Fallout Creator Says The Series Isn't A Critique Of Capitalism, Despite Fan Opinions

Summary

• Fallout critiques humanity's greed and war tendencies, not specifically capitalism.
• Tim Cain's video argues consumer behaviour influences and shapes capitalism.
• Cain is fine with players taking away their own individual perspectives from his work.

Fallout has always seemed like a critique of humanity's baser instincts and the economic greed of superpowers like the United States. It paints a picture that war is inevitable as humans constantly strive for more power and resources. The Sino-American war that sparked the nuclear fallout was a conflict over Earth's scarce resources, after all.

You would think that the world of Fallout is inherently a critique of the overconsumption, consumerism and greed typically associated with capitalist economic systems, however, according to series co-creator Tim Cain, that was never the point.

Capitalism Never Changes

Cain released a video entitled 'Capitalism' on his channel. In the video, Cain offers the viewpoint that consumer and employee behaviour has helped shape capitalism, essentially saying that people should live by their principles if they want change. This argument ignores key systemic and societal factors that take agency away from the consumer, but Cain provided a balanced argument and offered anecdotal examples from his own experiences.

A commenter pointed out that profit-seeking entities will always try to squeeze profit out of the consumer, and that they felt this was one of the themes of the Fallout series. Cain disagreed, replying that Fallout was never aimed at critiquing one economic system.

"Critique of capitalism was never the point of Fallout," Cain wrote. "In fact, the game went out of its way to mention that other countries like China were also behaving terribly. If anything, Fallout is a comment that war is inevitable given basic human nature."

Cain followed up by saying "Fallout is a comment that war is inevitable given basic human nature." He then says there isn't any singular theme that runs through all of his work, and that he completely respects that people take away individual perspectives from different stories. Fallout may not have been formulated with anti-capitalism in mind, but it's fine that people have picked out that theme from it.

You can tell from the video that spawned this discussion that Cain doesn't hold strong anti-capitalist sentiment, as he connects greed and consumption to human nature and behaviour, rather than the economic system. Fallout (and Cain) are correct about one thing - war never changes.

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