Opening the Scrolls: Unpacking the Shady and Scandal-Plagued History of Bethesda / ZeniMax

[Delicieuxz]

 

For a long time, there has existed a strange anomaly in the gaming community: The unbalanced and blind perception of Bethesda / ZeniMax as being a 'good-person' developer and publisher. This perception has been held by many of the companies' fans despite all the while the company keeps doing things that contradict that perception. In many ways, Bethesda / ZeniMax have been games industry leaders in scummy, disrespectful, and exploitative lawsuit-happy practices, going back for more than a decade, showing them to be one of the most arrogant and uncontrollably greedy companies in gaming.

 

So, here is a sobering look at many of Bethesda / ZeniMax' unscrupulous practices and events going back to the companies' earlier years.

 

 

1.

The company known today as Bethesda and ZeniMax was formed through some betrayal and back-stabbing.

 

Julian Le Fay, generally considered the creator of the Elder Scrolls series, directed the first three Elder Scrolls games, Arena, Daggerfall, and Battlespire, and expected to continue working on the series he created with the next game, TES: Morrowind. But, he was sidelined from the project and consequently left the company.

 

Bethesda's founder, Christopher Weaver, was forced out of his own company after he put up lots of his own money to save the company.

 

Watch 23:54 - 25:30 in this video for details about those departures:

 

 

2.

$2.50 horse armour DLC for Oblivion: This is the historical origin of and precedence for all other nickle-and-diming exploitative DLC practices that have since screwed gamers over. Bethesda was the first pioneer of exploitative and greedy DLC practices. After Bethesda had then gotten public expectations for DLC, a then-new and non-established concept, set at their absolute rock-bottom, many other publishers followed and expanded upon Bethesda's lead with their own exploitative DLC practices.

 

 

3.

Bethesda sued Mojang over the use of "Scrolls" as a game title, even after Mojang already volunteered to give up the Scrolls title, and then settled out of court because it became pretty clear that Bethesda was likely going to lose the case.

 

Notch Offered to Give Up "Scrolls" Trademark, Bethesda Sued Anyway

Bethesda And Mojang Settle 'Scrolls' Lawsuit

 

 

4.

Bethesda intentionally destroyed developer of 2012's Prey 2, Human Head, by starving the studio of resources to force it into a corner where Human Head would feel like they had to sell the studio to Bethesda for a far-below-value price in order to survive. Human Head did not give in to Bethesda, and as a result of having no income from Prey 2 after having spent its resources making Prey 2, couldn't afford to make another big-title game:

 

 

It has taken from then until now for Human Head to recover enough financially to be able to make a new big-title game. Human Head's first big-title game since 2006's Prey will be Rune: Ragnarok, and I'm guessing that it will release next year.

 

 

5.

Bethesda reportedly did the same thing to Arkane Studios

 

 

 

6.

Suing Facebook and Oculus for $4 billion, trying to get ownership over Oculus technology, while outright losing their original case. The jury awarded $500 million in damages to ZeniMax over breach of NDA, copyright infringement, and false-designation, but all of ZeniMax' original and core claims against Facebook and Oculus were found to be invalid by the court.

 

ZeniMax awarded $500 million judgment in Oculus lawsuit

 

Facebook and Oculus are appealing the $500 million verdict: Oculus Vows Appeal of $500 Million Verdict, ZeniMax Threatens Injunction

 

John Carmack has given a public defence of himself, while suggesting that ZeniMax are liars. He said that ‘The Internet Would Have Viciously Mocked The Analysis’ in the $500 million verdict.

 

On further appeal, the $500 million verdict was subsequently reduced to $250 million, and then Facebook and ZeniMax settled out of court.

 

 

7.

Suing Samsung as an extension of their lawsuit against Facebook and Oculus.

 

ZeniMax sues Samsung over VR technology in Gear goggles

 

 

8.

Suing developer of Kickstarter project "Prey for the Gods" over having the word Prey in their title. The developer opted to simply modify their game's name to "Praey for the Gods" rather than to deal with Bethesda's frivolous lawsuit.

 

Prey for the Gods changes name to avoid fight with Bethesda's Prey

 

 

9.

Turning community mods into a capitalist venture with paid mods and opening their own Bethesda games digital distribution storefront to continue to pursue paid mods after Valve backtracked on having them sold through Steam following public backlash.

 

 

10.

