Josh Sawyer isn't taking any credit for Fallout: New Vegas's conception, despite the fact that he directed the beloved RPG at Obsidian.
Like most games, Fallout: New Vegas was a collaborative effort with various leads at Obsidian spearheading different elements of the world and story, but in terms of the initial concept, it's fairly established history that studio co-founder Chris Avellone came up with the idea for the starting incident, which is the courier getting shot in the head and being buried in a shallow grave. Sawyer, as director, set the overall vision of the project, but he makes clear in an interview with The Examined Game that he wasn't involved in the initial discussions at all.
