Bethesda buys id Software

[Hell Kitty]

Bethesda didn't make this move, ZeniMax Media did.

[Meshugger]

A shame really. As someone said, it is like an end of an era. Valve will be bought by Microsoft and Epic will be bought by Activision.

 

Oh well, maybe something new will come instead. As they say, "nothing changes".

 

Valve would be stupid to allow themselves to be bought, Steam is making them tons of money and their games aren't selling bad either.

 

Epic, I couldn't care less about.

 

 

Gabe left MS on good terms when he formed Valve, and he has stated several times that he would consider to sell Valve for the right price. Thus, Microsoft would be the natural bidder.

 

Epic hasn't done anything interesting since Unreal Tournament 2004, but they made the original Unreal 1 back in the day, which excuses them eternally for any future mistake. While EA and MS have bought studios that cover basically almost every market segment, Activision has no serious FPSs on the market. I wouldn't be suprised if they bidded for Epic, considering their success on Gears of War.

[Morgoth]

Gabe left MS on good terms when he formed Valve, and he has stated several times that he would consider to sell Valve for the right price. Thus, Microsoft would be the natural bidder.

 

Epic hasn't done anything interesting since Unreal Tournament 2004, but they made the original Unreal 1 back in the day, which excuses them eternally for any future mistake. While EA and MS have bought studios that cover basically almost every market segment, Activision has no serious FPSs on the market. I wouldn't be suprised if they bidded for Epic, considering their success on Gears of War.

Gabe would never sell out to MS, because this would mean they'll be degraded to a Xbox 360-only firm. Besides, Valve could probably buy MS.

 

Epic? Why would they sell out? And what would that mean for their successful middleware? Seriously, some companies have to remain independent.

 

And Activision has the Call of Duty franchise. I don't get why you say they have no serious FPS on the market.

Edited June 25, 2009 by Morgoth

[Syraxis]

Gabe would never sell out to MS, because this would mean they'll be degraded to a Xbox 360-only firm. Besides, Valve could probably buy MS.

 

With the success of their games and especially steam as a distribution platform, Valve isn't going to anyone.

[ramza]

Who cares about Beth anyway? Their games are average at best... They just got their recent notoriety thanks to a great game/licence developed by another company...

[Purkake]

Who cares about Beth anyway? Their games are average at best... They just got their recent notoriety thanks to a great game/licence developed by another company...

 

I'm pretty sure they made Oblivion...

[Oner]

Who cares about Beth anyway? Their games are average at best... They just got their recent notoriety thanks to a great game/licence developed by another company...

Unfortunately, the FO fanbase didn't consist of 8-or-whatever million people, and they left most of the stuff that made FO good out, so...

[Sammy Chung]

Who cares about Beth anyway? Their games are average at best... They just got their recent notoriety thanks to a great game/licence developed by another company...

 

You can argue about whether Bethesda's games are any good, but they got their recent sales thanks to Fallout 3 being a Bethesda game. If Obsidian had gotten the Fallout license, you can bet whatever game they made would not have sold nearly as much as Bethesda's.

[Mamoulian War]

Huh, I'm a bit surprised Bethesda would make this move, they don't buy studios all that often and this is the first big name one. Although id doesn't have a lot in the pipeline that I can think of, Doom and Quakewars...have they worked on anything else in the last 5 years?

 

All this really tells me is that Bethesda is doing very well for itself, and I don't see that as a negative at all.

 

the new 3D engine... their 3D stuff made zillion times bigger money for iD than selling all of the Quake and Doom merchandise combined...

Edited June 25, 2009 by Mamoulian War

[Morgoth]

Gamasutra interview with Pete Hines and John Carmack

 

I think both pretty much made clear that they won't have any joint-adventure for future games. So no Doom Roleplaying game from Bethy, and no Elder Scrolls FPS from id.

[jjc]

Who cares about Beth anyway?

We're talking about them as a publisher. One of their first new titles announced after Fallout 3 was something as intriguing as New Vegas. In what conditions are they open to publishing externally developed RPGs?

 

Oblivion was supported by DLC from its release in 2006 to the release of Shivering Isles one year later. The release of Mothership Zeta will raise the total cost of acquiring all Fallout 3 DLC nearly to the final cost of Oblivion's, with still a few months to go before the one year anniversary of the title and probably a year on top of that before New Vegas. How much further will Fallout 3 DLC go? As long as it still sells? This year has been pretty dry for major RPG releases, but in a few months everyone gets hammered with Dragon Age, Alpha Protocol, and Bioshock 2, then Mass Effect 2 some time after that.

