The former head of publishing at Bethesda Pete left in 2023 after it was acquired by Microsoft in a couple of years earlier and in an interview with Firezide Chat said he left because the company “part of something that is not authentic and is not genuine.”
“It was really hard to walk away from [my team] and not get to see them on a regular basis,” said Hines (via VideoGamesChronicle). “At the same time, I also hit a point of realizing I could not spend the rest of my life doing something that wasn’t for me. It was for everybody else, which is what I was doing.
“I was staying there because this place still needs me. I just hit a point of yes, it needs me, and I am powerless to do what I think needs to be done to run this place properly, to protect these people, to maintain what we worked so hard to create, which is an incredibly efficient, well run video game developer and publisher.
“And when I couldn’t protect it, and I saw how it was getting damaged and broken apart and frankly mistreated, abused, whatever word you want to use, I said I am not going to sit here and watch this happen right in front of me.
“I think I’ve done everything I can do. This is not when I wanted it to end or how I wanted it to end, but that’s not really up to me. And at a certain point, truthfully, my mental health was so deplorable that I just said I cannot.”
Hines added he was waiting until the release of Starfield before leaving Bethesda.
“Every time Todd delayed Starfield, I thought, fuck, I’m here another eight months,” he said. “And Todd was the only one who knew.”
He was at first excited for Bethesda to become part of Xbox as he was a fan and held them in high regard until he saw how it actually worked.
“That was the worst part,” said Hines. “Yeah, that was the worst fucking part. It was to join a place that I genuinely was a fan of and people there I genuinely held in high regard and esteem, and then to get there and see how it actually worked.
“To talk is something, right? But I’m very much about what is the follow up to that? Do you mean what you say? Or are you just saying shit that sounds good and then as soon as you leave this room that’s completely forgotten? Because that is not how we ever operated at Bethesda.
“And that’s not to say everything we said, we did. Yeah, we probably didn’t fucking come close to that, but that was absolutely our intention. We are going to do what we say and say what we do and be genuine and be authentic.
“And truthfully, I still think Bethesda is just part of something that is not authentic and is not genuine. And that shouldn’t be a surprise to you.”
A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can follow the author on Bluesky.
Full Article – https://www.vgchartz.com/article/467519/pete-hines-bethesda-is-part-of-something-that-is-not-authentic-and-is-not-genuine/