Why wouldn't Bethesda think that they accomplished something wonderful (outside their level of success with Oblivion)? I was just thinking about this recently. Oblivion is still the only game in its class that has ever been created. They set out to do this kind of thing, as can be seen in every Elder Scrolls game they ever did. Their goal was a huge, open-ended world full of quests and possibilities. That these quests and possibilities lack any form of depth was necessarily by design. What they set out to do they succeeded brilliantly in.
Really, what game of its kind exists today beside Oblivion? The closest thing I can think of is Morrowind. Two Worlds or Gothic 3 don't compare, because I don't mean fun level or open-ended world. Just the enormous scope of it, or everything you can do and see. Necessarily, all those things that you can do or see will have to pay for it in depth.
I'm not trying to judge them as people, and if they think they've accomplished something wonderful, then that's great for them - and I mean that sincerely. Getting to do something for a living that makes you happy as a person is quite enviable, and I'd like that myself.
I'm in no way denying that there are great aspects of Oblivion, I'm just not particularly impressed, for several reasons.
First of all, they licensed a bunch of engines to make their games, including:
GameBryo - The overall 3D engine used by many other games.
SpeedTree - The software responsible for making trees that look great.
Havok - The physics engine responsible for... well.. physics.
Don't get me wrong, you don't just license these engines and a great game appears. It's also the 100% correct decision, and I'd do the same thing if I had the cash and was a developer. The thing is simply about how impressive their talents are when this is taken into consideration, and if they made the best use of these engines.
Of course they have talented developers and they did amazing things. You have to go photograph rocks and other things, and use complex software to convert them into textures. You also have to have talented 3D artists to develop meshes and whatever else is needed, and their weapon/armor models are among the best in the business.
I don't have much respect for their animators, though, but that's another story. Radiant AI? Well, an interesting experiment and I give them credit for trying, but the end-result was less than impressive. Their level designs were, mostly, horrible. The most incredibly dull and samey dungeons over and over again, with a few notable exceptions. Also, the Dark Brotherhood quest line was pretty cool.
Overall a mixed bag, but the heart of my problem is with the gameplay. They just don't know what makes an entertaining CRPG, which includes a rewarding character system, a great combat system, a viable and cool magic system, interesting NPC interaction, and not least of all an intriguing storyline.
What's worse, is that in a freeform non-linear CRPG such as Oblivion, the aspect of exploration is perhaps the most important one. You HAVE to make that aspect appealing and worthwhile. In that, they failed utterly. Yes, it's extremely pretty, but you hardly ever find anything interesting off the beaten path. Look, another cool dungeon, I gotta find out what's in there - and you get to yet another cookie cutter repeat of the rest. The same goes for their shrines and all the other things. They've cut and pasted so much of their content, that it all ends up being thoroughly unsatisfying as an exploration game. They should have made less content, with more detail - and they could keep the feeling of immense size. Gothic (1 and 2) did this infinitely better.
It just takes this kind of thing to impress me.
But you gotta appreciate that I grew up in a time where licensed engines didn't exist, or when they were a rarity at least. My favorite games, like System Shock, were based on engines that a MUCH smaller development team developed all by themselves. They also pionered in a very big way, and System Shock was the most advanced 3D engine back then, way ahead of its time. It wasn't as slick or fast as the Doom engine (Carmack is a genius, I guess) - but it did A LOT more and was almost true 3D years before Quake.
The same can be said for many other games from that time, and it was really more a passion than a business for many developers.
The problem is, as it is with so many games, that they had the potential to make a marvellous game - if only they could comprehend game design and were willing to settle for merely a profit - instead of the most profit possible.
I'm the kind of guy who thinks of gameplay as the primary factor in any game, and no amount of visual quality will ever mean more to me than that.
If you have the means, as Bethesda clearly do, and you fail to make use of them to create a great game - well, then you fail overall.
I'm not saying anything about them as people, and I'm sure they're nice and all that. I'm just saying that for whatever reason, they didn't live up to their potential as game developers and designers. That's MY opinion, and nothing more.
My theory is that it's a mixture of failing to understand game design thoroughly, and the desire to make the game sell as much as possible. They clearly made compromises so their game would be popular to the masses. That's not a bad thing to do, if you're a business man.
That's what they are, business men. Great business men.
But they're not what I would consider great artists. That said, they DID manage to make the prettiest freeform CRPG in existence, and I have to give them credit for that. The same way I can give credit to the tech people who did the effects for Tranformers. Amazingly talented people, no doubt, but it wasn't a piece of art - not to my mind.
You don't have to agree