Cultural Changes

[@krellend20]

I can't believe we let marketing destroy the telephone instead of banning telemarketing.

[@avery_IO]

YO 😢

[@Seth9809]

It's really 90% scams from other nations or machines.

[@TedBundi-nj8nt]

It's because of some clumsy regulation requiring providers to fullfill all calls. They could filter them out otherwise.

[@MFKitten]

We did the same with the internet.

[@stuartmorley6894]

I think things might be different in the US to the UK. All our landline phones are just plugged into the modem (or will be soon). I can't think of a telemarketer that's phoned my house in years. I get a few on my mobile but you just instablock and never get them again.

[@D0P3NA5TY]

tim cain videos are only real if there is dog snoring in them

[@PatGunn]

Wish we could see the pup

[@thebolas000]

​@@PatGunnWe'll have to make do with the dog saga shorts.

[@wesss9353]

​@@PatGunnI read a comment yesterday that the pup will have a video next month. Hopefully it's tomorrow fun Friday and it will be the 1st of the month.

[@peterd9698]

I clicked away about 5 seconds from the end as he was wrapping up.. and then for some reason clicked back to see what that 5 seconds was.. 😎

[@drew_echo]

At first I thought you were about to talk about company culture. That would also be an interesting subject. Our company 10xed in size, the culture changed significantly, and it had cascading effects on our work. It'd be interesting to hear how culture shifted at Troika (which you had more control over) vs the companies you were an employee of (had less direct control over culture) over time and how that affected the team's work.

[@MLB41]

Same! I'd love to hear more on this subject

[@Nope-ity-nope-nope]

My father would lose his mind when we received calls during dinner. No caller ID, no 'silence', and his sentiment was that friends and family know when not to call. "I won't be a slave to the phone!" he would often say as well. Conversely, I have friends now who find it incredibly rude when texts aren't resounded to quickly enough because "you always have your phone on you" and "it's so quick to text." I too, am not a slave to my phone.

[@llamasarus1]

We're also "slaves" to the plumbing system , automobiles, the electrical grid, servers. I'm fine with that even if smart phones are another thing on top.

[@wesss9353]

Someone should watch Fight Club...

[@brandongregori995]

Being dependant is not the same thing

[@BubbleoniaRising]

I toss mine in a desk drawer when I get home and ignore it over the weekend. Hell, I leave the house and forget to bring it. Fuck your digital leash.

[@MLB41]

I love the vintage photo you shared with your mom dancing and having fun. I sometimes forget that the wise adults in my life were once young people with similar interests :D

[@mightyn8]

As someone who grew up in Eastern Europe with not much knowledge of many aspects of (especially American and British) pop culture, I missed out on understanding a LOT of references or Easter eggs in movies, shows, and games. And often, the way those references were presented was highlighting the fact that they were significant in some way and that I should understand what they mean... but I just couldn't, because I didn't have the same cultural baggage that the creators had. Nowadays, I can occasionally appreciate references that I understand, but at the same time I feel like they're kind of awkward and hamfisted, and I think that the same story can be told without those references.

[@JollyGiant19]

Yep. I think his point of “don’t have fun without the player” is the best take away. I like a game called World of Horror, it’s full of references but they’re not the focus. The game never puts the player aside to do its own thing. The result? It has references but if you don’t know them, nothing feels like it’s missing!

[@Dullahan3470]

I actually kind of like it when things are an artifact of the time they were made. Probably my favorite example of this is The Matrix. Landlines and cell phones are both present but the former are the only way to escape. It becomes such a wildly different thing if it comes out a few years early being cell phones or a few years later after pay phones and landlines started to evaporate.

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

I remember seeing a homage to the Monty Python bridgekeeper, and one of the comments said it was a Fallout 2 reference. I guess that person played Fallout 2, encountered the bridgekeeper easter egg, and didn't realize it was a reference to Monty Python.

[@JohnnyTheWolf-d3p]

Fallout 2 did the joke better in my opinion.

[@braydoxastora5584]

Fortnite is a source for a lot of this

[@justshitpostingdontbmadokplzty]

Sounds like they were joking lol..

[@BlackJar72]

This sort of things happens with all sort of media, not just games -- the movie The Shiny had "Here's Johnny" as a reference to Johnny Carson and the Tonight Show, but now most people see it simply as a reference to The Shining. I'm sure if you were to dig you could find many similar examples across different kinds of media.

