December 1st, 2020 Livestream

Special Guest: Tim (Part 1)

https://youtu.be/5GPbmhX0Eno

Topics

• Embracer Group > Coffee Stain Holding > Coffee Stain Publishing
• Special Guests
• Coffee Stainers > Tim

Transcript

yeah but without further ado we have a we have a special guest joining us today yes shall I do the introductions yes do it man all right his name's tim that's it no all right so okay so we want to yeah so our guest today is his name is tim tim badalak and he is someone who's been working with coffee stain specifically cover stem publishing but then has been working with us basically on satisfactory almost like I think almost exclusive absolutely I don't know we'll find out when we talk to him because I don't know what he really did but he worked a lot with me, on the community side of things so, one of the he's he's leaving coffee stain so that's sad it's that time let's make sure to shame him real hard when he shows up yeah no he's leaving and but it- I want him to meet you all because, he never wants to be public facing he never wanted to be in front of a camera or anything like that but like everything that has happened within our community tim has been involved in as well so it's I think it would be a shame for him to leave without you guys getting to meet him so I think without further ado let us, why is he leaving because we don't pay him enough that's why yeah that's what the problem is so let's, let's bring in tim welcome tim mr tim vadillac hello hello welcome to this madness that's in the chat for tim everyone say hello to tim justin timberland, oh yeah how many how many nicknames tim blake just just tim timberlake, we got a lot of f's in the chat yes yes so tim's sitting there like only one more hour of jace just one more hour I can enjoy this it's like getting a shot yeah the final stretch yeah thanks for having me on super nice thank you thank you so much like- I mean it like I really appreciate you coming on because I know you you really like I tried to get you in videos a lot over the years and, you never wanted to but, and that's fine but I really appreciate that yeah you still came on today I was afraid you were gonna bail but you did thank you so so speaking of that your first stream ever so I'm, this is your first stream ever yeah right this is a special moment everyone popping that cherry it's very weird talking to a wall yeah yeah you're used to it you're talking to get used to it so so yeah let's let's do a little bit of like highlight reel here for for tim like oh yeah you put together highlight reel yeah so I put together a highlight reel of all the great moments we've had with tim because tim has been there all the time, but we also want to kind of highlight some of the nice memories we have with him so here we go

[Music]

you're american right you're not american

[Music]

