I think it’s a fairly standard observation that holds weight on a regular basis that we all end up being our own worst critic.
Unless you were Richard Nixon. Hunter S. Thompson
definitely hated that son of a bitch more than he hated
himself, which is impressive
You see it all the time in creative works. Hell, there are days where I start attempting to work myself up into a mind space just to approach an idea to write an article for ATE…which is followed by me unceremoniously throwing every idea I have directly into the metaphorical bin as not good enough, and these are just goofy little write ups involving the state of the video game industry. Imagine if you had to work on something that one could consider a generationally defining piece of art?
Talk about needing Hulk like strength just to bear the burden
Enter: the Elder Scrolls VI development team, who most certainly have the unenviable task of doing just that. In an interview making the rounds in the regular gaming circles of conversation recently, one of the designers at Bethesda who worked on Skyrim, Bruce Nesmith, was doing an interview for Youtube channel Kiwi Talks, and touches upon a number of subjects under the sun, one of which was developing the next Elder Scrolls title, and made mention of what he calls “The game of expectations”, which is how he explains dealing with not just video game development, but everyday affairs:
“I do an entire talk on it, that I do at universities and other places, it’s called the game of expectations, and I’m…I won’t say famous, but I’m well known for parading that phrase out, it’s uh the game that’s played in real life, and it is one of the most important games you’ll ever play…everywhere, forget game development, everywhere, because you are always judged by your expectations.
One of the things I do in my talks, I give a little bit of a scenario, you know your five year old child comes to you and shows you a drawing, and it looks amazing and you’re like wow, this is really really cool, you put it up on the refrigerator, and you show your neighbors, yeah look my kid did this, isn’t that great? Now if that same picture was given to you by a 30 year old professional artist, you would start to wonder what’s going on here? Are they having a nervous breakdown? Is there an issue? And it’s the same picture, the picture has not changed, the only thing that’s changed is your expectation based on who gave it to you.
We almost never evaluate anything based on it’s absolute worth, it’s always it’s relative worth. Even things you consider hard currency, like gold or gems, it’s their relative worth, they’re expected value, that becomes it’s true value. So everywhere you look in life, you’re being judged on your expectations, you’re not being judged on the actual content.”
The smile of a man who knows how to deal with stress
The entire interview of Nesmith’s is worth a listen if you’re a fan of game development or writing in general, and does kind of hone in on the reality vs expectation argument many have to contend with when one is defining themselves creatively, and how to move forward inspite of the fear of failure, or just a general anxiety of the “not good enough” mentality. I think there is a lot of different interesting aspects to deconstruct here, and a lot of it does just boil down to avoiding elements like analysis paralysis, and even ego on some level, as I think it’s way too easy for a mind or even a team to suffer from either too much or too little egotism when it comes to delivering on a project of any magnitude, let alone one as big as ESVI.
Look: you’ve already done this five times over, guys. Just add
one more, it’s right there in the title. Simple.
I think on ground level, Bruce Nesmith is taking a safe approach to his precautions involving the next Elder Scrolls game, as the build up to the title will have been generating for more than a decade, and I hope his colleagues and Todd Howard’s team echo that careful sentiment without getting over-encumbered with stress by complicating their goals of what looks like a successful execution. If anything Bethesda can look at both Starfield, and most certainly Fallout 76 on just how not to do launches. With Starfield, I felt like people were genuinely disappointed with the depth of the title, specifically more in reference to the shallowness of the mechanics that lent themselves to what felt like maybe a too bare-bones basic RPG experience. The list of Fallout 76’s failings are exhaustive to say the least, but to speak to the most detrimental of issues, was the idea related to a bizarre lack of fundamentals intrinsically tied to what made up the classic Fallout series formula work.
It was not the lack of bag, guys, though that didn’t help any
So, on some beautiful level, all Bethesda really has to do is go back to basics. While the phrase “soft reboot” doesn’t necessarily apply here, as the Elder Scrolls games are loosely connected and each acts as it’s own redefinement of the formula on some level, the general idea of wiping the slate clean is a great launching point. The next Elder Scrolls title works safely being a refresh of sorts, with the games before it always helping to lay the new ground rules of what is to come, so if anything, Bethesda’s team should feel a sigh of relief. Since they’re dealing with an institution of sorts, and with a generational reset approach in mind considering the length of time it has been since the last title, all they have to focus on is a back to basics approach with Elder Scrolls VI, and by virtue of both the cultural and technological progress we’ve made as an industry, it would benefit them to not over think this, and not try to reinvent the wheel in the process, and they’ll be golden.
I guess in summation: Elder Scrolls VI doesn’t have to be this amazing, grandiose, mind blowing, bedrock shattering, unbelievable experience- it just has to be Elder Scrolls VI.
The rest may follow as a result.
~Pashford
Active Time Event 