Bethesda doesn't think anything. Some people in leadership there think this. It would be very nice if they codeified what "support" means and the circumstances around it into company policy so that fans know what is what while that policy is in place (and who to blame if the policy is abandoned).
Lammy · 15h ago
> Bethesda doesn't think anything.
It even kind of irks me when people talk about “Bethesda” when it's really “Microsoft Corporation presents Microsoft Gaming presents Zenimax Media presents Bethesda Softworks presents Bethesda Game Studios”.
Not picking on you in particular since the same thing happens with iD Software, Github, NPM, and many many more. I feel like there's a collective lack of straightforward language to discuss the influence of this kind of corporate structure. Falling back to the singular-subsidiary name with the rest unspoken is probably exactly what they want.
jemmyw · 14h ago
I wouldn't know who Bethesda was owned by without going and looking it up. I personally don't think this kind of corporate structure should be allowed, too much controlled by too few.
sushid · 13h ago
What would you allow? Just one level deep? Two? All you'd be doing is incentivizing the creation of more proxies and more legal fees/inefficiencies to go along with it.
Ey7NFZ3P0nzAe · 2h ago
I think one solution would be to always have the parent company iname n the children company. This way you don't have github by "Github by microsoft". But any links in between should appear if a separate legal entity.
1. It makes it clear how few powerful people are owning everything.
2. It makes it obvious there's something wrong when you see that the 30 different bottles you can buy in front of you are all from coca colla
3. It makes it very obvious that there's something fishy about "chocolate chips by a france by b luxembourg by c switzerland by d ireland by big conglomerate by mondelez international"
KeepFlying · 13h ago
The number of levels isnt the issue, it's the size and scope of control of the market.
The rest is on journalists to be sure to mention "Microsoft owned Bethesda" more often.
jemmyw · 3h ago
Not sure. I certainly think there should have been anti trust interest in Microsoft buying GitHub. If only we had good agencies with subject matter experts who can't be bought off by the companies.
PoignardAzur · 15h ago
I mean, when you reach the point where they advertise the mod in dev spotlights videos, I think it's fair to say there's some institutional support, even if it's not codified.
viraptor · 5h ago
Sure, but that means in a few years another manager can remove it and sue the creators. It doesn't matter who the current guy approves of, long term.
tedunangst · 11h ago
I think people understand how metonymy works.
npteljes · 11h ago
Even if they do, I very highly doubt that they successfully process it emotionally too. I especially dislike when news conflates leaders with nations. I think it just adds unnecessary emotions to the mix. Which, of course, is good for the news source, so I doubt I'll ever see a decline in this phenomenon.
npteljes · 11h ago
I hate the same about how media presents news regarding to nations. Russia attacks instead of Putin's army attacks, Brussels denies instead of EU officials deny, etc. It irks me so much, especially in a world where we pretend to do away with racism. Because what these headlines end up reinforce are just stereotypes. Which just keeps the people in their bubbles, wasting the chance of them learning something new about the world.
cultofmetatron · 15h ago
at the very least, it shows that bethseda leadership are not in the habit of alienating their fans.
mschuster91 · 3m ago
Better than Rockstar, eh? Like, these fools had had people remaster their engine and assets for all the GTA games for decades, and instead of leveraging that they go, get a ton of mods taken down and then release a "remaster" done with barely-supervised AI slop.
neuroelectron · 15h ago
This is a bit different situation than Nintendo and it's not fair to compare the two. The mod requires the base game where Nintendo software is hardware coupled. Furthermore, Bethesda has monetized mods directly (the Creation Club).
jimbob45 · 15h ago
Let’s call a spade a spade. Nintendo litigates worse than any other company and they never drop prices. I can look the other way because they’re otherwise very good to their customers but they do have genuine faults.
aucisson_masque · 1h ago
> I can look the other way because they’re otherwise very good to their customers
I thought their customer support sucks ? In France they got a law suit because they refused to replace the joystick of their latest portable gaming machine when they had an insane rate of failure.
nothercastle · 15h ago
And they are really letting their franchises go stale recently. Pokémon is especially bad.
goosedragons · 14h ago
Pokemon is it's own weird situation. It's not solely owned by Nintendo, but co-owned and managed with Game Freak and Creatures Inc by The Pokemon Company. It's not just a game but a media empire. They have to coordinate between the game, anime and TCG. It's not quite the same as Zelda or Mario where they have complete control and don't have to worry about messing with dozens of other product launches if the game needs a delay.
