Bethesda’s buying spree in the late 2000s didn’t come from a place of “we want to acquire you” – the publisher’s high-profile acquisitions during that time came from wanting to work with likeminded developers, according to former president of publishing Pete Hines.
Speaking to DBLTAP about his two-decade stint at the company, Hines remembered it was “a big deal” when Bethesda eventually started to scoop up developers outside of its Elder Scrolls, Fallout offices. It nabbed id Software (Doom), Arkane Studios (Dishonored, Prey, Marvel’s Blade), MachineGames (Wolfenstein, Indiana Jones), and Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within, Hi-Fi Rush) within just a few years – turning the RPG dev into a powerhouse publisher.
“We really respected what id Software did,” Hines said. “And honestly, that conversation wasn’t, ‘Hey, we want to acquire you.’ Much like MachineGames, and much like Arkane, it just started with: ‘We would love to make something with you, we have a lot of respect for what you do, and we see the common DNA.'”
“And if you have a chance to work with [Resident Evil father and Tango Gameworks founder] Shinji Mikami, you should always say yes,” he added about the once-shutdown, now-revived studio.
While Bethesda’s games existed in different genres, they still shared some commonality – namely, that similar games weren’t being made by rival publishers (single-player FPS games, immersive sims, and classic third-person horrors didn’t exactly dominate the generation.)
Hines also said one of the biggest benefits of growing with acquisitions was having the teams collaborate across games. “It became useful because if you’re working on guns at Bethesda Game Studios, maybe you should have a conversation with id Software about how they make their guns feel so weighty and powerful,” he explained. “We want to let them make what they want to make.”
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