okay ah that's it it's been a bit of fun like two years or something tim yeah yeah only managed to capture you once yeah I completely forgot about that but yeah no but like tim's been in the background like all the time like you've been pulling the stream strings if anything the mastermind it's all downhill from here yes yeah yeah, so like what's up what's what's like so like we'll see I've got some questions here you know to drive the conversation because I'm a professional, so like what what what did you do exactly because I know I know what you did no because I know what we did but why were you even working with me at all like what what do you do right yeah like it started with me I guess I was part of founding like the publishing arm of of coffee stand so I started working with like I come from development I worked as a 3d artist in some aaa games and, yeah we started the the publishing thing at confessing and I focused like my first year I focused on helping like getting deeper galactic on the game you you were talking [ __ ] about before yeah they're eleven maybe every stream, helping them get out on early access and then after that I kind of joined satisfactory and it started with anton asking me to kind of like like ant on the ceo like, maybe you should look at the art production or help help out looking at what's what you're producing like see if there's anything we can do to make things go better I don't know, yeah kind of started there and then, suddenly a couple of months later- I think I became the or one of the producers of the game I think, that's one of the reasons I didn't really want to take spotlights as well is it's been a very weird role I was I've been a I've been a fixer, but it was never the intention for me to to stay, to stay like in the development team so it felt, strange but then you ended up staying almost like were years yeah yeah yeah a temporary fixer helper yeah a fixer in chat look if I see as er very nice it's funny because like one of my first memories of tim was before I even know who you were because when I when I got interviewed for the job I was talking to another producer and then I remember I was talking to jace in between before I said yes or something and then I'm like I think I'm gonna I'm thinking I'm gonna join coffin staying like and then I heard that oh she's not working here anymore I'm like what the [ __ ] who's going to be producer and I asked jace like who's going to be producing jason I don't [ __ ] know some dude yeah yeah turned out turned out to be a stand-up guy yeah tim thanks thanks, I mean to be clear- I worked very closely with burke, as well I don't know how to pronounce his name billy bird sure I said burke nobody knows, yeah cause cause you you jumped on when was it for the reveal trailer or did you jump on before the reveal trailer was kind of before that, it was a strange time when, I think there was a lot of division like in terms of what to do with the game yeah I'm not sure from your point of view but for some people it was a bit of a rut, at that time in development like it hap it happens quite naturally in some games like that you you work out for so long and you can't really see the the end of it and I came in as like a fresh pair of eyes with a new perspective on it, so I kind of like, I think at the time we planned to do like a full release, the next six six months or something from when I joined and I kind of convinced people surely but slowly that there were some people that thought that should be the case in the beginning that we should do like early access and we should yeah I really believed in in that so I latched on to that to talk to people and kind of, yeah kind of recruited people on on that bandwagon then we decided to do like yeah we should do early access and then we got opportunities to like oh [ __ ] we can do a e3 thing do we want to do that so then like yes yeah so we had like six weeks, to to kind of come up with the reveal trailer which was kind of stressful but then you only had six weeks is that how quickly you guys did it I'm pretty sure, I can't look back yeah I'm pretty sure it's, it's around six weeks that's really quick, which is kind of like because a lot of people were deep in development and there was not a lot of people I thought about like marketing stuff like how to how how are we actually going to communicate what this this game is yeah, by the way I don't know if you knew this but a couple months ago that trailer hit one million views yeah I saw I saw I look at it every morning every morning it's it's time driving you've watched it a million times yeah yeah probably I mean you must have like while working on it feels like yeah yeah yeah exactly yeah so that's one of the weird things as well I've been I've been doing, it's like a producer is it's a it's been a weird role in in coffee stain because it's been yeah like I said doing a lot of things, different things I think trailer making has probably been one of the most fun times, you found that to be fun I'm glad to hear that yeah I mean it was extremely stressful and yeah late nights but I think the, the the people that were in the like making the trailers together and I don't know also special special pond they they worked out really well because so this is this is one of those things you guys that I wanted to, you know you guys need to be tim for is because people say a lot of really good things about our trailers we get a lot of love for them and they're great right especially me I love them is there is actually there is actually this thing where every time tim shows me a trailer I don't like it like genuinely I hate every single one of the trailers that he shows me and then I'm wrong 100 of the time, objectively, yeah but, but yeah tim tim is like one of the the biggest like driving forces of those because you're essentially what were you basically the director of each trailer I suppose, I would say more like spider in the webs it's been a definitely a group effort yeah yeah yeah yeah so you know of course there's like if you take one of many any and we need everyone on board but like what I'm trying to say is timmy played a really huge part like like- I don't know how to sort of convey that the trailers are what that they are, like so this is because of youtube but but like you played a huge part basically yeah thanks- I like this trailer if it's the like the flying jetpack trailer yeah I don't know even what it's called like the yeah that was actually, that was a completely different trailer and then we cut it and we I did a quick recap at like 1 30 in the morning and then show the team like shouldn't we do this and they're like yeah okay what did jay say he hated it of course he hit it oh we didn't even consult you it's at this point- I admit that bit defeat yeah just so people know that there's a cut version of that trailer that's something that we should I like how tim like as he exits the company he's lost horizons all about like you just sent me a link like check this hard drive or like this like is that the, it comes from an email address not tim gmail.com gee I wonder who this is from status gate yeah, yeah it sounded like I was going to say something there but I just wanted to agree yeah yeah yes yeah that's, that's something that, I've, I've wondered a lot about is, yeah like you know because you're always there until late at work right and we're always like we're not supposed to do overtime but you guys but then every time I go to the office at night like maybe I'm not drinking it I go to pick up my bag from the office tim's there at the office and he's either just working or playing games why would you always