I wouldn't agree that their other franchises are stale right now either. Certainly not compared to Ubi's, Microsoft's, etc.
stevenwoo · 10h ago
Game Freak’s latest Nintendo offerings are subpar compared to somewhat open world offerings from the Wii generation like Xenoblade Chronicles and Breath of the Wild. They are just milking the Pokémon player base.
stephenitis · 5h ago
I agree their latest games always feel 2 generations behind and woefully lacking in content filled worlds
crop_rotation · 15h ago
They do make amazing games though, for all the ones that they make. BOTW and TOTK are just so so special games to me (and I hope many others), and I have learnt by experience that almost no Nintendo game gets released half baked or lacking their best efforts.
jimbob45 · 14h ago
In fairness, Pokémon is perhaps the worst case in game design difficulty. You have an audience insisting on 3D characters and animations for 400+ (or however many now) Pokémon, each necessitating ~6 animations for unique attacks, 5+ status effects, idling/reaction animations, and ideally some trainer interaction.
I understand why Nintendo has tried to use a lo-fi artstyle, make games with only subsets of the total bestiary, and generally limit development. Hell, I even understand why Palworld gave up on unique attack animations and just went with guns.
nothercastle · 6h ago
Honestly at this point they could go back to 151 and just do a good job filling them out and go from there. But all 3d games suffer from not being able to hand craft such a large 3d world but Pokémon is absolutely terrible at it. The Games look like they could have ran in the ps2 mid generation.
comex · 14h ago
1000+, though the last two generations have included only a subset.
stevenwoo · 10h ago
The digital game key with Switch 2 feels bad from a the perspective of people who keep their consoles forever.
formerly_proven · 16h ago
Regardless, the remaster appears to have been rushed out due to increasing leaks, no? It's hard to believe that with the technical issues the release was actually intended to land in April 2025, instead of fixing issues until March 2026 and releasing it as an anniversary remaster.
no_wizard · 16h ago
Bethesda is notorious for buggy software releases. They could spend 10 years on something and it would likely have tons of bugs still.
tjpnz · 15h ago
Bethesda farmed the remaster out to another studio and the issues are mostly performance related. They chose to utilize Unreal Engine 5 for the graphics[0] which means you get all the stuttering and uneven frame times present in most games using it.
0: I recall reading somewhere that the game uses a really old version of Bethesda's proprietary engine too - but only for physics.
detaro · 15h ago
It's a pattern a few remasters have used: Run the entire old engine for the game logic, but bolt a more modern engine on top for the rendering. So it's not just physics but pretty much all gameplay logic thats done by the old code. Which is also why mods that don't touch graphics were apparently easy to port to the remaster, but changing models etc needs adapting to the new system.
thatguy0900 · 16h ago
This one does feel extra infuriating though, since it still has bugs that were fixed by fan made bug fixing mods from the original game. It doesn't really even feel like they try to fix bugs
lelandfe · 15h ago
Keeping the VO flubs in is so good though, especially now with the automatic lip syncing https://youtu.be/AWgPq6ocd5c
chme · 15h ago
This is also not surprising for BGS as was demonstrated with the multiple Skyrim re-releases, which didn't fix all issues patched by the unofficial patches, and even introduced more.
Only a very small amount of the issues fixed there where integrated into the official patch releases.
VTimofeenko · 16h ago
It's an Elder Scrolls game. Technical issues are part of the product spec.
lupusreal · 15h ago
In some ways, the bugs are part of the charm. Sometimes anyway. Having to run esoteric commands to fix broken quests in a years old game isn't so endearing.
formerly_proven · 16h ago
True! On the other hand, performance appears to be quite bad and there seem to be tons of very obvious visual glitches with transparent objects, foliage etc.
It using the UE5 renderer of course means the usual reservations of that engine also apply - it will most likely never run smoothly, as Unreal Engine games invariably have more or less severe stuttering.
ReptileMan · 1h ago
Bethesda never releases games. They release mod sdks. Beta versions.
