Fallout co-creator says players nowadays are 'handed an opinion from the online channel they’re watching' — 'They find someone they just like, and then that person’s opinion becomes their opinion'

"More and more people seem to be abdicating their own judgment to that of people they see online"

News By Demi Williams published 5 May 2026

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• Fallout co-creator Timothy Cain says some players adopt their opinions from the influencers they watch
• Cain says players don't form their own opinion and "look to influencers to be told how to think about the games"
• The veteran developer adds that he's "concerned" about the future of video game discourse

Timothy Cain, the co-creator of Fallout and the co-developer of The Outer Worlds, has shared his opinion on online discourse and how some players can't form their own opinion about games anymore.

Speaking in a new video titled 'How The Internet Changed Game Design' on his own YouTube channel, Cain discussed how gaming critique has changed over the years in response to a subscriber asking how social media and live streaming have changed game design (via VGC).

The developer began by suggesting that some developers design their games with social media clips in mind, specifically how the big moments, like cinematics, would appear to the player who is streaming the game and the audience.

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"Many designers like myself, we frequently thought: 'Well, how is a certain event in the game going to look like when someone’s playing it live or recording themselves playing it to put up as a stream?'" Cain said. "We thought about cinematics. We thought about end bosses. We thought about unusual weapons you could get.

"And because of that, we wanted it to look really good in video. And that was one reason particle effects became a big thing, because you didn’t just want to go 'boom'. You wanted a big explosion, and you wanted it to be pretty and colourful and all these things, especially in a clip because people will see that on some channel where someone’s talking about the game, and they see that clip, and now they really want to play the game."

Cain continued, saying developers are now thinking about their games like how they think about interviews with media, explaining that they would need to come up with sound bites for quotes that would generate interest in the game.

"When you went into an interview, you were like 'Okay, I got to have some sound bites ready, so when I get quoted, I want to make sure the sound bites are quoted'. Now it’s like ‘what part of our game would make good clips for influencers to show?’," he explained.

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