Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says today's games suffer from trying 'to be everything for everyone' when they should be learning from '80s games: 'These games were really focused, because they had to be'

Fallout developer Tim Cain seated at computer wearing brown paper bag on head in the '90s.

Today's games have forgotten the lessons of history, according to veteran RPG developer and Fallout co-creator Tim Cain. In a YouTube video uploaded this week in response to a viewer who asked whether old games could offer any "lost wisdom" for today's game developers and designers, Cain responded with an emphatic "Yes."

Today's games, Cain said, suffer from an identity crisis: "They don't really know what they want to be," he explained. "They try to be everything to everyone: designed by committee, making a publisher happy, trying to guess what the largest demographic wants." Old games, he said, had a stronger focus—because they had no other choice.