 

I think a major question is whether New Vegas or any other hypothetical title developed by an outside party is intended to be followed by DLC in the way that their internally developed titles are. I don't imagine they'd want to cut off New Vegas' lifespan with the release of, say, Elder Scrolls 5, but it's a non-issue if New Vegas is more self-contained. It would also mean that they could elect to approach external developers to produce such self-contained titles during any major season when no big Bethesda RPG is slated for release or enjoying ongoing DLC support. Since they probably aren't interested in letting anyone else touch Elder Scrolls, that would imply titles based either on Fallout or presently unknown IP.

 

This is all speculation that supposes Bethesda have any interest in becoming more prolific as an RPG publisher beyond New Vegas.

Edited June 25, 2009 by jjc

[Syraxis]

Whatever happens next, I hope the next game will have better shadowing. As good as their world art is, that is my biggest gripe.

[bhlaab]

Considering the way it treats art assets, the rage engine seems like a perfect fit for bethesda's games. Well, hmm... it really depends on how well it handles streaming large amounts of data. I know it does huge environments, but I wonder if id's engine can only make huge, self-contained maps instead of a giant overworld area that streams in and out of memory.

[Meshugger]

Gabe left MS on good terms when he formed Valve, and he has stated several times that he would consider to sell Valve for the right price. Thus, Microsoft would be the natural bidder.

 

Epic hasn't done anything interesting since Unreal Tournament 2004, but they made the original Unreal 1 back in the day, which excuses them eternally for any future mistake. While EA and MS have bought studios that cover basically almost every market segment, Activision has no serious FPSs on the market. I wouldn't be suprised if they bidded for Epic, considering their success on Gears of War.

Gabe would never sell out to MS, because this would mean they'll be degraded to a Xbox 360-only firm. Besides, Valve could probably buy MS.

 

Epic? Why would they sell out? And what would that mean for their successful middleware? Seriously, some companies have to remain independent.

 

And Activision has the Call of Duty franchise. I don't get why you say they have no serious FPS on the market.

 

Gabe has expressed his eternal love for the Xbox360 several times, about as much as his scepticism for the PS3. Again, he left Microsoft on good terms, he like their consoles and they also distribute games for his favourite platform: The PC. What's not to lose?

 

Epic is in the very same situation as ID was years ago, constantly switching between distributors. It is only natural for them to follow ID's footsteps.

 

I take back about Activision, i completely forgot about CoD Maybe Square-Enix will buy them or something.

[Morgoth]

Gabe has expressed his eternal love for the Xbox360 several times, about as much as his scepticism for the PS3. Again, he left Microsoft on good terms, he like their consoles and they also distribute games for his favourite platform: The PC. What's not to lose?

 

Epic is in the very same situation as ID was years ago, constantly switching between distributors. It is only natural for them to follow ID's footsteps.

 

I take back about Activision, i completely forgot about CoD Maybe Square-Enix will buy them or something.

Yes yes, Gabe has often expressed that the Xbox 360 will be supported. But would you want to see Valve becoming a Xbox 360-only firm? Besides, they have Steam, so they're not in any need of getting bought out.

 

Epic? They have a 10 years plan for Gears of Wars, exclusively with Microsoft. Where dou you see "switching distributors" there? Sorry, doesn't compute. I do seem to remember though that Mark Reign once mentioned MS would have to offer 2 billions to buy Epic. I think not even MS is that crazy. And why would they? MS is only interested in their own Xbox 360, buying Epic would alienate Unreal Engine for PS3/PC clients most certainly.

 

Square-Enix isn't big enough to buy Activision-Blizzard. It's more like the other way around, but it seems Activision only cares about Guitar Hero, CoD and the WOW revenues.

[Meshugger]

Gabe has expressed his eternal love for the Xbox360 several times, about as much as his scepticism for the PS3. Again, he left Microsoft on good terms, he like their consoles and they also distribute games for his favourite platform: The PC. What's not to lose?

 

Epic is in the very same situation as ID was years ago, constantly switching between distributors. It is only natural for them to follow ID's footsteps.

 

I take back about Activision, i completely forgot about CoD Maybe Square-Enix will buy them or something.

Yes yes, Gabe has often expressed that the Xbox 360 will be supported. But would you want to see Valve becoming a Xbox 360-only firm? Besides, they have Steam, so they're not in any need of getting bought out.

