After trying out the abyssmal SWTOR, and knowing full well the reason behind it's poor design (EA)....I can't but wonder why Bethesda hasn't succumbed to the corporate money machine. Bethesda is what Bioware used to be, the maker of top-notch single player RPGs. Bioware is now a tool for EA to make money on gaming consoles, the quality of their games is nothing compared to what they used to do. Pretty graphics and a lot of marketing seems to be the only thing needed to sell console games these days. I don't remember a 100+ million dollar marketing campaign for "The Legend of Zelda"...

WIll Bethesda suffer the same fate? Surely, the owners of the company wouldn't turn down the megabucks if they were offered.

Bethesda's already owned by Zenimax Media, and they already have Bethesda Softworks as their publishing branch. They're essentially already the same kind of company as EA and Activision, just not as successful, for lack of a better term.

successful at pissing off en mass? no financially? who knows but they sell like hotcakes.

LOL....

Let me start off by quoting you on this; "why Bethesda hasn't succumbed to the corporate money machine."

Are you kidding me? Did you PLAY skyrim?

It's NOTHING but a cash cow. Elder Scrolls Bethesda targets the mainstream audience now, not the real gamers that they owe their success to.

DA:O and Mass Effect are two of the best RPGs I've ever played. Aside from that, I'm sure some people here would think Bethesda is worse. There wasn't a million+ dollar marketing campaign for Zelda because.. well.. 15 years a go there wasn't a million+ dollar gaming industry.

MnM

Yeah, Zenimax has been gobbling up developers just like those giants. So far only Bethesda Game Studios' games have been worth buying, though


You do know that latest LoZ was released only recently? Christmas, was it?

I've played Mass Effect 1 and 2, and I thought Mass Effect 2 was really good. For the streamlining, I was glad that it got rid of the inventory management. It was tedious to manage that for Mass Effect 1. Less time spent on inventory management, and more time spent on playing the game.

But for some reason there are angry gamers who claim that Mass Effect is ruined, and people now sarcastically claim that you can just youtube Mass Effect 3 to know the story, because all that it has become is an interactive movie.

So it comes down to personal preference. I don't think Skyrim or Mass Effect are ruined, I thought they've become even better. I'm just not happy about balance issues in Skyrim, which can be easily fixed by modders.

Edit: Side-note, are there any default forum avatars that I can use?

HOLD YOUR TONGUE, BLASPHEMER

I thought he meant the original GB titles

Elder Scroooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllsss

Felt like a EA game to me made for the causal gamer who can't think on this own and needs a game to hold his hand all the way through it.I also believe the game was a straight console port if that is not a EA trait what is.To be honest it may have been a good console game but as a PC game not so good.There seems to be a written law now days when you develop a game you have to crap on the PC user.

Your missing the point, games like Zelda or Final Fantasy don't require large marketing campaigns. Most people knew about the latest Zelda game because people have been playing Zelda for fifteen years. Lots of advertisment simply isn't required to rake in cash with a game in that series.
Zelda's advertisment last christmas was rather modest.

There is no such thing as "real gamer"

Well TES had been aroudn since what the 90's so it shouldn't need any marketing either right?

The Old Republic was crap, because it was made by Bioware Austin, not Bioware Edmonton. Two entirelly different developers.


Bethesda Game Studios is the only studio Zenimax owns that is, for all intents and purposes, failure-proof. Exponentially increasing in both Quality and client base, Bethesda Game Studios does well by doing right. Maybe Skyrim doesn't have the pen-and-paper freedom of Daggerfall/Arena, or the tight and cohesive writting of Morrowind, but it's certainly the funnest entry into the series, which is why it did so well on the market.

Was never as popular as Zelda or Final Fantasy in the 90's. The Elderscrolls didn't reach the gamer household name until Morrowind.

I hope not, they've kinda ruined Mass Effect with all this useless DLC.

Ah, trying to start another platform-war ey?
I don't think it'll work.

It's funny that you start off by criticizing SWTOR, then say EA just uses Bioware for making money on consoles.

Make up your mind!

Never played Old Republic myself... but that's because I loathe MMOs. Otherwise, I'm pretty entertained by Bioware's games still.

As for Bethesda, I thought they already had a big publisher owning them.

The UI shows it was a clear console port.If they had of thought about the PC user that UI would have been changed It may have worked on the console but on the PC it was cumbersome.

Whats wrong with bioware? Dragon age origins and mass effect were quite good; i played them after i did skyrim and was stunned by the multitude of choices given.in skyrim your "choice" lead you to the same endings, while in dragon age there are multiple endings. Even side quests have choices that bombard you at every corner. though of course its a linear rpg, but it had a great storyline.
compared to skyrim which had many questlines with not-so-satisfactory storylines even for a sandbox rpg. Though of course skyrim owns in the interactability(no such word, i know ) of the world and its size i suppose.

As much as EA svcks, Bioware still can prove themselves. I loved DAO and ME series. ME might not be a true RPG, but that doesn't mean it svcks. Its great. DAO is a true RPG and It owns.

DA2 on the otherhand, wtf....

ME3 and DA3 will truley prove if Bioware has fallen into mediocrity.

What the hell is this? Is there a special "gamer" club that everyone belongs to, and only the select few are admitted? There are more people than us who want to game, man. Making it easier for them to access it and find enjoyment in it hasn't soured the Elder Scrolls for me. I think it's better than ever, as they've moved away from the old idea that roleplaying games have to have a crap load of numbers and statistics to be considered a roleplaying game. Your imagination is your most powerful ally in immersing yourself in a character. Skyrim proves that to me every time I play it.

I don't doubt EA and Activision have the bug. They've found success and they're milking it for all it's worth. And they'll continue to operate the way they do until it doesn't work anymore, and then, they'll try something else. Adaptation... changing to meet new challenges ...these are a few of the reasons EA and Activision have been around for decades. If you don't like what they do, don't play their games. That's the best way you can take down your enemy.

Indeed it was, it was developed for the Xbox.
I was thinking more how you referred to the consoleplayers as less capable of gaming as the pc-players

Are you talking about DAO, ToR, BF3, or ME?

All have better PC UI's than Skyrim (unmodded).