The only good fallout after the first two is the one they weren't involved with. And it was the mods for skyrim that made the game.
iLoveOncall · 14h ago
How can you leak a 20 years old game?
accrual · 14h ago
GP is referencing how rumors of the remaster were spreading a few days before the official announcement. There were some early topics on Reddit at least.
Personally I doubt the "leaks" have anything to do with the release date. The game worked fine on day one for me. Yes there are some bugs, but none serious and none that made me think "this was rushed".
tmpz22 · 16h ago
Bethesda knows support for the official remake would go down the toilet if they did anything but praise for the unofficial remake. Its hard to take Bethesda on good faith on this.
Wobbles42 · 16h ago
I am inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. They may or may not be doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but at least they ARE doing the right thing. That decision was made by a set of humans, and likely at least some of them are well meaning.
In any case the corporate entity as a whole is not conscious. A strictly behavioralist approach is appropriate there. If it does the good thing it gets the carrot, if it does the bad thing it gets the stick. We can't win it's heart and mind because it has neither, so we have to settle for keeping it's behavior in line.
voidfunc · 16h ago
It's a lesson more companies should learn (looking at you Nintendo), the revenue hit from a fan-made IP clone is likely negligible. People want the official stuff usually as well. The PR hit from attacking creator fans is way worse.
happytoexplain · 16h ago
I know businesses often bring it upon themselves, but this "fucked if they do, fucked if they don't" attitude needs to be carefully applied. It leaves no room for anything, really, and it's exhausting.
washadjeffmad · 14h ago
It's not unwarranted. With the recent popularity of remakes and rereleases, there's been tension between fans, their multi-year/decade labor of love projects, and the studios hoping to remonetize dated franchises.
It even kind of irks me when people talk about “Bethesda” when it's really “Microsoft Corporation presents Microsoft Gaming presents Zenimax Media presents Bethesda Softworks presents Bethesda Game Studios”.
Not picking on you in particular since the same thing happens with iD Software, Github, NPM, and many many more. I feel like there's a collective lack of straightforward language to discuss the influence of this kind of corporate structure. Falling back to the singular-subsidiary name with the rest unspoken is probably exactly what they want.
1. It makes it clear how few powerful people are owning everything.
2. It makes it obvious there's something wrong when you see that the 30 different bottles you can buy in front of you are all from coca colla
3. It makes it very obvious that there's something fishy about "chocolate chips by a france by b luxembourg by c switzerland by d ireland by big conglomerate by mondelez international"
The rest is on journalists to be sure to mention "Microsoft owned Bethesda" more often.
I thought their customer support sucks ? In France they got a law suit because they refused to replace the joystick of their latest portable gaming machine when they had an insane rate of failure.
I wouldn't agree that their other franchises are stale right now either. Certainly not compared to Ubi's, Microsoft's, etc.
I understand why Nintendo has tried to use a lo-fi artstyle, make games with only subsets of the total bestiary, and generally limit development. Hell, I even understand why Palworld gave up on unique attack animations and just went with guns.
0: I recall reading somewhere that the game uses a really old version of Bethesda's proprietary engine too - but only for physics.
See the change log here: https://www.afkmods.com/Unofficial%20Skyrim%20Special%20Edit...
Only a very small amount of the issues fixed there where integrated into the official patch releases.
It using the UE5 renderer of course means the usual reservations of that engine also apply - it will most likely never run smoothly, as Unreal Engine games invariably have more or less severe stuttering.
The only good fallout after the first two is the one they weren't involved with. And it was the mods for skyrim that made the game.
Personally I doubt the "leaks" have anything to do with the release date. The game worked fine on day one for me. Yes there are some bugs, but none serious and none that made me think "this was rushed".
In any case the corporate entity as a whole is not conscious. A strictly behavioralist approach is appropriate there. If it does the good thing it gets the carrot, if it does the bad thing it gets the stick. We can't win it's heart and mind because it has neither, so we have to settle for keeping it's behavior in line.
A friend and old-school RuneScape player told me he was quitting over this: https://www.ibtimes.com/runescape-devs-backtrack-hd-mod-ban-...
Bethesda signaling their blessing might not have happened if others hadn't made such spectacular messes of their own relaunches.