do that tim why are you shaming me I was gonna say like is this a shaming moment just asking I mean like- I actually enjoyed it a lot I it's like, like we don't do overtime or crunch sometimes it happens, of course like it's it's hard to completely avoid like when if people are dependent on you or they're expecting something and for them to be able to make their deadline or whatever it can put a lot of pressure on people and it happens time to time but I know for me it was, like I was working on the on the on the on the game in terms of working with all the different teams, like reviewing stuff that was done in the game and helping to define things we needed to do and then the trailer stuff and a lot of the trailer stuff was after hours because I don't know how to make trailers I just did it all night sorry I got distracted by my door closing that's fine classic can you take it go online because I was doing some kind of behind the scenes stuff too so I also missed the last part oh no okay so so what are you doing here tim no, I feel the same way because like I used to do that as well at, my previous employment where me and dylan would use to like hang out as late as we could and play games yeah, it was weird though like it was it was at a point tim where if I ever went to the office outside of hours I knew you'd be there and that was busy so one really funny anecdote though is I have I have like a I'm scared of like turning on the alarm when I leave so I try to never be the last person at the office which is really like it's easy for me because I do the commuting thing so I'm never there late but sometimes if we're like doing like if I'm equipped and we're having like a party or something I'll legit like oh [ __ ] I need to go back to the office I'll legit like tim can you go with the office can you come with me to the office and oh my god turn off the alarm every single time he's done it wow such a sweetheart but, do you remember correctly that I've put the alarm on top of you jace if that's how you would say it, that's not how you would say it you would say you you set the alarm like while I was there yes correct yeah yeah thank you yeah yeah and yeah yes yeah it was [ __ ] loud wow yeah I'm sorry that was really funny yeah, tim is the stand-up producer no one knows he's there but his impacts can be seen absolutely yeah that's definitely the case, so let's see here, but I mean if we're talking about trailers should we talk about the update 3 trailer yeah for sure yeah we should talk about that so because that's legendary well yeah it is it is I actually liked that trailer when I saw it the movie is that the first one I think that was the only one that I've liked, they all grow on me by the way guys all right I like them all now but I didn't know in the beginning but, yeah okay so yeah what was okay well yeah what was it like basically making working on that trailer with the I suppose you know the the meme was was armed and at the ready you know the pipes meme right, yeah that was that was a weird time, it's a lot of pressure on everyone I think because we decided to to make the update 3 secret because of the pipes meme I don't know if it felt pretty like from a concept making the trade was it was kinda smooth in in terms of, like we decided quite quickly on on the direction together with like the the group of people the christopher animator and you became the art director at the time and yeah and the yeah the main part was like how could we make pipes into something extremely awesome and we were looking at a bunch of reference material and yeah at some point we we figured out that what if we make pipes into kind of a superhero thing and what if we make this into the most hypey type trailer we've ever done a lot of inspiration from like the smash bros announcement like this segment especially oh yeah that's true so it's like, some some subtle references, or some things we stole there we go subtle references but yeah I think this turned out great was awesome to work on yeah it was so fun and that we had a really hard time coming up with the last, like the actual reveal and I was watching at the the crown the netflix series and the intro had this kind of weird shape of the crown going like growing like this shot here it's or like the pipe reveal yeah that's that's that's what I stole from from that intro like when the crown is being shaped we call it the like the pipe cthulhu yeah it's coming from another dimension and we yeah but I think like one little easter egg that people I don't think people have seen is, something in the something in the visor I'm not sure if people seen that oh really is there something in the video wait I haven't heard this let's not I don't think we should reveal it yeah yeah there's some shots there's something in the visor I don't know interesting ah, so like do you do you remember where you were when we revealed it oh yeah I was sitting, together with, johannes the studio manager at the time, that was, that was [ __ ] amazing that was probably one of the highlights was because we worked so hard on that and the funny thing I mean christopher that was like doing the final cuts and edits of it, we wanted to cut it like we felt we felt like it was so [ __ ] because we worked so hard on it and at some point everything just looks like [ __ ] and like this sunday night we were doing the final render and we did it like a test showing to mark and and g2 all the time but they were like they were so silent so we were like we were doubting ourselves yeah and, but mark seemed to be blown away and g2 is kind of a silent man he said like good, he said like good stuff I was like okay how do we interpret this yeah but then we talked ourselves out of it that we we can't we can't cut this we need to show it to the team yeah and we need to have something for that tuesday yeah yeah no it was good and the reaction was crazy yeah like so snoop put the, yeah he's got the chat reaction there yeah, that was that was bonkers yeah it was like it was such a good moment that was probably I would say maybe the highlight of my that or the first launch, and actually we could talk about that then what was it, so okay you because you're on the publishing side of things one thing we can sort of talk about is, obviously you know there's the you know when a game is launched you never know what people are going to think but you're on the publishing side of things so you're also like somewhat ingrained into I guess the business side of things too, and that was also at a time when we really are released on epic exclusive exclusively so how did you feel within that big, mess of the situation and that release what was it like for you when we finally released the game and you may not steal more on epic like the very first time right first time yeah I mean it's that whole situation was a bit weird I think like as developers we we see epic you know extremely positive light, I think especially coffee stain and coffee stains history, so we were kind of weirded out about all the negative comments about exclusivity like because when we made that, when we made that deal we felt like we've secured like we're gonna be able to make the game we want to make no matter what that was like the priority yeah I think yeah so it kind of took me by surprise at least which feels like maybe we're a little bit out of touch of the, what people thought but at the same time I think it was it was it was good for the game, it was good for the team and, in the end we we listened and, we went out on steam so yeah yeah so it's a weird time but it was awesome to launch it and and the whole like nine copies it was kind of funny

