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 advocated that the gaming industry should learn from bad games, not just successful ones. In a recent video, Cain argued that publishers and gamers alike frequently overlook valuable lessons from failures, instead focusing exclusively on what makes popular titles successful.
Cain observed that when gamers praise popular games and demand “more of that,” they often lack understanding of which specific elements actually drove those games’ success. Similarly, publishers rarely analyze their failures to extract meaningful insights. This tunnel vision on success creates a learning gap across the industry.
Drawing inspiration from author Alan Moore’s observation that negative examples can be more instructive than classics, Cain positioned bad games as underutilized teaching tools. His perspective challenges both the gaming community and industry decision-makers to examine what doesn’t work as seriously as what does, potentially leading to more informed creative and business decisions.