If you criticize Bethesda too much on their forums, expect to be banned. The Bethesda forums are like a daycare-centre for toddlers because of draconian moderation. Partial lobotomy and Bethesda fanboyism is required for entrance and staying there.

 

 

11.

In a clear violation of the law, Bethesda tried to pretend that it was the law and could stop people from reselling their own game properties and dictate whether a person could list their own unopened games as "new" when reselling them.

 

Bethesda tried to pull this stunt despite the US Supreme Court and the Court of Justice of the EU both having definitively ruled that people may resell their copyrighted goods without needing any permission from the copyright holder. Bethesda purporting to prohibit people from listing their unopened games a "new" condition would be an instance of the copyright-holder denying the game owner permission to resell that game-owner's own game, and would therefore be a violation of the US Supreme Court and the EU's Court of Justice rulings:

US Supreme Court Rules People May Resell Copyrighted Goods Without Copyright-Holder's Permission - US Software Association Has a Fit

 

EU Court Says, Yes, You Can Resell Your Software, Even If The Software Company Says You Can't

 

 

 

12.

A whole lot about Fallout '76, which is a dated asset-flip game too buggy for some people to even play:

 

- The $200 USD Power Armour edition that screwed buyers of it over when Bethesda pulled a bait-and-switch with the advertised canvas bag that was replaced in the actual released product with what basically looks like a crumpled-up garbage bag with no resemblance to the advertised bag.

 

- The blunt brush-off from Bethesda support admitting that they did pull a bait-and-switch with the canvas bag, and further stated they simply aren't going to do anything about it. Bethesda later apologized for the curtness of the earlier Bethesda support's reply, yet didn't apologize for and didn't offer to fixe what the actual issue was, which is the bait-and-switch of the advertised canvas bag.

 

- The crap design of the game, which MSRP'd at $60 USD yet plays like a $20 early-access title at its release.

 

- Refusing to refund the game for people who couldn't play it because it was too broken.

 

- Completely ludicrous and offensive micro-transaction fees such as charging $18 USD for a single power armour skin just to add some blue-coloured paint to it. Coming from the inventor of nickle-and-diming exploitative and egregiously-priced DLC, though, perhaps nobody should be surprised by this - though they certainly ought to be outraged.

 

- Insulting upset Power Armour edition purchasers further by offering them a pathetic 500 Atoms ($5 USD) in-game currency for micro-transactions, when that can basically only buy one hairdo model, or two facial tattoos.

 

- Turning previously-free character customization content from Fallout 4 into nickle-and-diming paid content in Fallout '76

 

 

Because of all the scandals surrounding Fallout '76, Bethesda has come under investigation for bad business practices.

 

 

13.

All-around really bad, just completely mindless game-design, met with low production quality values including what perhaps bugs me the most about Bethesda games: the pisspoor, unintentionally-cringy loopy writing, and the banal quest design - which, in some cases, is also combined with mishandling of lore such as for the Fallout series which Bethesda acquired from Interplay in 2007. And then there is the notorious dumbing-down of their games which I find has resulted in there being hardly anything meaningful left to do in them anymore.

 

I think it's a reasonable argument to make, to say that Bethesda Games Studios games have traditionally often displayed the lowest production quality values out of the whole AAA games business - in writing, animations, voice-acting, quest design, character models...

 

 

The Blistering Stupidity of Fallout 3 - a five-part analysis

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some final thoughts

 

There might some additional information about other ZeniMax / Bethesda lawsuits in this article: A brief history of Bethesda’s many legal tangles

 

So, when talking scummy and greedy publishers, I think both history and the present show that ZeniMax / Bethesda is not only ranked up there at the top along with all the worst of publishers in the history of the games industry (whether people think of EA, ActiVision, Ubisoft, Nintendo, or any other publisher), but that Bethesda has even done and is still doing a lot of stuff that's worse than stuff we think of other big publishers as evil for doing. People just haven't been tuning into it.

 

Bethesda is basically the software developer equivalent of a patent troll: They acquire big idea game IPs from non-Bethesda talent (including TES, since the series creator was separated from it and then left the compnay), and then milk them while progressively squeezing the life out of them as they're dumbed-down closer to oblivion with each successive release.

 

For all these reasons, I think it's important and very long overdue that people start practising serious cautiousness and discretion when thinking about what Bethesda represents. Through so many years of unbalanced and blind-eye-turning praise, Bethesda fans have enabled and encouraged Bethesda to think of themselves as a lot better and more entitled than they really are by letting everything all go to Bethesda's heads despite Bethesda not really having done things to deserve their historically-positive reputation. And now, Bethesda no longer even cares to simply try to appear be reasonable and decent for the sake of their own reputation.