[Laughter]

I remember I remember like someone from epic emailing me and saying like ah there's a rumor just remember that they only sold one like nine copies, shouldn't you, tell them otherwise and you're like, I was like oh [ __ ] but then, I think there was yeah there was another guy at epic that was like responded, pretty quickly on that I said like, oh that's just the coffee stain he's like ah all right just doing our thing, but like when at what point did you realize because I mean it was very successful like on our launch and at what point did you realize that it was successful because before the game comes out like you can never really know as a game developer like you can you can make a good game and no one buys it right, you can make a [ __ ] game people do buy it as you can see with our game, but at what point did you realize wait this is actually gonna work out you know, I think it was the I think it was the alpha weekend I think we gave out all the keys to everyone that signed up and lets people stream, until that point I didn't really know how it's how it was gonna go, yeah but but I think at that point it was like okay nice we made a good game that's that's scary huh like because we worked like what like three years at that point on the game or something like that and it wasn't until then that we actually knew oh people will actually buy it and we'll actually recoup the money we spent and hopefully make a profit so we can keep functioning as a company like yeah that's quite a leap of faith yeah it is for sure I think, it definitely helped doing like the closed alpha and I like getting people's like the the amount of feedback we got, it was really good yeah I think really like those those couple of months where we have the closed alpha was really valuable to kind of making sure that the like our intentions with the game came through when we actually launched, but yeah there's some stuff that I wish we had like of course like the it felt a little bit shitty, when we like we didn't think the trains were like good enough where they weren't working but we launched anyways even though we showed them before and stuff but we tried our hardest to get them those the things that we kind of promised this yeah out as fast as possible you know you know k states but do we still have a lot of work to do or like you guys have I don't know well I don't know I just made I just make youtube videos yeah we just, make shitty content yeah yeah no but yeah it was amazing the the best thing I've ever done is definitely like helping, confiscate with satisfactory, for sure yeah well that's good I think it's, helped us a lot I think so too yes I concur like most humans do no yeah we're lucky like yeah because you had your hand in a lot of different things and you made a difference in many different areas of development so it's pretty bonkers actually how much you know about like literally every aspect of game development so that you can go everywhere and actually have meaningful input in literally every part of the team, it's kind of bonkers actually, so another thing that looking at my questions here so here's something okay, so when we started working together doing things we had different approaches as to how we would want to do things publicly tim you and I yeah we had we had differences you're talking community management now right or anything public facing so yeah so tim tim wasn't like a community manager like you know like you're kind of like a producer right but you were also like with the publishing team so you're kind of like the publisher as well and you know and then as a and then I'm a community manager who wants to do my community management my way I want it my way and then tim's gonna come in and deal with [ __ ], but we have very different approaches I think in the beginning but I think, and we sort of butt heads a lot in the beginning but then we and then we we didn't and it worked out really well I think I think we yeah sorry no going on, yeah I think we proved to each other like our different I don't know different ways of doing things when when they work and when they don't so I think we figured out together we just came from different places yeah I agree I think it was sort of like a like a trust thing you know we we we filled two different voids, like two different spaces of of how you can do things and we just have to trust each other that the other person really didn't know what they were doing, and that it was effective, some of the times so that you know like when we came to each other that we could actually reel each other in kind of thing, I think that was pretty good but yeah like after that it became really easy because I think your your perspective was really valuable like like everything that you knew were big areas that I didn't know so it was super nice having your input and then, my willingness to just do whatever even if it's in the public eye I think also helped a lot as well like yeah like I was always I was always willing to be like if people get mad at us for this that's okay yeah exactly I think you you helped me you helped me see jace open your eyes yeah chase fills the void asmr yeah all right I think like you you really helped me you really helped me see that like that entertaining is the most important thing I'm not sure if you agree but but that's at least my take away from it that it's like, like you want to be part of this community if it's fun to be part of the community like if we're if we're to try hard and if we if if we take everything too seriously, it's not the fun yeah yeah yeah that's pretty much that's pretty much it, but yeah- I but I the thing is I was really lucky though that it was that I got to work with with you on it though because I know that it's I think it's so so much easier but this is the whole publishing side of coffee stain in general actually is you guys are you guys do not fit what, your your what if you were to imagine your typical publisher or publishing person you guys don't fit that like you guys are just you're just like normal people who are like really funny and are willing to do stupid things whereas I think a lot of other, publishers or not just necessary publishers but business people whatever would be to want to be too safe I guess, yeah- I