The Bethesda-Hate Phenomenon

I can't speak for others - but hate is certainly too strong a word, even at the worst of times for my part.

That said, I think if I *hate* something, it's the simple fact that mainstream gaming dominates. Not because I think casual gamers are "less worthy" - but because I think serving their needs almost exclusively is very unfortunate - and not actually what (most) developers would want to do, if the reality of the industry didn't force their hand.

I loathe money as THE goal and materialism in general - because I firmly believe it's one of the core problems of our entire race and world society.

Now, that might sound "out there" when talking about this "hate" - but it's necessary to understand the background for the kind of feeling I'm talking about.

Looking at Bethesda, I see a lot of decent/normal people. They have the means, and they have ambitious goals. I don't think they're particularly competent - but they're certainly doing stuff that very few others are doing. When you put together dozens - if not hundreds - of people with a ton of experience doing a few things, and you hand them all the resources they need - I actually EXPECT greatness. Anything less is just not too impressive, from my point of view. So, I can't exactly "love" them either.

So, I simply look at the end-result without any kind of hatred on a personal level. Since I do care a great deal about the human mind and how it works, I can't help but analyze the prominent figures - like Todd Howard - but it's not about any kind of dislike. It's simply about me wanting to understand how he arrives at the decisions, and where I differ from him in terms of what will make the best game vs the best product.

Unfortunately, I can't help but think about games in terms of POTENTIAL. The TES games are among those with the MOST potential. That's why I truly dislike - or even hate - when they're developed with money/popularity in mind. Not because I don't understand it - and not because I blame the people involved. I hate it because I don't think the world needs to be like that. So it stems from something much higher - and it has almost nothing to do with Bethesda and their games. It's just another example of how beauty/art/benefit gets distorted based on greed and materialism.

TheMadGamer said:

I feel the same way. I've always thought of it in my mind as 'top dog syndrome.' Top Dog Syndrome basically means that whoever is the 'top dog' of anything will be hated by a lot of people simply because of being the 'top dog.' You could swap out say Donald Trump with someone else to take his place as a top player in real-estate and that person will be equally despised.

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This sounds very logical to me.

In my case, for example, I hate all of the overly big fantasy story writers.

Last Saturday, I was visiting two book shops.

When I looked at the shelves, I thought that "everything was dominated by a few hugely succsessful writers" and the word "monoculture" popped up into my head.

There are a lot of other books, but the book shops of course whant to make profits - so they tendto sell those who have already been successful - simply because "the public" knows them so well.

Books that aren't know so well aren't knon o produce high proits, which as a result means they are not sold and marketed as much as the best-selling books do.

"Those who [already] have, those will be given [even more9", says a German proverb.

In terms of capitalism this means : The evolution/development always goes after the ones with the biggest success.

In the book shops this means : The books that already sell increadibly well are also marketed incredibly well - so that the already good selling will be increased by marketing into best selling.

On the other hand, this also means that smaller authors - no matter how good (or how bad) are "squeezed out" by this very process.

This reminds me of Tucker's cars.

Or of Microsoft "squeezing out" other DOSses, or OS/2.

"Those who already have, those will be given even more."

In terms of games this means that the already big companies have SO MUCH money to spend (into the developments of games) that they are able to cateer the wishes of the masses (great graphics, this in the first place) much, much, much, much, much better than let's say independent developers.

So, as the result, the big companies become even bigger. Like crystals growing. They even manage to dissolve other crystals and add that to themselves.

This is almot like a natural law.

And I just don't like this Monopoly.

Bethesda and BioWare both tend to make people overreact, both in terms of love and hate. It's quite natural given their position, similar to Apple and Microsoft.

I think "hate" is a very strong word - I do not hate any developers - my feelings towards publishers and their meddling ways are somewhat different ;-) I was initially taken in by the graphical glory of Oblivion - but after awhile the irritating features (level scaling, poor story, humdrum quests, repetitive dungeons etc) started to become very apparent. Then I was disappointed. I do understand that money ultimately determines what's achievable in today's AAA RPGs' but I just found Oblivion became blander with time… unless heavily modded. I can still enjoyed exploring (unmodded) Morrowind, despite its age and questionable mechanics. As for Todd Howard - I do think he spouts some really questionable justifications for changes at times - but I realize he has no choice: the people who pull the strings will only support a game they think will have mass appeal and make many $$$

JemyM said:

…
Despite the radiant AI, there was almost no social realm. No culture differences between cities, no NPC's to care for, no companions. I quickly ended up feeling alone. Spending a moment thinking on the games by Bioware, Obsidian and Bioware my brain flows with memorable companions and NPC's. Spending a moment thinking on Oblivion I just can't remember that many.

Dialogue was notoriously poor, usually offering only 2 alternatives, with very few if any cases that your characters skills or attributes contributed to the dialogue.

The amount of quests in total were surprisingly few considering the size of the game. There were also almost no quests that offered decisions for how to continue or finish them. The waypoints contributed to the feel that you were mostly in for the ride, solving quests by using your legs rather than your brain. It was rare that you had to think or even listen to what a NPC had to say. I found myself shutting off my brain rather quickly, just following the directions in the hud.

