It is respectable growth since most of the companies are already at a size where they can make games, but I don’t think it represents massive expansion on the scale of supporting entire new games. I think it basically, at least in most cases, represents just the staffing increases they expect to keep games coming out roughly on time at increasingly high standards of AAA games.
For a sense of scale, Playground who has been making an entirely new AAA studio currently, alone, has more than 100 open jobs. BGS has about 50 open jobs, but half of those are for support on Fallout 76. Other companies like id and machinegames are more like 10-20 open jobs. Arkane is 40 across 2 branches.
Out of the ~250 open jobs at zenimax, around 50-70 of those are administrative or backend stuff - like for Bethesda dot net, or brand managers, or things like that. The only studio I think is actually getting an entirely new pipeline is Zenimax Online Studio, which is hiring up fairly aggressively (about 50 like BGS too) but has been bigger for longer than the others have, and hiring a lot of jobs even when other studios weren’t last year. I think they’re spinning up for a new MMO while they transition to still supporting their old one.
I do feel we need an Elder Scrolls remake of some sort. Microsoft can outsource it if they want to, and they might as well start leveraging the IP, so it adds onto the hype for the new entry into the series
Not many studios receive playgrounds rate of growth. They went from less than 200 employees in 2018 to approaching 400. Mojang is another one that saw absurd growth, but I don’t really expect many studios in the industry to do that. At this rate they’ll grow BGS at a 20% growth per year which will be more than enough to have multiple full games in full development at once.
Fallout 76 is one of the most popular games in game pass right now, has a thriving community, has content planned and makes MONEY. Your take is ridiculous.
Can we stop treating F76 like some stain? Beyond launch window the game has been superb, has great content and is fun to play.
Why would they outsource it beyond fulfilling yall selfish fantasies of a new game because of impatience? We literally have: Starfield, Avowed, Outer Worlds, TES6, Fable and Project Cobalt coming all this gen along with 76 getting expansions and ESO.
Zenimax Online is working on their own new IP while handling ESO a really popular MMO. They havent worked on Fallout either.
“Dev freedom and creative choice but only for the studios and games I want”
Again if BGS has ZERO plans to do a fallout this gen and dont want to relinquish the IP to anybody there is nothing Xbox or Microsoft will do to force it. These are the same people that again dont force Mojang to leverage Minecraft on xbox which is probably bigger than any of the zenimax IP’s lol.
If we get a new game great. Ill be there the second the game goes live on game pass shilling it but I dont think WE NEED a fallout this gen.
I could just as easily say your wish to keep everything the same and not see a new Fallout game in development is selfish. I’m not going to though because I can discuss things without attacking others.
No I want a new Fallout I just dont agree with the “need to force them”, “outsource” or “give it to X, Y or Z” mentality. BGS is the custodian of the series they will know whats right what to do with it.
Im just not gonna die if the next fallout isnt made this gen just like nobody died with TES6 not coming out on xbox one.
I’m not going to die either lol. It’s just smart business practice to gear Bethesda up and streamline their workloads so they can take on amazing new projects.
I obviously don’t know what the devs in Bethesda Dallas want to do, but I bet if you ask them if they want to support Fallout 76 or do what creators love to do and create a high budget new story in a new engine with the Fallout universe that I know how they’d answer.
Bethesda needs to set up a Fallout studio, even if it’s hard and takes time. Like 343 Industries for Halo (or Mojang for Minecraft or The Coalition for Gears).
At this point, it’s clear that BGS Austin is too busy with Starfield. These days, it feels like a small team is running FO76 unfortunately (multiple delays on the roadmap and the content was not that huge in 2021).
The Project Lead (Jeff Gardiner) also left Bethesda in September and we still don’t know who is the new lead.
Or they could promote Austin as the Fallout studio but that would suppose a massive growth and a better autonomy from Maryland, not just being a support studio for Starfield or TES VI. I believe they are around ~ 100 people currently (and if I had to make a random guess, I would think that less than half are working on Fallout. Unless the Expeditions in 2022 are something big that are draining the resources).