think the the publishing team is is is great at coffee stain like it's a it's a group of game developers that don't wanna like yeah they wanna focus on the the business and and, like the aspect of making more games in the future yeah like helping others making games as well so I don't know it doesn't come it's quite natural when it's not the group of people with suits or whatever like it's it's actually developers and people that play games want to make more games yeah it's good [ __ ] yeah, so I want to talk to you about, the alpha key release period and also like simon saga so, what what what was your memory of that time like like what do you, my memory of that is that that we like some of us felt that it was too early to show certain stuff up from the game and that we wanted to work more on it, and we basically blocked you like we we basically took away all your content and said make content yeah like we made this empty space, which where you kind of maybe were expecting that we would show more stuff but maybe we were too but we're kind of like, being paranoid about it in the beginning, for better or worse, yeah that's that's how I remember it yeah was that where the simon saga thing was born from the fact that we couldn't show in-game stuff or no no so simon saga came from the fact that we had a large following on youtube already from goat simulator right so when when I took over as community manager we had like 45 000 subs on youtube or something like that, and so I thought well if we're gonna be putting out news online I wanna I wanna do it like if we're gonna give keys out I wanna do it where we have everyone so that's gonna be all the social media platforms but including youtube and at that time in order to do that you would have to make a video, I don't think they had the community posts but even if they did like I'd still want to do that in a big way where everyone on youtube who subscribed to us can see it so that's why I thought well I'm gonna make videos, for the alpha keys but, I also have to remember that we had to do them quickly because there's the rest of my job that I had to do as well, so the simon sagas were supposed to be this really quick questions quick videos, and that's why there was sort of you know we worked within this I was just watching stream goddammit simon there's a runescape in the background and we have to we have to work within a very small time period to try and, get it get it done so that's where simon saga came from that's beautiful and I would I remember like every monday morning tim is it monday mornings we would have our meetings yeah yeah yeah and we would just be talking about like how many keys are we going to give away what you know ideas of the simon saga and then we all also had the second video which would be like the wednesday content or whatever that we would put out as well so it was like every monday morning that's kind of how it would be or something like that yeah it's an amazing production you should, sell it on dvd the dvd box set one dvd per video put it on put it on cd wrong yeah nice fix it I love it I love I love how like those weird constraints kind of let you that you guys were so, absolutely creative with it and, did something absolutely unique well there's mark also oh they can't see it right yeah I kind of derailed the the question though no it's fine yeah I'm, my brain's a little frazzled so I'm I'm struggling here a little bit but it's, mark mark survived mark's the only survivor yeah okay so what is your what is your favorite moment wow, in in life you know in coffee stain, and I think even with all the ups and downs I think one of the strongest is probably gonna be releasing update three trailer I think the the first e3 trailer was similar but we were kind of out of the blue we were super happy that people got what we were doing and what we wanted to do with the game, and the people got hyped for it but I think that in the end update three felt like this present to like, yeah to our community like or to everyone that was interested and like hyped about what upd3 would be and it felt like even if some people would, saw it coming- I don't think the people expected us to push that hard so- I that's probably gonna be my favorite moment yeah- I yeah I think so as well it's like it's either that or like I have another pretty particular experience of when when we actually launched the game, I know when we revealed the game rather, that was probably my other big thing where discord flooded and [ __ ] like that, but but yeah apart from that it would probably be update three, and that really was an update and and even even the trailer itself right the trailer was was not targeted at new people it was targeted to like you people who are watching right now it was a weird like the whole update and trailer was was straight back to the community basically it was geared towards existing community, which is cool this is doggo yeah this is not that this is not the reveal trailer but this is the one before right for everyone this one I was actually not involved in at all this was this is me I did this one yeah you did this one yeah pretty good animating jace the animation yeah but it was, yeah I like this one too this is where liza doggo got his name yeah the the in-house name for this dog is still like shrimpy yeah yeah space shrimp or something yeah space shrimp okay so what what do you mean by farewell to tim so tim is leaving you guys or tim has left he's gone he doesn't exist I'm already left yeah as of like last week or something like he's dead to me yeah so say bye to tim yeah your auto focus is like next level 10 by the way it's going back and forth is there a way to like lock the focus on your webcam or something I don't know I think it's part of this all right who cares all right anyway yeah this is perfect this is you know what you're tuned in for chat this is the team experience yeah all right so so what was the worst moment tim every monday that's really hard, that's what she I think that's I don't know I can't really think of anything I'm generally a very positive guy for for better words I have a hard time remembering like ah this was a really shitty moment well sorry I played the fifth the answer is playing working with chase opportunity for jokes

