Such a sad story for this MMO. One of the few good ones that are left, and is always being battered by bad decisions. The MMO is still good, it still has a lot of potential… I hope for the best for this mmo. Not many good MMOs left.
Xbox's gut-wrenching layoffs include the Elder Scrolls Online dev who became studio head around the time of last year's gut-wrenching Xbox layoffs
Submitted 4 days ago by GamingBot@lemmy.zip [bot] to gaming@lemmy.zip
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tixooo@lemmy.zip 3 days ago 
Nima@leminal.space 3 days ago its really good, actually. i only ever take a break from eso. never quit completely.
dragontology@retrofed.com 3 days ago
It’s a hard truth, but Bethesda has become way too bloated, and they’ve had years to fix their shit.
Their most recent Fallout and Elder Scrolls games are MMOs, it’s almost like they’ve given up on the single player experience.
Starfield came out after both Fallout 76 and The Elder Scrolls Online. It released missing features, and had bugs they intentionally ignored. Then they basically abandoned it. A year later, they released a half assed DLC. Then abandoned it again. There were a couple minor updates, and then fairly recently, another half assed DLC. Meanwhile Fallout 76 and Elder Scrolls Online get a couple big expansions a year.
Obviously F76 and TESO print money, but, that’s why I have no sympathy for Bethesda. They’ve gotten so far from what made them great. Their last single player games in those franchises, Skyrim (2011, 16 years ago) and Fallout 4 (2015, 11 years ago) are mere shadows of their predecessors. They had some big ideas, but they also had some big bugs.
You can say “obviously F76 and TESO print money so they must be doing something right,” but then you can’t beg sympathy from the single-player fans.
It’s not gut-wrenching. Xbox overextended itself and it hasn’t paid off for them. Bethesda has been putting out slop for over a decade. While I will agree the wrong ones were let go (Todd Howard should have been cut loose ages ago, like after Skyrim), this was necessary. Xbox taking Fallout 5 from Bethesda (they still have F76) was just the icing on the cake. Obsidian made the most recent good Fallout game… in 2010. Then they made The Outer Worlds, a spiritual successor to Fallout: New Vegas. Even the fan-productions Enderal and The Forgotten City, both based on Skyrim, are better games. Skyrim had dragons, but given the scope of Oblivion before it, they missed the mark, despite it printing money.
In short, Bethesda lost the plot and I have no sympathy for the company, only for the people who were let go. I hope they find work. But I do not have hope that Bethesda will recover. Their best days are two whole decades ago. Oblivion and Fallout 3.
theOneTrueSpoon@feddit.uk 2 days ago
I remember reading something ages ago about Todd. Apparently he has all of these big ideas, some of which are just not practical. He needed someone to keep him in check so things didn’t go off the rails. I believe that person either left or was let go at some point, so now Todd is just surrounded by yes men, never telling him when one of his ideas is bad. So we end up in this situation with Bethesda the way it is. Not saying that’s the only reason of course, but I believe it’s a contributing factor