Bethesda founder Christopher Weaver has done an amazing job building up his company with a number of franchises. Since 1986, the company’s been known for putting together some great games, including this year’s hits, Prey, The Evil Within 2 and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus.
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Those games are single player adventures, which means they don’t deal with the whole loot box controversy making the rounds in other titles. But Weaver wasn’t afraid to tackle the subject head on.
Speaking with Glixel, Weaver explained that “This nickel and dime approach to payment may well backfire as it interferes with the flow of a game and disallows for players to lose themselves in its play world. Players may have to absorb the increasing costs of creating AAA games to allow publishers to remain profitable.”
He’s certainly not wrong. Over the past few years, companies like Ubisoft and Activision have adapted to a Season Pass system, where users pay additional funds to get extra content for their game. It’s only recently that companies have begun changing things up a bit with the possibilities of loot boxes – but also drawing the ire of many gamers as a result.
That’s not to say that Bethesda will be following such a business model, as it remains devoted to single player games, as well as multiplayer-supported games like Quake Champions and The Elder Scrolls Online.
But is Weaver right about increasing game costs? Sadly, that may be the case. It’s only been a few years since games went up from $49.99 to $59.99, and we could very well see another boost in price, sooner rather than later.