[@radmanstan413]

@@BlackJar72That happens all the time. Bugs Bunny’s “What’s up Doc?” Is a reference to the movie “It Happened One Night”. Where a guy was casually eating a carrot and saying that catchphrase. I bet there’s way more of this reference becoming it’s own thing effect just because people forgot the original reference.

[@stuartmorley6894]

I went to school in the UK in the 80's/90's. Girls could only wear skirts until it changed in my last two years. Most schools here have school uniforms though, the idea being it's much easier for kids to not feel left out of whatever fashion, or to only have cheap/no clothes and be picked on. The schools recycle old uniforms so that parents that can't afford them get them for free. I know this has little to do with the video other than I guess reinforcing the idea that even at the same time as something is released cultural differences can make something already significantly different or obsolete.

[@larsthedude1984]

I recommend watching Tom Scott’s video “Ten years ago, I predicted 2022. Did I get it right?” where he reviews a video/talk he did in 2012 discussing what the future of 2022 would be like from the perspective of mass surveillance, tech, information, censorship, and civil rights. Some stuff he gets close, some he gets far off, but he dissects/analyzes how/why a version of him from the point-of-history of 2012 (GWOT, continued conflicts in the Middle East, social media’s evolution, Britain’s old political and economic quagmires) speculated what he did.

[@theminister1154]

I have a feeling Tim is making that point... but also speaking to Obsidian with their soon-to-be-anachronistic Critical Theory themes (aka stupid woke stuff.) BTW if you want to see a really great futurist, check out the guy who wrote Cyberpunk back in the 80s. Game 2077 is based on. He NAILED the woke lunacy 30 years prior. Not bad! Mike something. Black guy. that probably helped him figure it out.

[@PatGunn]

I take a contrary position that I developed when figuring out how to adapt when traveling overseas or talking to others from a different country - it's okay to be from somewhere. It's okay to make things that are a product of their times, and doing so feels more honest and less bland than things that need contrived reasons to explain differences. Don't overthink it, just treat an audience as adults who can deal with this stuff.

[@Kerithanos]

Exactly! Why is something being "dated" a bad thing? Why does everything have to conform to the standards of our particular moment in time? Everything that I love, I love precisely BECAUSE it has nothing to do with what's currently orthodox or common - and when it comes to predicting the future, when they get it wrong, I think it's often more interesting than when they get it right! After all, isn't that what Fallout was about? Why make a game set in a world based on the unfulfilled predictions and imaginings of the 1950s if you think those ideas are "dated" and therefore bad?

[@Kaiserhawk]

One cultural change that I generally see sometimes is the perception of cool. Cool edgy games of the early to mid 2000s are really funny now because the perception of whats cool shifted.

[@CainOnGames]

It happened to Grandpa Simpson: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a3XPhZiuer2rgrM

[@pnutz_2]

@@CainOnGames No way man, I'm gonna be with it forever! forever.... forever... forever....... Homer 7:24 is one of my favourite quotes as I get older and start seeing younger people in the workplace

[@Chud_Bud]

Sincerity is the one thing I've found that cuts through generational gaps. Sincerity is timeless and cool.

[@karamzing]

It was fun listening to Masters of Doom as an audiobook because you got to hear the late 90's "suck it down!" nerd banter actually said out loud. I think we need to just accept that whatever we think is cool today won't be cool in 20 years.

[@EepsayYukay]

It's a different kind of cultural change, but I'm reminded of how in China, imagery of skulls/the dead is often censored, often with blood being turned into colors other than red in CN versions of the art, among other details. This leads to some situations where in some international card games, the CN art of the undead often have them depicted with more lifelike features, such as a healthier complexion for ghouls, or skeletons that are completely covered by armor to hide their bones. While I have my own gripes about it, I do admit that some of the censored art actually has some pretty cool alternate designs that would never come to be if such cultural differences didn't exist.

[@lexmarovsky6667]

Censorship is just like technical limitations, makes people thinks creatively.

[@pnutz_2]

so many loaves of bread in wow...

[@afbee]

2:54 I faintly remember dances in the gym being called "sock-hops" and I guess this was why.

[@AndreasSelzer]

When it comes to cultural references I like those that are an Easter Egg to those forms of media that are an inspiration. For example if I play Fallout and there are references to the original Mad Max even though the movies were made years ago. It is also fun hunting for cultural references I may not understand.

