Bethesda: "People Underestimate How Many Core Gamers There Are"

[Hevva]

Bethesda: "People Underestimate How Many Core Gamers There Are"

Skyrim's director has a lot of love for core gamers, even if he isn't exactly sure why his game has such broad appeal.

Skyrim is the best-selling game Bethesda has ever made. Most commentators have a personal pet theory or two on hand to explain why this is (mine is the landscape, especially that valley near Dragon Bridge. I mean damn). Not so Todd Howard, the game's director, however. When asked why Skyrim has done so well, he responded, "The short answer is, I don't know."

Speaking to GameInformer [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/20/todd-howard-interview.aspx], Howard continued, "I can give you my guess, which is people underestimate how many core gamers there are; people who want a lot of depth and will play a game for a long time. There are a lot of them. If you give them something unique and good, you don't have to dumb it down."

"There are things we changed to make the game better, but not to appeal to a wider audience. I think we always benefited in Elder Scrolls early on, the fact that it is first-person and kind of walks this action line sometimes. We've always benefited from that. Even our own lofty expectations for how the game would be received or sell, it's way, way beyond that," Howard added.

Howard also took a moment to touch on the myriad issues some PlayStation 3 Skyrim players have faced with failed patching [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/114306-New-Skyrim-Patch-Will-Fix-Long-Term-Play-Problems]. "When you put all this time into something and someone can't play it, you feel terrible," said Howard. "[PS3 users] have every right to be pissed off. We already have more updates out for this than Fallout 3 and Oblivion in their lifetime. So we're really committed to fixing everything."

As Jim Sterling noted [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/5014-How-Skyrim-Proves-The-Industry-Wrong] a while ago, it's pleasing for many that a game like Skyrim can perform so well in an industry which can feel hemmed in by "blockbuster" copycat releases and various strains of publisher-based "this will sell, this won't" false knowledge. So why is Skyrim so popular? It is just that in a game of this size you can find enough different activies to satisfy enough different people? Does this broad-based approach dangerously dilute the experience for the hardcore market? Todd Howard isn't sure and nor am I. If you are, do let us know in the comments.


Source: GameInformer [http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/02/20/todd-howard-interview.aspx]







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[Meight08]

Hardcore fans calling it dumbed down shit in 3....2.....1....0
Ot: Skyrim sold because it is accessible, in an easy to learn controls and mechanics kinda way.
But the world is really deep and you can just drink in it's scale.
Its what an open world game should be.
1:easy controls
2:incredibly huge world
3:No You must have X stat at Y and, you must level this way or you will get weaker are not good gameplay mechainics.(seriously who likes those)


All they need to do is give it combat like dark messiah
Think about it skyrim's open world with dark messiah's combat.
*Creams pants*

Oh and dont call it an action rpg for the current age if you are not a jackass please.

 

[Sabrestar]

Disclaimer: I haven't played Skyrim yet. It would bog down my current PC and I can't afford it.

I think it's the expansiveness, and the open-world feeling, which has been true of the entire mainline series going all the way back to Arena (which actually let you explore the entire continent, albeit rather trimmed-down for PCs of the mid-90s). There's always been a sense of "lots of things to do, lots of ways to do them", as well as experimental levelling systems that didn't tie you down to lots of fighting. Sure, they're not the only games to have done this, but they're among the more visible ones. Despite all the bugs (and there are inevitably many) and Bethesda's haphazard and inconsistent approach to fixing them, the sense of "there's so much you can do" seems to be what they strive for. It doesn't work for everyone, but clearly something about it is working for a lot of people. (Heck, I still go back and play Daggerfall now and then, just for kicks.)

 

[Rad Party God]

When I bought the game, I had to run it in Medium settings, now with the recent patches, I can crank up the game to High and get the same framerates I had in Medium, also with a couple of optimizations I made to my PC, the game runs far better than it did when I bought it.

I think the success of the game, on consoles, comes from the very fact that there are not many expansive games, like an MMO or equally big games that give you such amount of freedom, also because people were so fed up and tired of the short games they are used to get for $60 that this game was almost like a godsend (at least the 360 version), you simply can't beat the package you're getting for $60, this is a game that deserves every single cent it asks (granted, I got the game for $40 in a Steam sale).

As for the PC, aside from better and crispier graphics, I can decribe everything with one single word: Mods.

 

[GonzoGamer]

The hype really helps too doesn't it?
Especially when you hype up the fact that it was built on a completely new engine which should fix all the bad crashing/freezing problems when really it's just the same old problematic engine with a new coat of paint.

Someone needs to tell Todd that we don't need him to fix everything; I know that's impossible. Just the really annoying freezing; that really would be enough.

 

[Blind Sight]

Simplified leveling and mechanics that you can learn quickly with a broad, open world that offers up a wealth of freedom in regards to how you go about playing the game (not necessary how the game's plot or quests develop, but when you choose to do them). It's basically just taking the series' best parts and rendering them more accessible to first-time players (not to mention the fact that based on an amount of gameplay-to-price ratio it's an excellent deal compared to the single-player aspects of other games). It's a pity that Skyrim continues Bethesda's tradition of railroading and elementary-school level plot and dialogue, but what it does well it does very well.