Overall the game was poorly written. The overarching plot offered no surprises and you probably do not remember what the game was about. There were no philosophy in the game, nothing that provoked thought. It was mostly silly or cliché. At least they gave you a few good laughs but that's it.
…

Now, in comparision to Bioware… Bioware really dropped when it comes to gameplay, but they are still masters in making you connect to the story and its characters and its often philosophical content make you think. Bethesda do not have this skill. They have developed a really good engine, they simply don't know how to use it.

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I completely agree with the above and it has long been a frustration for me about Bethesda. You have this beautiful open world to explore but it's hard for me to get to motivated about that because it's an empty shell and I simply don't care about anyone in it. I just becomes an exercise of go to point A, go to point B, chop someone or something up with you sword, collect gold, then start all over.

Now Morrowind managed to slide on these aspects because they obviously put a lot of effort into the world creation that really made you feel like you were someplace completely alien and also because its main plot had mysteries and political intrigue so it was more engaging than Oblivion's. Once you take those things away, it really highlights the craptacular writing and the utter lack of choice on the part of the player.

They've always been really poor at writing. It's not that difficult to hire a halfway decent writer or contract out with someone so I can only assume it's not a priority for them, which is frustrating. New Vegas really highlights what you can get with a Bethesda open world and decent writing and choice and consequence.

Bethesda does half of what I want in a game but it will always just be half.

You guys have to understand one fundamental thing :

Companies are made to make money. Its with that money they can keep pushing new projects, paying good employees for the best paychecks possible and most of the time making questionable decisions (from a fan POV) in order to please publishers and shareholders.

Its a hard business driven by cash. Some games stand out (like minecraft) with very very low budgets and absolutely amazing market-aceptance but those are (unfortunately) very rare.

Things like "making the game more acessible" or "making the UI simpler" or "making the exploration easier for people to follow" its just basic publisher ideas to make the game "sell-able" to a much broader audience than a "classical" RPG - You just can't possibly blame a developer for making the game easier to sell, the bottom line is that they DO want to sell the product.

TLDR: Don't blame the publishers, blame the market.

The good thing is, even if Skyrim sucks in some aspects, the mod community will fix it. The raw material is there, the raw diamond will surely be released at 11/11/11, If we need to polish it a little bit, then so be it...

KnightPT said:

The good thing is, even if Skyrim sucks in some aspects, the mod community will fix it.

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Some things will and some things won't. Any poor design in combat will get fixed almost immediately. The crappy dialog and story in Oblivion never did get fixed, unless you count a TC and that was released years later. That sort of thing was much easier to remedy by mods in the days of text based dialog.

KnightPT said:

You guys have to understand one fundamental thing

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I understands the mechanisms behind how capitalism copies a planned economy when people who aren't gamers themselves try to guess what the market wants.

I believe quite a bit of the hatred derives from jealousy. When a developer is super-successful and another goes kaput, those who loved the kaput developer sometimes become jealous of the hated one's success. For every Bethesda, there are numerous Troika's.

JemyM said:

I understands the mechanisms behind how capitalism copies a planned economy when people who aren't gamers themselves try to guess what the market wants.

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Well it seems they "guessed" right, check how many copies Oblivion sold and then tell me if their strategy was sucessful or not It might not be what YOU want though, and i believe that

I play a modded oblivion, for over 5 years now, still playing when a new adventure comes out, like nehrim recently. A game that didnt die out after 5 years and has a very strong fan-based comunity has to have something done right, or else it would have gone into obscurity a long long time ago.

What drove this sucess in oblivion? A good moddable engine? has to be something more... (i think). The truth is, my favorite game of all time is Baldurs Gate, and i love oblivion, am I just weird? dunno.

Wow people list and detail numerous legitimate reasons for having a beef with Bethesda and it still all boils down to everyone is just jealous of their popularity and greatness. Right.

JemyM said:

I understands the mechanisms behind how capitalism copies a planned economy when people who aren't gamers themselves try to guess what the market wants.

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Capitalism always involve a certain amount of guesswork regarding what the market wants.

Still the really bad decisions do get negative feedback (even if the game already has been sold), and the devs do listen. Bioware will for instance learn something from their poor design decisions in DA2. Bethsoft backtracked somewhat from the Oblivion formula in Fallout 3.

Personally I find many of the stale staples of these devs to be more annoying than their experiments.

I wouldn't mind the capitalistic approach so much, if there wasn't such a huge conflict of interest between the passionate developer and the eager suit. It's like the developer has to fight to get anything "true" in his game, and the suit has to be convinced at every turn not to take the path of least resistance.

Naturally, once you get the kind of clout that Bethesda has - you don't have to argue so much. But that's because they've learned to operate WITHIN the system, and all their games have the corporate influence all over them - no matter what they may tell themselves about their work.

I suppose the trick is to make a great game regardless, and they've been close - especially with Fallout 3.

Something tells me Skyrim might be even closer - and I sense the industry changing altogether. So, it's not all bad.

