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Bethesda CEO on Starfield an Bugs: " We embrace Chaos"

Draugoth

Gold Member
starfield-crash.jpg

GamesIndustry.biz spoke to head of global publishing Pete Hines ahead of launch at last week's Gamescom 2023, where the subject of Bethesda and its history with bugs inevitably came up. But while the company has become known (fondly, in the case of many fans) for the quirky errors in its open-world RPGs, Hines suggests its less important that the team's efforts to give players more freedom.

"We embrace chaos. We could make a safer, less buggy, less risky game if we wanted to. But what we try to lean into is player freedom. Yes, there's going to be some little things here and there where your companion might stand a little too close to you sometimes, yet the freedom you get, and the things that happen because of that, we absolutely love and embrace.

Of course there are bugs. But does it take away from your experience? Or do you have a consistent, fun game that you just can't stop playing and experimenting with?
 
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Zuzu

Member
It depends on the nature of the bug. Benign bugs like some characters clipping through objects or facial features disappearing during conversations are no big deal usually. But more problematic bugs such as those that break quests and make them not completable harm the experience of the game.
 
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Punished Miku

Human Rights Subscription Service
Man, can these people shut up for once?
It's always drama with them.
This is from his Gamescom interview. Just watch that. It's a normal PR guy doing this thing. He's asked about bugs. He acknowledges they have bugs, but tries to put a positive spin on it. His job.

You can clip out 100 different lines from his relatively uneventful 5 min conversation and chop it up into 100 articles.
 

FireFly

Member
How about embracing development that gets rid of bugs during the actual dev cycle?
Reviewers are saying this is Bethesda's least buggy game (though not exactly a high bar). But all software products ship with bugs and RPGs of this scope will inevitably suffer more. The key metric is how many of the bugs are progress blockers.
 

feynoob

Banned
Why do they have to say something stupid?
Why not just are games are huge, players are going to do things we didn't in qa
Their games has always been the buggiest games, every time they launch. It's they are called bugthesda.
At least this game bugs happens late game.
 

MadPanda

Banned
How about embracing development that gets rid of bugs during the actual dev cycle?

For a game they make, where every item is tracked any many other systems are in place that's impossible. Stop pretending to be smarter than everyone else. What Hines said is true. They could make a linear game where you're restricted and without bugs. No thanks, there are plenty of such games Already.
 

Pelta88

Member
For a game they make, where every item is tracked any many other systems are in place that's impossible. Stop pretending to be smarter than everyone else. What Hines said is true. They could make a linear game where you're restricted and without bugs. No thanks, there are plenty of such games Already.

Advocating for less buggy games means I'm pretending to be smarter than everyone else? Me trying to work out the mental gymnastics before I had a look at MadPanda MadPanda 's post history.

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MadPanda

Banned
Advocating for less buggy games means I'm pretending to be smarter than everyone else? Me trying to work out the mental gymnastics before I had a look at MadPanda MadPanda 's post history.

ImpishElegantCaudata-max-1mb.gif

From what I read in reviews, and heard from Karak at ACG this is their least buggy game so what are you talking about?

And what about my history, want to point something out or?
 

Wildebeest

Member
Redfall is no different for us. Okay, we didn't get the start we wanted, but it's still a fun game… and we're going to keep working on it. We're going to do 60fps. We're going to get it to be a good game because we know, as a first-party studio, Game Pass lives forever. There will be people ten years from now who are going to join Game Pass, and Redfall will be there.
10 year lifetime support for Redfall confirmed. Arkane Austin going to be hard at work polishing that gem forever because Pete Hines thinks it is fun.
 
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