[samcool55]

Maybe a niche one, but something you can add.

They launched fallout 4, and later the VR edition, but it's another full-price release and has no DLC (officially supported at least).

 

For people that have fallout 4 and get an oculus or a vive, it's a massive slap in the face because.

1. You need to buy the exact same game AGAIN, with the only difference being VR supprt.

2. No official DLC, if you want the DLC you need to mod it in, which doesn't always work perfectly.

3. (minor one, mainly annoying) Different saves, if you play F4 VR and want to switch to non-vr (or the other way round) you need to manually copy around your save. No offiicial support for that either but it usually works.

 

Also support after release has been crap, almost no updates but that's no surprise i guess.

[D13H4RD]

Yeah, you forgot one thing.

 

Fallout: New Vegas

Why did I mention possible one of the most revered modern Fallout titles by the fanbase?

The PC version of the game got a Metacritic score of 84. That sounds good, right? Well, yeah, but it wasn't for Obsidian, because Bethesda had targeted an 85 for Obsidian in order to obtain a bonus.

 

And the result? "NO BONUS FOR YOU"

[Delicieuxz]

40 minutes ago, D13H4RD said:

Yeah, you forgot one thing.

 

Fallout: New Vegas

Why did I mention possible one of the most revered modern Fallout titles by the fanbase?

The PC version of the game got a Metacritic score of 84. That sounds good, right? Well, yeah, but it wasn't for Obsidian, because Bethesda had targeted an 85 for Obsidian in order to obtain a bonus.

 

And the result? "NO BONUS FOR YOU"

I think that I did contemplate that one, but since Obsidian technically didn't reach their bonus payment-unlocking score requirement, Bethesda didn't really do wrong. A worked-out, acknowledged, and signed contractual agreement is generally the bar of fair duty for the involved parties.

 

That said, I wouldn't put it past Bethesda to pay or incentivize some reviewers to give New Vegas lower review scores just to get out of the bonus payment - I've always thought that it would be completely in-line with Bethesda's character to do something like that.

[D13H4RD]

On a related note however, Todd Howard confirmed that both TES:VI and Starfield will use the same Gamebryo-based Creation Engine.

 

Yeah, I would be extremely cautious if I were anyone here...

[Sakkura]

I think you exaggerated a few things, but I tend to agree with the overall gist. Also worth noting Zenimax was co-founded by, yeah, a lawyer, who is now chairman and CEO.

7 hours ago, Delicieuxz said:

I think that I did contemplate that one, but since Obsidian technically didn't reach their bonus payment-unlocking score requirement, Bethesda didn't really do wrong. A worked-out, acknowledged, and signed contractual agreement is generally the bar of fair duty for the involved parties.

 

That said, I wouldn't put it past Bethesda to pay or incentivize some reviewers to give New Vegas lower review scores just to get out of the bonus payment - I've always thought that it would be completely in-line with Bethesda's character to do something like that.

Well there was another problem - Bethesda was responsible for QA and also stipulated Obsidian use the existing (buggy) Fallout 3 engine and most assets. Bugs were among the major negatives mentioned in reviews.

[Phentos]

19 hours ago, D13H4RD said:

On a related note however, Todd Howard confirmed that both TES:VI and Starfield will use the same Gamebryo-based Creation Engine.

 

Yeah, I would be extremely cautious if I were anyone here...

Worst news I've heard all year tbqh. 

 

Knowing myself and my weakness for huge RPGs I'll probably end up buying those games regardless and whine about the buggy ancient engine and its stupid quirks on Reddit for about as long as I'd play those games.

 

A small upside to continuing to use those engines (and probably the primary reason why Bethesda insists on using them) is because their modding communities are intimately familiar with how the engine works. 

 

It just works!™

[Delicieuxz]

13 hours ago, Sakkura said:

I think you exaggerated a few things, but I tend to agree with the overall gist. Also worth noting Zenimax was co-founded by, yeah, a lawyer, who is now chairman and CEO.

I've adjusted a some of the wording to make it less exaggerated, hopefully.

 

Yeah, ZeniMax was co-founded in 1999 by Weaver and Altman (the lawyer), before Weaver was effectively fired from his own company. However, ZeniMax, despite being made the parent company, is chronologically an off-shoot of Bethesda, which Weaver founded on his own in 1986.