By Former Bethesda vice president Pete Hines has revealed that both he and Todd Howard hated the confusion around games Bethesda was developing and publishing.
Pete Hines retired from Bethesda two years ago after 24 years at the company, and has been around since before Bethesda even owned the rights to Fallout and the Elder Scrolls was only two entries in. However, he mainly worked for the publishing side, Bethesda Softworks, but found that many of the publisher’s games were getting confused with their home-grown titles.
Speaking to DBLTap Hines said, “I hated the confusion around Bethesda making a new game, and everybody thinking, ‘Oh, it’s Todd Howard’s team.'” He added that Howard “was very much sick of it. “‘Why do people keep assuming I’m the guy who made Sea Dogs, or whatever?'”
In 2001, Bethesda Game Studios was established as its own branch to differentiate between the developer and publisher. “We created a different name for the studio and the publisher, and guess what? It still didn’t f***ing work. Nobody ever got past Bethesda, and they just went ‘Bethesda this, Bethesda that, Bethesda, Bethesda, Bethesda’.”
Of course, this matters a bit less now that Bethesda Game Studios puts out roughly one or two games per decade, so it’s not like there’s much to get confused about. Plus, I don’t really think the studio gets the credit for the likes of id Software or Machine Games’ work now either, so maybe owning larger studios was the ticket to stop it.