[@plebisMaximus]

It depends how it's done. Like Tim's said before, if you make a reference, you just shouldn't make it too obvious it's a reference to people who don't get it. If you've seen Mad Max before playing the first Fallout, you may smile at the leather armour, if you haven't, you'll just throw it on without thinking about it because it's just another armour set. On the other hand, if you leave pause for laughter after making some referential dialogue that fits poorly in the context, it'll just come off as weird to the person spotting it if they don't get it. That's often more of a detriment to your work and dates your game more than it helps.

[@JollyGiant19]

@@plebisMaximus World of Horror is a game that does it well. Lots of references but if you don’t know them, you won’t know they’re there because they don’t take precedence over the game or player.

[@TheBearJew1309]

Seeing Indiana Jones' skeleton in the fridge in 2010 hit pretty good then, and now

[@AndreasSelzer]

@@TheBearJew1309 Exactly because even if you don't understand the reference the it still fits in the world.

[@simeon9506]

“They’ll view it as laughably archaic in 20 years.” Me looking around at all the books in the livingroom. 😳

[@Netherfly]

And here all I did was look in the mirror.

[@boptillyouflop]

Duke Nukem Forever comes to mind.

[@hpph7133]

One could argue most of Duke Nukem's franchise is mostly culture jokes. I'm reminded of the intro for Duke Nukem 2 where he looks at the camera, rippling muscles and says, "I'm BACK" His cinematic design and original voice was mostly meant to evoke Hollywood action stars (Arnold in particular) but also his appearance on an Oprah-like talk show plugging his book

[@MariuszChwalba]

I appreciate your insight, but I'm not sure I agree. Predicting future is not game-specific subject, it's a sample of science fiction. Ever since Verne we had this whole genre where we try to predict what the future will bring. Sometimes we got it wrong, sometimes we got this eerily right (say, Stanisław Lem or Arthur C. Clarke). Both are a part of the genre. This is a subject that is very close to me, both as a hobby and because I made and published a science-fiction game myself. It sounds like you wanted to make a more specific point, but you generalized it out of the argument you make here, or at least it does come across for me. I'd love to hear the original thought about it, through!

[@CainOnGames]

In my games set in the future, I tried to decide where things changed and predicted what would happen from that point of divergence. I talk about that in this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/a5-yqK2Ih6x4nqs But I never tried to make a game predicting our future. That goal seems doomed to produce a game that becomes woefully dated very quickly.

[@scp2539]

7:00 Based on what I've heard from an event PirateSoftware did, it's the game consoles like Xbox/PlayStation and, with a lower possibility, the current version of the PC. On day 1 they had about half the kids not understanding how to use a keyboard over the controller, the next day a younger group didn't know how to use the controller and thought it was a touch screen.

[@BjornKuma]

Be timeless, not merely relevant.

[@nafanail2nd]

Reminds me of the people asking on Reddit why the photographer guy from Stranger Things was always in a red-lit room when making the photo prints. It got zero of my attention when i watched the show, probably because I've printed photos like this myself. But it is a truely legit question if you only encountered digital photo printing in your lifespan.

[@theminister1154]

I use red light every single day. turn it on as i'm reading a tablet in bad so I can fall asleep unhindered. Now it's an adjustable bulb, but previously I had a box of bulbs from my dad's darkroom. Really helps protect your vision.

[@Dooby0071]

As a kid I always picked my parents brain on how things have changed and what was different when they were kids. It's actually fascinating. As I grew up I wondered what would be changed when I was my parents age.... Cheers to the future.

[@Baltasarmk]

The school dress code is not a good example. As a boy, I was not allowed to wear shorts in high school in the early 2000s. At my current corporate job, I am still not allowed to wear shorts or T-shirts.

[@SenkaZver]

And 30 years ago, you had to dress semi formally to formally, now most corporatw places allow more casual wear in general.

[@jacobcaudill6357]

Biggest culture shift shock I ever experienced was my little sister who is 16 not knowing who Michael Jackson was. Coming from Indiana in the 90's I thought Michael Jackson would be the most famous person forever. But now its Drake and I know nothing about him.

[@wesss9353]

I watched this video on break at work in my vehicle. It's currently a 2000 model. So no info-tainment system. Just a stock radio. It has a CD player

[@TM1337FalconPunch]

When I was younger I thought Futurama was probably representative of a dystopian 2300 rather than 3000. Now I think it's what 2030 looks like.

[@theminister1154]

Good news TM1337!

[@StodgyAyatollah]

I do have a fondness for older movies where everything isn't too dissimilar to today until someone pull out a brick cellphone or has an old carphone.

[@ibrahimkuyumcu2649]

Timothy Cain is a national treasure.