[Laughter]

I take things too seriously that's my problem yeah we didn't this isn't an interview where we're asking for your you know what's your biggest weakness my weakness is that I work too oh yeah dude I love that yeah I'm such a perfectionist yeah I try too much I just I just try too much I want everything my weakness is that I over achieve oh pretty much someone's saying grandpappy tim daddy like you gotta call him daddy lucky daddy tim daddy like yeah, if tim is leaving you have a new producer coming in or someone moving up so tim has been, producing, been produced alongside of burke who's you know been there the whole time as well so it's been the two of them, but we also got another our qa manager yuzu, is also now a producer, slash qa manager so yes yeah I think, like, including update three sorry what's the comment here my weakness is that I have a short temper with colleagues that's just that's so pretty that's that's too real I'm sorry go ahead I don't know I was talking about something about, oh yeah mark the the game director I think he is like they're doing an awesome job yeah I think one one important thing to note out is like whenever maybe when people maybe see like oh this person's leaving or whatever like this is this is commonplace at any gamedev job really like like, what's the word the thing that you take care of, what responsibility my god my brain was like like responsibility shift like non-stop, and that's no different that coffee stain so like even if like there's already been a bunch of changes that govern while we were working on satisfactory which probably people haven't noticed even like me and you snuck yeah well we were programmers and not anymore yeah what a [ __ ] okay that's about maybe something that people noticed was worse but,

[Laughter]

so this is like it's all part of part of life yeah tim looks like the kind of guy that's going places yeah from zion war very nice, places okay so what other things were you involved with so you helped that with deep rock you said yep did you do anything else nope nope that it can talk about I guess that you can talk about yeah I guess maybe not but, yeah from like, 2018 I was the like the ceo of publishing as well so I was involved in in everything we did on the publishing side as well even though at the time was a it was a weird period where I was focusing mainly on satisfactory but but you're also doing publishing stuff for everything else at the same time yeah yeah but of course we've been like a team and, like for every every project we've had like a producer type person, from like the coffee style that's been involved in in making the games and and ever since I focused on on satisfactory albert who's the the new ceo he focused on on the april galactic like post the early access, launch, but yeah ghost ship games, it's a really awesome awesome crew yeah they're right, check them out they're also in the top 10 of this 20 20 steam release games rated yeah they're actually one percent better than us when I saw steve you don't have to you don't have to go there dude we could have just you could have left it there yeah yeah honestly yeah doesn't work here anymore just like going to shamelessness just drag us through the way oh my god, yes yeah this is update for update four is tim's leaving

[Laughter]