Damian C. Music

One of Fallout’s fathers returns to the wasteland

Brian Fargo likes to tell a story about his dealings with a game publisher, a nasty episode that took place a few years back.

As head of development house InXile, he was making a game under contract for the publisher. “They wanted us to hit a certain date,” he says. “But they had made a bunch of changes. It wasn’t possible. They sent a guy down to our office while I was out of town promoting the game. The guy comes into the office and tells my people, ‘Hey we need to move the date. If you don’t figure it out, we’ll shut this company down.’ He came in and threatened to fire all my employees while I was away.”

Fargo made his outrage known to the publisher. “I called them and said, get that guy out of my office. I’m not having another meeting until you kick that person out of my office.”

“When TED speaker ShaoLan Hsueh tried to teach her children Chinese, she realized just how hard it is for new learners to grasp. So she created a series of illustrations to make the beautiful, often complex characters easier to remember.”