 

[Fappy]

I always thought Todd Howard was an awesome dev. At least he's honest.

 

[Lillowh]

Good Article, However I noticed a typo:

Bethesda: "People Underestimate How Many Core Gamers There Are"
"this well sell, this won't" false knowledge.

Otherwise, I think it's a variety of reasons and it can't be placed on a few things. There was so many things done right with Skyrim (gameplay, marketing, etc) that can't be ignored, but it's also probably due to the market environment and peopl wanting something different.

 

[targren]

I admit it. I didn't think I'd like Skyrim. I was wrong.

I don't LOVE it. It's a good game, but I can't call it great. Maybe now that the SCK is out that may change, but there were two big problems that basically kept me from being thrilled. The first is, of course, the bugs, which Howard acknowledges in TFA.

The second is that the balance is off. For a game with so many "ways to play it," it's surprisingly poorly balanced. For some reason, enemy mages are widely known to be faceraping evil on a stick, but try to go pure mage on your own? Good luck with that. Doesn't even compare to dual-wielding or even sword-n-board.

I tried to start a new character to go through it, but found myself falling into the exact same pattern as my first run-through. Okay, not the exact same, something is different. The second time around, I went with light armor instead of heavy...

 

[Meight08]

Oh and dont call it an action rpg for the current age if you are not a jackass please.

But that's exactly what it is...

It is an RPG that has a heavy emphasis on action elements which was created in the year 2011. That... seems to tick all those boxes.

Personally, I love Bethesda's PR. It actually seems honest, sometimes brutally so. I mean, it hasn't always been this way - just look at pre-release videos of Oblivion - but it's gotten so much better.

Can't wait to see what they say about the next Fallout.

I mean saying it in the semi-ironic-hateful sarcastic way people call call of duty "An fps for the current age" with a hatefull sarcastic voice.

 

[Tiamat666]

Skyrim and the Elder Scrolls in general sell so well because they deliver huge, open game worlds in which the player enjoys the freedom to truly roleplay and be the hero or villain that he wants to be. And Bethesda is so good with this formula that players obviously have a lot of faith in it and are prepared to even overlook the technical flaws that are part of it.

This is how I feel about it anyway.

 

[Wolfram23]

Oh Skyrim. I found the game started to lose it's luster around Christmas break, after 105 hours. Then CK hit, I started downloading mods (currently around 50-60 installed), and making my own little changes. Ohhh boy. I think I've added another 30 hours to it, and still looking forward to more.

Although to be fair, I never did bother with the main quest in the first 100 hours haha. Makes it pretty interesting to do that instead of dungeon crawling over and over.

 

[BrotherRool]

The real answer? (You're not going to like the truth)

Better marketing. I could have told you a month before Skyrim was released that it was going to be what it was. It's pre-orders were blockbusters.

And in fact, most of the marketing didn't even feature a scrap of gameplay footage, what most people saw was just the trailer with the live action man fighting off a dragon.

Skyrim sold a dream and people bought it even before they knew the game. If the game had sucked/Oblivion had panned Skyrim wouldn't have got the marketing and the hype, but sadly, factually, what it sold people was not the game. Luckily the game was pretty good and it carried on going, but it could have flopped after it's first week and it'd already have been a blockbuster.

Some of the game of the year reviews were pracitically written before the game came out. If you'd held a poll for GoTY before the day of release, we all know Skyrim would have won it.

The idea of Skyrim and the marketing of Skyrim just really connected with people. You can deny this, but you know yourself how you were feeling about Skyrim before you'd even played the game. I enjoyed being part of the culture and just talking about the game and having fun with the memes of the game, even though I could never even force myself to get past the awful awful first hour

 

[praetor_alpha]

Todd Howard is probably my favorite game designer. I read that entire interview with his voice talking. I have to wonder if he went to another studio, what kind games would he do? Would it be open world, or something else with a certain charm to it?

I remember reading the history of Bethesda (or was it just Elder Scrolls?), and remember that they were almost bankrupt around 2000 or so. Todd said 'this is what we want to do, but we need a lot more money'. I recall that he didn't count on that happening, but it did, and Morrowind happened.

 

[Section Crow]

increase in population and negligence of parents for checking the age rating, more kids with glued faces to TV with advertisements scarring their brain permanently and those are my assumptions

 

[Westaway]

I didn't get addicted to Skyrim like I thought I would. I got bored after 35 hours. I really prefer Fallout 3/NV. Oh well. TES got main-streamed anyways.

 

[Antari]

Although Skyrim may be a bit dumbed down from the other Elder scrolls. Even in that state it stood way above its direct competitors. They released a proper game into a market of half-hearted attempts.

 

[Hyper-space]

I didn't get addicted to Skyrim like I thought I would. I got bored after 35 hours. I really prefer Fallout 3/NV. Oh well. TES got main-streamed anyways.

...only 35 hours?

You know, that's a whole lot more than most games can offer you nowadays. Oh and they didn't streamline it, they just removed a lot of redundant shit (this is coming from a fan of the games since Morrowind).