 3'', praising Bethesda's understanding of ''Fallout'' lore as well as the adaptation of "S. P. E. C. I. A. L." system into a FPS-RPG, but criticized the humor and recycling of too many story elements from the earlier ''Fallout'' games.

He helped out programming the last Troika game, '' Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines'', a horror RPG for Activision in 2004. He also worked on a post-apocalyptic roleplay game for which he couldn't convince any publisher to fund. As consequence he had to lay off most employees in late 2004 and shut down Troika Games in February 2005.

Carbine Studios

He joined as the programming director at Carbine Studios working on a fantasy MMO game for NCSoft. He was promoted to design director in October 2007. Cain left Carbine Studios in July 2011.

Obsidian Entertainment

In 2011, Tim Cain joined Obsidian Entertainment as senior programmer. He worked on ''Pillars of Eternity'', which was funded through Kickstarter. He was also a co-director for '' The Outer Worlds''. Since June 2020, Cain is no longer employed by Obsidian as a full time employee, but still works for them on the sequel to ''The Outer Worlds'' as well as for two other companies on a contract basis.

Personal life

Cain is affected by hereditary color blindness, stating in a Gamasutra interview that he " an nowsee less than half the spectrum of colors". He enjoys cooking, particularly Japanese and Chinese cuisine, and his favorite dishes are garlic chicken fried rice and chicken karaage. Cain came out as a gay man in the early 2000s after concealing his sexuality throughout much of his early career. He married his husband Robert Land on July 14, 2011.

Games

References

External links

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Entry
at Terra Arcanum

Tim Cain's YouTube Channel

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cain, Timothy
20th-century American LGBTQ people
21st-century American LGBTQ people
American gay men
American video game designers
American video game programmers
Dungeons & Dragons video game designers
Interplay Entertainment people
Living people
Obsidian Entertainment people
Year of birth missing (living people)