[@Pangloss6413]

He deserves the presidential medal of freedom and I’m deadly serious about that

[@MrJekken]

Kojima accurately predicted the future multiple times

[@OLee82]

Sounds interesting. Do you have any examples?

[@darkwraithcovenantindustries]

The exception to this is cultural references of the past that make people feel nostalgic.

[@mccGoNZooo]

Tim, I am the thing in the room that won't be understood and will be thought of as archaic.

[@BrandonDoran00]

My friend and I were born in '99 and 2000 respectively, we have no memory of the early 2000's and yet are both fans of Futurama. While I'm certain there are jokes or situations that go over my head, I have much more cultural knowledge then even other people I went to school with. My friend on the other hand, he doesn't even know names of current celebrities, the entirety of his culture exists in his corner of the internet. We will regularly find ourselves discussing the show and he will bring up how the brand new seasons aren't as good and don't feel the same as the classic ones. I think he has a hard time understanding that the way they discuss current culture, like streaming services, bitcoin, cancelation, and Amazon, is exactly the same as the show was interpreting culture of its day. What I find strange is that both him and I, despite not experiencing that time, both enjoy the show in different ways, and certainly different to someone who experienced the events they are parodying might.

[@DonMcGlass]

my initial reaction to this is how common science fiction media like in Blade Runner predicted we'd have flying cars by now.

[@phojamantirasoontrakul]

I dont think there will ever be mass personal (one person) air traffic, that is manually controlled by human pilots. Its just too dangerous in case of a collision. If that ever comes up its likely fully computer controlled, and has specific routes its allowed to take. Vehicles that can do it actually exist in early versions. They operate like oversized drones.

[@JimmyMon666]

@@phojamantirasoontrakul Yeah it's just not happening. The skillset required to fly in 3 dimensions is just too great for most average people. Computers can aid with this, but I still don't see computer controlled happening anytime soon either since they still can't do that great a job in 2 dimensions. The other issue is technological in storing enough energy in something to keep a flying aircraft a reasonable size (the size of a current car). And especially as we are trying to move away from fossil fuels which is still better energy storage than batteries. Vertical takeoff is still very energy intensive and more difficult, which means you still need wings which requires a decent amount of space. And liability as well. The lawsuits will crush things if you have peoples cars crashing into other people's houses and killing people. The other issue is noise. I don't even want drones flying above my house. Those are noisy as well, and there are already complaints about drone deliveries in the few areas that allow them. Now imagine that noise, but 10 times greater. And lastly, for the people who think tech will solve everything. I believe our current tech is running up against the laws of physics. I just can't see any magic energy source that will make all of this possible. People like to believe anything is possible. But previous tech wasn't limited by physics, but by knowledge of the scientists and inventors who had to build on the previous generations developments.

[@RupertMDoc]

Its because much of science fiction is "aspirational," writers imagining a world with the things they want. Be those things flying cars, a moneyless society, or fury aliens to... befriend.

[@NameNotAChannel]

This is how I'm setting up my far distant future game... with a divergence in history even before our time, and taking place thousands of years in the future.

[@WastelandChef]

100% When you look at pictures of people flying commercially in the 70's and you see them smoking cigarettes onboard, or the stewards cutting rotisserie for passengers in the aisle and whatnot you're like WHAT?? lol

[@KAPTAINmORGANnWo4eva]

Or, you base your game on a combination of timeless philosophical principles and dystopian conspiracy theories and for nearly 30 years after your game is held up as a clairvoyant masterpiece of political themes in games.

[@Chris3s]

As a non-native english speaker, having a neutral and/or custom world based language (and thus universal humor) is the way to go.

[@lucasgraeff5391]

your channel is incredible

[@Mechthorian]

A similar problem happens with media set in "the present day," which from the writer's perspective, always means a few months/years in the future. The Sopranos smacked into this problem head on when they had episodes set in Christmas of 2001, and all the characters (who lived in the New York/Jersey area) acted like nothing was wrong.

[@Burgo361]

Where I went to school in the late 2000s the girls still weren't allowed to wear pants, they did it anyway because it was a ridiculous rule they would just get detention a lot. It was also a public school which made it even sillier I might expect that from private schools.

[@thebolas000]

6:26 Please let it be the fax machine.

[@wesss9353]

Time to watch Office Space... Damn it feels good to be a gangster

[@TheJofurr]

Photos of strange old socks and jeans piquing your curiosity enough that you enquire about your mom's lived experiences as a young woman the 1950s isn't necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I suspect that's the exact response many creators hope to achieve when inserting references to current events.