KnightPT said:

Well it seems they "guessed" right, check how many copies Oblivion sold and then tell me if their strategy was sucessful or not It might not be what YOU want though, and i believe that

I play a modded oblivion, for over 5 years now, still playing when a new adventure comes out, like nehrim recently. A game that didnt die out after 5 years and has a very strong fan-based comunity has to have something done right, or else it would have gone into obscurity a long long time ago.

What drove this sucess in oblivion? A good moddable engine? has to be something more… (i think). The truth is, my favorite game of all time is Baldurs Gate, and i love oblivion, am I just weird? dunno.

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A game can do well in the modern market without being stupid (Fallout NV)
Simplifying to get a wider public can backfire (Dragon Age 2)
Good modtools can keep a poor game alive for ages (Neverwinter Nights)

KnightPT said:

I play a modded oblivion, for over 5 years now, still playing when a new adventure comes out, like nehrim recently. A game that didnt die out after 5 years and has a very strong fan-based comunity has to have something done right, or else it would have gone into obscurity a long long time ago.

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I would say that more than any other series, this one has caused me to go 'This game would be so much better if only...' more times. This is exactly how I got started in modding years ago when a friend and I were discussing Morrowind over IM.

I feel like the TES games have a lot of potential but frequently fall short. This combined with the construction set I think really drives the modding community. Ironically, if they shipped a better game, you'd probably see far less mods and they'd be mostly visual upgrades and armor sets and what not.

I don't know if Skyrim will have enough shortcomings to really fuel a lot of modding but that seems to have been the pattern with the previous games.

DArtagnan said:

I can't speak for others - but hate is certainly too strong a word, even at the worst of times for my part.

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For the most part, RPGWatch is a pretty even-keeled place. it's why I like it here so much. Once in a while people bitch at each other or about a game or a developer/publisher. But for the most part, people are able to just articulate their view and move on.

I used the word 'hate' deliberatly because in my view that's exactly how I percieve the many many Bethesda related threads I've come across on the net over a good number of years. However, that wasn't meant to imply any specific person that visits these forums has hatred for Bethesda.

I believe the hatred is very real - perhaps for many people it is short-term (a sort of venting over news they don't like). But what my original post is attempting to prove is that when you separate specific things that come up that bother people, there are some over-riding strengths about Bethesda that remain constant.

The biggest strength in my opinion is simply that they crave to make the best AAA, highly polished, single player RPG experience. Yes they miss the mark, but really there's no one else quite like them in the U.S. They also miss the mark, as DArtigan pointed out, due to real world forces - making money is just a reality of our world at this time and oftentimes that reality ruins the potential of CRPGs we might have otherwise loved.

Since my post yesterday I've watched a few more lengthy interviews with Todd Howard. The more I watch him speak the more restrained he actually seems to be. Especially with Skyrim - he seems to be learning his lesson and is constantly restraining and qualifying many of his statements - only time will tell after Skyrim has been released. He certainly peppers hype here and there, and 20/20 hindsight proves that he occasionally over-promises - but when I compare Todd to say, Peter Molyneux, there really is no comparision, at least in my view.

KnightPT said:

You guys have to understand one fundamental thing :

Companies are made to make money.

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Is this an excuse to deliver bad games ?

If they didn't hype oblivion so much I wouldn't be so negative towards them.

But I hate hyping a lot of nonesense, I was cheering for sony before there rip-off PS3 presentation....... I acctually liked peter molyneux, before he began his crazy hype machine... and so on.

I hate being rip-offed by marketing teams and especially by the devs.

You have to admit that they're not hyping Skyrim nearly as much though. I'm a fan and I really got tired of all the marketing for Oblivion. They waited much longer to start the hype machine this time, plus I like that they allowed the gaming press to just play the alpha and let them hype the game instead. I thought that was a smart move by Todd, Pete and the gang.

I think DeepO's response was quite comprehensive, as he articulated most of the very well known arguments and frustrations most often experienced with Bethesda. To be honest, I haven't really been convinced by anything else in response to him to counter the points he made.

One other specific aspect of Bethesda-dislike comes more strongly from the hardcore fans of the old fallout games. I remember following the cauldron of heated arguments during Fallout 3's development with much neutral interest. Obviously you can't please everyone, but the changes Bethesda made with Fallout 3 were bound to create divisions and dislike since they practically shoe-horned their world design principles into an interpretation of the fallout setting. It was nothing like the old games, particularly narrative and humour wise. With that in mind, it's not difficult to see why some resentment could exist towards Bethesda. To their eternal credit though, perhaps in an attmept to build bridges between the different fanbases (as well as make money) they gave Obsidian the chance to create New Vegas. That's something I'm very thankful of them for.

Overall though, I don't think it's so much the "tall poppy syndrome" at work (as we call it in Australia) so much as legitimate gamer frustration, which when expressed inelegantly, can boil over and seem rabid or hateful. Everyone has their own vision and expectation for what a Bethesda game can be - whenever these ideals aren't met, resentment broods.
It's one of the reasons I avoid their hype-machine - since I don't want to be burned with disappointment as I was with Oblivion.