QUOTE(RaderOfTheLostArk @ Sep 28 2020, 09:37 AM)

I really don't know where we all are getting this idea that Bethesda is doing poorly financially, getting stagnant, etc. Not trying to get on anyone's case here, but I see this getting propagated all the time when I don't know where people are getting these ideas from. Let's not mistake any of our personal opinions about the games to be representative of what the overall gaming population thinks--or that gaming forums in general are representative of gamers for that matter. Gaming forums also tend to just make stuff up or believe some unverified or flat-out false info because they want to believe it. Well, that last part goes for the Internet as a whole.
Getting bought out doesn't necessarily mean you are doing poorly financially. Sometimes they get bought out specifically because they rake in profit. That's exactly what's happening here. This isn't pre-Morrowind Bethesda, where there actually was the danger of going out of business and their games were selling poorly (which is ironic, given that the MW fanboys claim Oblivion and Skyrim were the ones that "sold out" to appeal to a wider audience). Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Skyrim: Special Edition all made obscene amounts of cash for Bethesda and made them a real household name for gaming. And for all the [censored] that Fallout 76 gets--some deserved, some undeserved--I'm willing to bet that it's been a reasonable success so far. Not like it's series predecessor or Skyrim by any means, but it's gaming forums that are jumping to the conclusion that 76 has been a flop. That's because most of them don't like or even hate the game.
And that's all well and good, even though I like the game but think it has a serious lack of polish (which is why I recommend it only a big sale), but gaming forums really need to stop propagating things because they want to believe in them, or believe their opinions are facts. For example, how is Bethesda becoming stagnant? Fallout 76 was released in 2018 and is still getting content. Even though it is much more so Zenimax, Bethesda has still had a level of involvement in ESO. Fallout 4 was in 2015. Skyrim was in 2011. That's a pretty normal rate of output for them, maybe a little bit slower. People are also really starved for new Bethesda (the main studio) stuff, regardless of their gripes, so that helps make it seem like Bethesda is slowing down. But Bethesda is also not the juggernaut that, say, EA or Ubisoft are, where they can crank out multiple games in a year like it's nothing. They're more of a medium-sized studio, despite being AAA.
Look, I have my issues with Bethesda and Zenimax, too. There's plenty of things I criticize in Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and ESO, even though I have a lot of fun with all of them. No one is above criticism, especially big businesses. And they should be held accountable. But I think people are really taking this too far and spinning stories in their head. Bethesda is doing just fine from a financial standpoint. And that's exactly why Microsoft wanted them and Zenimax.
I agree with this. Microsoft has been bankrolling Bethesda and investing in it for decades; (which is why Windows and XBox always got Bethesda games at least a month or two before Sony Playstation got them) and they probably just offered them a much bigger deal for the exclusivity to knock Sony Playstation out of the competition completely for their games. (like Sony has knocked Microsoft out of several of their game franchises).
Bethesda is not the most prolific game studio (like EA is) but they are still churning out new versions of the same content in Skyrim and just renaming it "Game of the Year," "Special Edition," and "Anniversary Edition" to make several more billions of dollars on it = and we all jump up and keep buying the same content over and over again = they don't have to crank out names, just change the titles, lol.
Seriously = I just bought Oblivion Remastered, haven't even gotten 5 hours into it and the Steam sale comes out with the base Oblivion game for sale for 3 dollars and I was pulling out my credit card for it! I pay extra for any additional content every single time (like the soundtracks, etc) and buy any merch they come up with.
Bethesda is not hurting for money, they are building their brand even bigger by this merger. And I guarantee their deal with Microsoft was VERY lucrative for them to say goodbye to the Sony dollars, but Sony was always an issue with them anyway because it was coded totally different than XBox and Windows plus the bandwidth issues that Sony has.