[@TheSnowLeopard]

I had this problem as a tabletop game master, I play with people of the same generation and even then more often than not the jokes about various cultural references I put in simply *whoosh* over the head of the players. So I avoid doing that now.

[@J00icus]

You sure you want to get into the "these people vote" argument considering the lunacy from your side of the aisle the last 20 years?

[@MarathonGuy1337]

It either future generations laughing at our backwards technology like "Lol you guys didn't have access to a VR world you could hope in and out of though thinking alone... oh lame" or kids being like "You have a screen that made images?" as their living in the burned out husk of a post-nuclear world. One or the other... not sure which I prefer to be honest :/

[@eliaustin3005]

Hey Tim, I know this isn’t related to your video but I really wanted to ask if you are familiar with any of the fan made fallout games based off the classic fallout engine?

[@CainOnGames]

I am.

[@eliaustin3005]

@ Have you dabbled in any of them? If so, what do think about them?

[@CainOnGames]

@@eliaustin3005 I have, but I don't talk about it. kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3e9hKdpicZ4bbM

[@eliaustin3005]

@ Okay I respect that.

[@karlandersson8652]

Just had a real life encounter with a new employee (early 20's) at my software developer job that did not know what the "save-icon" was. It was just a save-icon, had no clue it was actually a floppy disk (or what a floppy-disk was).

[@ninjabiatch101]

I love Postal 2 in relation to this. Half of the references in that game were barely even relevant when the game was made, much less today. XD

[@wesss9353]

That was great that you dressed up as the overseer of vault 13 for today's Halloween video.

[@MRSketch09]

What was snoring in the background? (I have studio headphones on) so I picked up on the bg sound. The history lesson about the "no jeans" women, was interesting. Interesting perspective as usual.

[@VerboseToast]

The "thing in your room in 30 years" thing is crazy to think of. Hope it's built PCs

[@8Paul7]

I like all the popculture references in Fallout 1 and 2. Sure I had no idea what most of them were when I first played it (as a 12 year old in post-commie Czechland) but I got them all later and was able to enjoy them. But, good video nonetheless.

[@alecradtke]

Dude optimized scrapbooking , not what I expected lol

[@VieneLea]

This reminds me of Andrzej dell'Aqua, a XVII century engineer specialised in artillery, who wrote a large treatise called "Praxis ręczna działa" which dealt with, amongst other things, using artillery in space warfare. Really. With instructions like how to use gravity of the enemy globe to hit an enemy fortress that's not visible to you because it's on the other side of the globe. To say it is dated is like to say nothing at all.

[@IXIHSO]

Hey Tim! This isn't a question, but Id just like to tell you about someone on YT. His names MojaveD, Hes a 72 year old gamer, and he's been playing through New Vegas for the first time! He recently finished Dead Money, and he's calling it one of his favorite DLCs for any game he's played.

[@VM-hl8ms]

i think, it's better to go for it and misguess entirely than to keep something for yourself just to realise that you was right after some time into the future.

[@SolearGnG]

It surely sounds like excluding these would help future-proof some games, but I think we make games as an expession of the age we live in, since they, ideally come from our mind that is shaped by the age we live in. Instead of excluding references, I'd perhaps make sure that things are sufficiently tutorialized and visually shown in a way that even those who have not shared the age with us can understand it mostly. After all even if you haven't used a rotary phone, you can approximate their use after seeing a short scene of it somewhere. I'm also surprised you got through this without menitoning the 3 seashells :D Overall I understand your point, but I just don't consider it too big of a consideration. Most people who will play the games we make are the people currently alive - Perhaps that's not true for you who made games that will be played for a long time. But most gamedevs, especially the first time devs, perhaps not make their games with the expectation that they will be eternal and played in a 100 years :D Maybe it's just me, that seeing a game from a certain era brings itself a certain level of knowledge of that era, from history classes, movies from that era I've seen etc. Modern kids might get shocked by old tech, but overall, eventualy they understand that in that era they were cutting edge tech. You can look at these elements as a snapshot of the era, excluding them might make the game not authentic for its age rather than future proofing it. But maybe you are right. From overall perspective, if you make something not stuck in the current era, then it will be usable and understandable universally, just like the hero mythos, or the stuff that was talked about the "Hero with a thousand faces" which talks about universal stories that are understood across the ages..

