Bethesda set the bar high for all other game developers and publishers this year, starting off the week of E3 2015 with a bang. While other developers had half a dozen or more titles to show off and Bethesda only demonstrated a few, many gamers felt that Bethesda had the best E3 2015 showing.
Given their E3 success, some might think that fans could expect to see Bethesda giving presentations every year at E3. However, Vice President of Bethesda's PR department, Pete Hines, has given reason to believe otherwise in a recent interview.
In an interview with Telegraph, Pete Hines discussed Bethesda's reasons for finally holding its first E3 press conference. While he made it clear that he didn't want to see E3 become another consumer-focused gaming show like PAX, he indicated that Bethesda chose to hold a press conference because they could reach far more people.
“It felt like more than we could accomplish in a booth. More importantly, no matter what we do in our booth, we only get a subset of people that attend E3. I’m not sure what the attendance is this year but let’s say 40,000. There’s no way we’re getting 40,000 people to our booth to see everything... So part of it was if we do have this line up and feel good about it we need to do it in a way that everybody can see it whether they’re here or not.”
Bethesda was clearly successful at achieving this, using the opportunity to highlight games like Doom and Fallout 4. However, Pete Hines is uncertain that a Bethesda showcase at E3 will become a yearly thing, or that it'll ever happen again. He noted in the interview that Bethesda isn't like other developers and publishers, and only produces a handful of games in comparison to the dozens some publishers release every year. Because of this, holding a showcase at E3 may not be a good fit for Bethesda, with Pete Hines noting, "I don’t know if we’ll do one next year. I don’t know if we’ll do one again."
While some fans may feel disappointed to learn that Bethesda is unlikely to hold yearly showcases at E3 or that they may refrain from having them at all, it probably won't surprise long-time Bethesda fans. Bethesda is well-known for releasing massive, open-world games like The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim and Fallout 3, rather than smaller sequels that re-use existing game mechanics. Due to this, it's been four years since Skyrim, and seven years since Fallout 3, which is set to receive a sequel later this year. While the wait may be discouraging to some, Bethesda's ingenuity and hundreds of hours of gameplay per title generally makes up for it.
The vast majority of fans will probably understand Bethesda's reasons for not holding a yearly showcase at E3, and it'll just make the hype even bigger if and when they hold another one. In the meantime, fans are keeping busy by scouring the Fallout 4 trailer for its smallest details. Between the game's massive scope and its mod support on PC and Xbox One, gamers can probably keep themselves busy with Fallout 4 and Bethesda's other upcoming games for many months, if not years to come.
Source: Telegraph