Destroy everything you have on Fallout's development, Interplay told creator
1 min read
Summary
Tim Cain, the creator of Fallout, has revealed that after he left the company, Interplay approached him to ask if he still had the development archives they had previously ordered him to destroy.
Cain reveals that the reasoning behind the loss was either that “no-one thought to keep it”, that people wanted to “keep their things private”, or that there were “a lot of organisations out there that demand to be the archive keeper, and then they do a terrible job at it.”
Among the items lost to poor archiving included the GURPS code, original artwork and clay heads used to animate conversations.
The Councillor for the Video Game History Foundation, Frank Cifaldi, commented last year that whilst no one is against the idea of video game preservation, companies and shareholders are against the idea of not making a profit, and it’s a technical black hole that costs a lot to port a game.
However, there is an uptick in companies making more of an effort, with Playstation using mineshafts to store old copies of Crash Bandicoot, and Deus Ex creator Warren Spector engaged in his own preservation efforts.