[@Sauvva_]

those mythos werent universal until some parts of it where removed, greek culturee influenced roman culture, with a lot of misunderstandings, then renaissance was influenced by romans with more misunderstandings, and then european culture was shoved everywere else, so it seems universal, until you get to a asia, the most glaring example is hades being depicted as evil very often because he is the good of the underworld, and zeus depicted as good because he is the god of the sky, which is clear christian influence

[@veraxiana9993]

The only thing interesting I can add to the conversation is oftentimes historical based media can become quickly outdated too with new discoveries. My advice is to stick close to the undebated material but have an open mind approach when it comes to specific things historians are actively researching, for example any old media that presumes Native Americans crossed after the glacial barrier disappeared is now pretty outdated since the scientific consensus supports the "kelp highway theory" instead meaning they crossed into the Americas far earlier than previously believed.

[@phojamantirasoontrakul]

One prediction about the future that always comes true: people are lazy, and want something that does the task for them.

[@HienLeGia]

The close example of this phenomenon is Call of Duty: Black Ops 2.... Something so eerily close about it to now( it's a 2012 game). Minus the global group using KZbin & Twitter to run military ops against global superpowers, yeah that luckily did not happen (yet)

[@GameMakerRob]

It's either Darth Vader or the Dog in the background

[@BenWillock]

I think we're already at all the gender stuff Tim lol

[@Cvoxalury]

Fallout 2 (over)doing all those references to then-current Vice President/President and such felt quite different from Fallout 1, and I always thought Fallout 2 became more dated than Fallout 1. People loving it for other things (gameplay, items... subjective humour) keeps it more afloat but I'd call it dated, definitely.

[@DarrenGrey]

It felt dated even at the time it was released. Lewinsky jokes were way overdone before F2 came out. F2 just felt awkward when it tried to include the dress joke.

[@plebisMaximus]

It's one of the big reasons Fallout 2 just didn't land with me the same way the first one did.

[@ganth0re]

Just my musings pertaining to your arguments around cultural changes... In 2024, I am on the cusp of finally finishing the final season of F.R.I.E.N.D.S because it was a very important experience for my partner and she wanted me to be familiar with it and experience it with her. ... I grew up with that show on the air the entire time I was in both grade and high school and I never watched any of it because of the limits of media distribution, my limited family income, and my highly conspiratorial, fascist religious influences at the time (my family was NOT an influence in that last area). In hindsight, there are so many jokes people have made in reference to that show and I am only finally able to understand it at age 37. I will also note that there has been so much time that I've seen some jokes and stereotypes in the show age poorly. The one thing that was a constant was my love for Fallout 1 and 2... Just don't tell the conservative pastor of my SBC church about it. :-)

[@heatherharrison264]

As I listened to this, I glanced at the rotary dial phone on my desk that is still hooked up and working... Fallout does this very well. By using a time somewhere around the 1950s/1960s as the point of divergence, it sets up an appealing retro-futuristic aesthetic, and it ties Fallout into the fears of nuclear annihilation that were salient at that time. It looks a lot like the visions of the future that were coming out in sci-fi and pop culture back then. Fallout may be in an alternative future setting, but it is strongly grounded in a moment in history that is familiar to many of us.

[@pnutz_2]

zzzzzzzip *brrrrrrrrrr* zzzzip *brrrrrr* zzzzzzzzzzzzip *brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

[@OrangeNash]

Some fascinating points. Unlike war, culture always changes! I see why you're getting at about not predicting the future. Something that increasingly irritates me, in so called sci-fi games, is how they seem unaware of this and just project life as being the same as today, only wearing spacesuits. Starfield is a recent standout example of this. Set 300 years in the future, yet people are still blasting each other with shotguns and pistols. And talking exactly as Americans do today (well, American HR consultants!). Though some games do a decent job. I think of Half Life 2 and the Deus Ex (particularly 1 and 3) as both presenting feasible projections of the near future. And doing so 20 years ago and still not looking ridiculously wrong wrt culture. Perhaps an alternative is to envisage a future so far off from ours, in time or due to special events, you can get away with anything e.g. Death Stranding

[@yessopie]

Zak McKracken is an interesting example of a game that was great in the 80's but is hard to understand in retrospect. It came out in 1988, but was set in the late 90's. They tried to guess what teenage slang would be in the 90's... This was probably hilarious if you played the game in the 80's, but if you play it now, it's just confusing, unless you explicitly remind yourself that the game was released in 1988. There are also some puzzles that you'll never get if you didn't live in the 80's... like you have to use vinyl (sticky) tape to cover the hole on top of a commercial cassette tape so that you can record on it. Kids these days usually know about cassettes, but they don't know those details like how write-protect worked on them. That said, I'm not sure if I think that Zak McKracken was a _mistake_ though. I would hate if Zak McKracken never existed or was changed to be pure fantasy just because they were terrified that people wouldn't understand it 35 years later.

