Fallout dev Tim Cain says we should pay more attention to bad games: ‘[Publishers] often don’t learn from failure because they only look at the games that sold well’
Fallout co-creator Tim Cain has argued that publishers and players should study unsuccessful games more closely, rather than focusing mainly on hits and famous failures. He says this matters because an industry that only copies commercially successful games can misunderstand what actually made them work and repeat their weaker elements.
Cain describes this as a form of survivorship bias: publishers tend to judge success by sales, while players often ask for more of popular games without identifying their strongest features. He is not advocating attention for wholly irredeemable titles, but for the many forgotten games with useful lessons about design failures. He also notes that successful games can contain serious flaws, such as poor frame rates, bad interfaces or crashes, so their success should not be treated as proof that every feature was worthwhile.
- Tim Cain says bad games can teach valuable design lessons.
- Publishers often prioritise sales successes over analysing failures.
- Popular games may succeed despite significant flaws.