 

Epic? They have a 10 years plan for Gears of Wars, exclusively with Microsoft. Where dou you see "switching distributors" there? Sorry, doesn't compute. I do seem to remember though that Mark Reign once mentioned MS would have to offer 2 billions to buy Epic. I think not even MS is that crazy. And why would they? MS is only interested in their own Xbox 360, buying Epic would alienate Unreal Engine for PS3/PC clients most certainly.

 

Square-Enix isn't big enough to buy Activision-Blizzard. It's more like the other way around, but it seems Activision only cares about Guitar Hero, CoD and the WOW revenues.

 

Stop ruining my trolling.

 

And i meant that Square-Enix should buy Epic, not Activision.

[Purkake]

Square-Enix-Epic

 

It's like a monster that keeps adding parts to it.

[bhlaab]

Gabe has expressed his eternal love for the Xbox360 several times, about as much as his scepticism for the PS3. Again, he left Microsoft on good terms, he like their consoles and they also distribute games for his favourite platform: The PC. What's not to lose?

 

Epic is in the very same situation as ID was years ago, constantly switching between distributors. It is only natural for them to follow ID's footsteps.

 

I take back about Activision, i completely forgot about CoD Maybe Square-Enix will buy them or something.

Yes yes, Gabe has often expressed that the Xbox 360 will be supported. But would you want to see Valve becoming a Xbox 360-only firm? Besides, they have Steam, so they're not in any need of getting bought out.

 

Epic? They have a 10 years plan for Gears of Wars, exclusively with Microsoft. Where dou you see "switching distributors" there? Sorry, doesn't compute. I do seem to remember though that Mark Reign once mentioned MS would have to offer 2 billions to buy Epic. I think not even MS is that crazy. And why would they? MS is only interested in their own Xbox 360, buying Epic would alienate Unreal Engine for PS3/PC clients most certainly.

 

Square-Enix isn't big enough to buy Activision-Blizzard. It's more like the other way around, but it seems Activision only cares about Guitar Hero, CoD and the WOW revenues.

 

Stop ruining my trolling.

 

And i meant that Square-Enix should buy Epic, not Activision.

 

Unreal 1 was not as good as you seem to remember

[Meshugger]

Gabe has expressed his eternal love for the Xbox360 several times, about as much as his scepticism for the PS3. Again, he left Microsoft on good terms, he like their consoles and they also distribute games for his favourite platform: The PC. What's not to lose?

 

Epic is in the very same situation as ID was years ago, constantly switching between distributors. It is only natural for them to follow ID's footsteps.

 

I take back about Activision, i completely forgot about CoD Maybe Square-Enix will buy them or something.

Yes yes, Gabe has often expressed that the Xbox 360 will be supported. But would you want to see Valve becoming a Xbox 360-only firm? Besides, they have Steam, so they're not in any need of getting bought out.

 

Epic? They have a 10 years plan for Gears of Wars, exclusively with Microsoft. Where dou you see "switching distributors" there? Sorry, doesn't compute. I do seem to remember though that Mark Reign once mentioned MS would have to offer 2 billions to buy Epic. I think not even MS is that crazy. And why would they? MS is only interested in their own Xbox 360, buying Epic would alienate Unreal Engine for PS3/PC clients most certainly.

 

Square-Enix isn't big enough to buy Activision-Blizzard. It's more like the other way around, but it seems Activision only cares about Guitar Hero, CoD and the WOW revenues.

 

Stop ruining my trolling.

 

And i meant that Square-Enix should buy Epic, not Activision.

 

Unreal 1 was not as good as you seem to remember

 

Nice try, but it is impossible for you to know my experience that i remembered from Unreal 1.

[bhlaab]

I know that Unreal 1 isn't worth the spit it takes to... uh, spit on it.

[Morgoth]

Unreal was an unforgettable experience when it came out in 1998. But I wouldn't want to play it these days.

 

Anyways... I hope we will see more stuff from Epic coming beyond Gears of War. A new IP for a nice change?

[Meshugger]

I know that Unreal 1 isn't worth the spit it takes to... uh, spit on it.

 

Great, we now know two different things and how another experienced it. Now, for something completely different...

 

Epic shouldn't do anything new, they should do a remake of Unreal 1 with their next engine (UE4).

[Gorgon]

Unreal tournament 3 was disappointing to me, it plays well, but they seem to have removed many of the options that meant you could have the kind of game you liked. Also one or two of the new versions of old weapons are lame. A minigun that turns into a shotgun with altfire. please. Even the menus are ugly.

[Morgoth]

The UT franchise died after UT99.

[Meshugger]

The UT franchise died after UT99.

 

Yup.