[@brainlesseel4808]

My grandfather told me something like this before, however it was more crude and it was about the word "assume".

[@brainlesseel4808]

Also as a kid I was expected to remember my home phone number as well as my grandparent's at all times.

[@lrinfi]

Love that joke. :) First heard it in an episode of Welcome Back, Kotter in which Vinny Barbarino spelled it out on a chalkboard while he was telling it. I still think it's both poignant and funny, but you have to be careful if you choose to repeat it. Too many take absolutely everything you saym especially in the way of cultural critique, personally today (for a reason, methinks) and that joke is no exception despite that the punchline includes both 'u' and 'me'.

[@AlucardNoir]

...so don't invest $400 mil USD over 8 years to make a live service hero shooter that's hot when you start development?

[@BobExcalibur]

Very tactically word Tim. To the point where people who need to hear it the most won't understand it's advice they should heed, in lieu of Veilguard.

[@CainOnGames]

I recorded this video six weeks ago.

[@GypsumGeneration]

Will people with aphantasia be able to receive images injected by neuralink type devices? 🤔

[@uziao]

My mom was born in 1963, in a small small city in Brasil, and her sisters couldn't wear panths also... today she have a son (me) that wears skirts and dresses xD

[@fairyflosslord7]

hell yeah! way to break down gender norms

[@wesss9353]

Skirts are just waist blankets.

[@uziao]

@wesss9353 they are confortable and nice to dance, they flow

[@wesss9353]

@@uziao I have 3 , myself.

[@wesss9353]

@@uziao I also have 2 blankets with sleeves.

[@silversjohn]

Funilly enough, in the Balkans almost noone had anwswering machines, not sure why it never cought on (it being too pricey for most people surelly wasn't helping), so when mobile phones started to be popularised, leaving voicemail alo wasn't soomething most people did, so that even today most people that I now (including myself) awsner their phone right away, even when it's a bad moment for it and just try juggling whatever they ere doing while speaking on the phone like cooking or cleaning (which unfortunately also means some people do it while driving)

[@whiteingale]

Holy shit, you're a fallout developer, that is amazing.

[@wesss9353]

Make Uncle Tim apart of your morning routine. Grab a cup of coffee. And listen to his wisdom

[@docweidner]

Old MST3K episodes suffer from this sometimes. I have to pause and explain jokes sometimes to my sons when we watch episodes together. Speaking of culture went from 80% teleworking to 100% during covid and sadly now at 40% teleworking. Lot's of jeans in the office, though apparently there is some concern about this from higher up. Nothing really said, but one of the groups in a different part of the building had a jeans and jerseys day yesterday. Which implies that should be a rarity.

[@thebolas000]

I've seen some MST3K popup videos with quick explanations of the jokes. That's probably annoying for most people, but trying to figure out MST jokes is how I first heard of Bootsy Collins, so some good comes out of dated references.

[@JohnnyTheWolf-d3p]

Well, if those last few years are any indication, people definitely should remember the Bush...

[@Adamthegeek70]

LOL I had long rocker hair in school, and it was not cool. Couldn't join the tennis team or football (which is fine I'm a nerd not a jock) . No jobs with long hair, no sports etc. "long haired freaky people should not apply"... I don't think video games need cultural references they should just be fun to play. I've stopped buying new games for the most part waiting to see what is in them. I'm 54. open (I don't care what people do ... none of my business) but for one I am sick of how thirsty stuff is in games. My wife and I played BG3 together ... it got awkward. I don't wanna do 'romance' or be preached to. Graphics I like old school, or realistic... tired of the cartoony games... and I miss a good story.

[@caseylascallette7269]

I feel like the games now are super preachy... I dont need a video game to tell me not to discriminate against people

[@redhatter94]

When people look to Veilguard in a decade it will still be a laughing stock. That's what comes to mind anyway.

[@braydoxastora5584]

Its seen as a laughing stock now

[@JimmyMon666]

Then again, things could be worse in 10 years and people might look back upon it fondly. Gaming has always been progressive. Origins was progressive for its time, and I look back on that fondly. The difference was that game didn't push its agenda in your face, but it was just a characteristic of certain NPC's.

