this post was submitted on 25 Feb 2024
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Two things: 1) You’re making it sound like swapping engines is incredibly easy (it’s not, and you have to train staff on how to utilize it from the ground up and that can take a while), and 2) you’re probably right on why they keep using CE, and the sad reality is that Bethesda absolutely intentionally designs uncooked barebones games because they realized they can just have the fandom make actual interesting content, or QoL changes. They also know that ~~Creation~~ Gamebryo Engine does limit them a lot to what they can do, but rather than going through the cost and time of changing over engines, they just let the fandom create the script extenders that are available for literally every single game of theirs since Morrowind so modders can literally do things the base game can’t let them do.
So this is more of a case where the craftsman has shoddy tools, but they don’t care because they’ll churn out a piece-of-crap and have their audience improve it for them for free. And then the craftsman will have the gall to try and get a cut of the audience’s work somehow.
It’s not easy to change engines. But they could afford it, if they could justify it.
I think you overestimate how many people actually install or care about mods. Many people just seems to like what Bethesda does.
Oblivion was a smash hit on Xbox without mods. Since that the main sellers seems to be the console versions.
Last time I’ll respond to you since it seems you’re a Bethesda fanboy - or at least a very ardent defender.
Then why did Beth go out of their way to include mod support for consoles for Skyrim and Fallout 4, as well as announce mod support for console versions of Starfield? Plus people were clamoring for mods on console versions of their games even going back as far as Morrowind - but their games back then were more complete, so you are correct in that more people were okay with not having mods because at least the games were decent enough.
During 2006? Yeah, you’re correct - but interesting you’re bringing up Oblivion instead of Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and even Starfield. Y’know, the games that have been pretty devoid of any worthwhile vanilla content.
Wait, you think I’m defending them?
Making statements about why shitty games are not the fault of old technology is not a defense of said shitty games.
They always make the same game, they ship it broken and keep it broken. The best game in their franchises since at least since Morrowind was made by another studio. The lore is derivative and as deep as a puddle. They sell their games based on bullet points and features and not quality.
I don’t like their recent output at all. I find their design philosophy and quest design outdated and lacking, recent games feel older that previous ones.
But none of those things are the engine’s fault. They ship exactly the game they want to ship, and use the engine that lets them do it as efficiently as possible. If they are limited at all is in their production organization or lack thereof.
Are you denying that Skyrim, Fallour 3 and 4, or Starfield are commercial successes? Even Starfield was a critically acclaimed game for a while.
Most people are okay without mods because they can’t install them in their platform of choice so they don’t expect them. They have heard about them in articles and videos and find them an oddity of PC gaming, at most.
It is really easy to fall into an echo chamber and believing most of the people that buys Bethesda games are fixing them with mods. That’s an option only for a minority of players, and of those many won’t install them. They play 30~60 hours and won’t launch the game ever again.