[@armandoriosfragoso6726]

Okay, but what about the entire sci-fi genre ? It is built on what the future might be, techologically and socially.

[@braydoxastora5584]

Other option is that you get lucky a couple times like Hideo Kojima

[@BlazingOwnager]

What he's saying goes beyond games. There's a lot of TV shows that will be absolutely bafflingly insane in twenty years when nobody remembers the orange man anymore. Every single one of them had to do an allegory and it's terrible.

[@dominicsc9225]

How come you were okay with putting the us usual call box? Just curious

[@CainOnGames]

I am not sure what you mean by "us usual call box"?

[@dominicsc9225]

@ I always fall victim to auto correct I meant “the unusual call box”

[@CainOnGames]

@dominicsc9225 Are you referring to the call box in the Fallout special encounter?

[@dominicsc9225]

@@CainOnGames yes! I always thought it was a reference to Dr who. It might be different that what you were talking about because it’s a special encounter instead of the “actual” game

[@CainOnGames]

@@dominicsc9225Yes, it was a reference to Dr. Who. Someone else put it into the game, but I considered all of the special encounters to be somewhat joking and not serious like the rest of the game.

[@iiropeltonen]

Are you involved with Bloodlines 2 at all?

[@CainOnGames]

I am not.

[@pretzelthedude]

Mon-oh-poll-ist-tick. I have GOT to start pronouncing it like that 👍.

[@nicholasblay8343]

tell this to Hideo Kojima with the MGS2 ending 😀

[@Suvitruf]

But, Tim, sci-fi/cyberpunk games are about predicting the feature. And they still great 🤔

[@Bababoey3333]

Wouldn't something made to be very contemporary end up retroactively becoming a historical period piece? GTA 4 captures the late 00s perfectly, and GTA V captures the 2013s

[@FrigoCoder]

What if retro future with hilarious predictions is the goal of my game?

[@pacman1187]

Now the cultural change could be affected by the political views, especially in the west where the people from left and right literally talk so different.

[@leandersearle5094]

Or the other option is to be okay with being wrong.

[@quatreraberbawinner2628]

Far be it from me to question your expertise, but i d disagree, i think most art is made for the time and place in which it was conceived, making something that lasts shouldn't even be a consideration in most circumstances, making something that is timeless is incidental one of my favorite TV shows is the original twilight zone, and one of the things that i find endearing about that show is how anachronistic it is, it's not trying to be timeless but in a way thats what makes it so good Edit: you know someone who has worked on so much retro future games should understand this

[@TheStowAway594]

I think the original Dues Ex did a good job.

[@stevenkent5351]

Not to be political but the “modern audiences” game design is going to be looked back on as the dark ages of Videogames.

[@DichotomousRex]

What the fuck does video game design have to do with politics Politicians chase trends, we don't imitate politicians... politics aren't why this happened, this happened and then politicians talked about it...

[@Thecompanioncrate]

There's nothing wrong with something being a product of the time in which it was made: Visions of the future which represent the zeitgeistof the time in which they were made. Arguably fallouts retro-futurism is built off that, even if there is a lore explanation for how it came to be instead of being wrong. I will admit if you miss the mark and don't have a convenient lore explanation then it does date something, but graphics will do that anyways.

[@RaoulGigondas]

I'm not siding with Tim on this one. No one is saying "oh man, 1984/Blade Runner/2001/Deus Ex is so irrelevant because the future they predicted didn't happen."

[@wesss9353]

We bought Big Brother and we willingly gave up our privacy to Big Tech.

[@mattc7420]

You really get all your opinions from pre-2000's media?

[@drjones694]

At 1st I thought you were talking about overwatch 2 But love the phone reference so true and answering machines lol

[@adamcampbell6094]

Tim, you get that shirt at walmart??

[@thomasbayer1843]

@ 7:48 To the future people, or anyone for that matter: there's only been 2 genders, male and female, since Moses wrote in Genesis ch.1, about 1500BCE. And he was writing about events that were 1500 years old at that time, aka 4000BCE. Unless you've bioengineered humans into some Star Trek sci-fi species, I guess.

[@Zeroground300]

Good thing that Moses was just making shit up. The biblical age of the Earth was a best guess by some medieval moron duped into a cult. God isn't real and the Earth is 4.5 billion years old.

[@wesss9353]

There is that whole intersex spectrum. Where the chromosome are mutated. And don't trust a book that was written by people who didn't know were the Sun went after it went down on the horizon.