[adam holden]

Indeed it was.

If anyone is expecting a 1:1 representation to TES series, they should be looking years and years into the future.

edit: I mean Vvardenfell was the closest in the series, but that's because it wasn't a whole province.

To a 1:1 representation? Daggerfall is far closer to a 1:1 representation.

As for TES V, why are they waiting to announce it?

[Rude Gurl]

As for TES V, why are they waiting to announce it?

The going hypothesis is because PR/Marketing has too much on their plate already with upcoming titles such as Fallout: New Vegas. Once that is released and over and done with, they have room for more games to receive their prerelease hype.

[Ricky Rayner]

TESV will be of immediate interest to everybody who bought TESIV, thats a given, and if they only wanted to reach those people they could announce it any day of the week.

But, naturally they want to make a big splash when the announce it, and grab the interest of the entire gaming market if possible. Time is on their side, as they lose nothing by holding back a few months, but stand to benefit in terms of additional pre-reveal dev time and better press saturation when they wait for a perfect lull to announce. That or they already have a date picked out and set in stone, we can't know either way until after it comes out.

If they are waiting for the perfect moment to make an announcement, they will not announce it the same week any other major game is released, or in the same week as any other schedualed announcment (like the project icarus/Bioshock Infinite thing two or three weeks back).

So don't even hope for an announcement if a blockbuster like Halo Reach or Modern Warfare: Black Ops. is being released that week, because those titles will dominate the press cycle for at least the entire week of their respective launches -- huge games have people on payroll tasked to make sure games press bloggers have new and 'exclusive' things to write posts about daily during their key marketing periods. Bethesda will wait for a lull where nothing is going on in the industry, a week like last week would be good (the 'big' release was the Dead Rising 2 pre-release mini game, and the other news was a regional price increase for Live service, no big news).

So if you're trying to outfox the marketing department at gamesas and predict the announcement, I think the first thing to look to is what else newsworthy is on the calendar. In my experience there are usually dead periods in December, but last year January and February were pretty crowded with big releases and this year might be the same. If 2011 is like 2010, there will be a great big nothing going on in March, but big releases in April. So without actually doing any homework, and looking at this year's patterns, I would say for the real optimists mid-December would be the best early window (not too late or everyone checks out for the holidays), and March 2011 would be a more reasonable bet for an uncluttered window. But, thats just off the top of my head, I don't have a release calendar in front of me at the moment.

Food for thought.

[Sandeep Khatkar]

I wasn't shure if making a new thread for this was warrented or not, but since it is speculation, I guess it should be in here.

Not shure if this was mentioned or not, I don't feel like reading all the posts. I just finished reading lots of posts in other threads and didn't see anything like this, so I thought I would ask.

Do you think we will be a prisoner again and have to escape the jail in the begining of TES V? I guess Daggerfall could be considered something like breaking out of jail even though we were not a prisoner.

Would you want something different and you are getting tired or bored of being a prisoner, or always having to break out of jail or breaking out of something to survive before you can go where ever you want to. I am mixed feelings about this. I would love to have something different. Then again, can it really be a TES game if you are not imprisoned some how and then having to escape to make it into the real world.

Commens and thought please.

[stacy hamilton]

I wasn't shure if making a new thread for this was warrented or not, but since it is speculation, I guess it should be in here.

Not shure if this was mentioned or not, I don't feel like reading all the posts. I just finished reading lots of posts in other threads and didn't see anything like this, so I thought I would ask.

Do you think we will be a prisoner again and have to escape the jail in the begining of TES V? I guess Daggerfall could be considered something like breaking out of jail even though we were not a prisoner.

Would you want something different and you are getting tired or bored of being a prisoner, or always having to break out of jail or breaking out of something to survive before you can go where ever you want to. I am mixed feelings about this. I would love to have something different. Then again, can it really be a TES game if you are not imprisoned some how and then having to escape to make it into the real world.

Commens and thought please.

There are older threads about that, but this thread is for announcement and release speculation. In the ideas and suggestions thread it could get a good range of responses as to what people think about the prisoner opening, try there.

[Captian Caveman]

If 2011 is like 2010, there will be a great big nothing going on in March, but big releases in April.

Dragon Age 2 is scheduled for release March 8, 2011 ....

[Emmanuel Morales]

Dragon Age 2 is scheduled for release March 8, 2011 ....

And Skyward Sword is ambiguously "Early 2011," so that can't be ruled out either.

[Darlene Delk]

I'm sure it will be announced with a Game Informer cover some time now. (perhaps preceded by a site countdown)

Not only from gamesas's past history, but you guys saw the Bioshock Infinite covers they did right? Amazing, if they do an ESV cover it will look fantastic...

[Ron]

Id say it's more likely to have something to do with the book than new vegas. Why there putting off an announcement... i mean.

[Kevan Olson]

:cryvaultboy: Man I can't wait so long, why Bethesda not say nothing about TESV, if they really they had worked for Four years acording whit the time in that Olivion was realease. is time enought time to finally reveal that the game is in development. :sadvaultboy:

[Darren Chandler]

Id say it's more likely to have something to do with the book than new vegas. Why there putting off an announcement... i mean.

well, while the games have different developers (Obsidian and BGS) they do both have the same publisher, and therefore the same marketing department. So if they wait for New Vegas, then the whole marketing department can focus.

[Alyesha Neufeld]

well, while the games have different developers (Obsidian and BGS) they do both have the same publisher, and therefore the same marketing department. So if they wait for New Vegas, then the whole marketing department can focus.

I would agree with this reasoning, the marketing department does have a lot of games to promote at the moment.

Can we find out how large the marketing department at Bethesda Softworks is?

[мistrєss]

:cryvaultboy: Man I can't wait so long, why Bethesda not say nothing about TESV, if they really they had worked for Four years acording whit the time in that Olivion was realease. is time enought time to finally reveal that the game is in development. :sadvaultboy:

Bethesda worked on Fallout 3 after Oblivion, so they've only actually been working on TES V for 2 years.

[Laura Cartwright]

Bethesda worked on Fallout 3 after Oblivion, so they've only actually been working on TES V for 2 years.

Which is exactly what Todd said in his interview with Eurogamer is that they have had a game in production for the past 2 years and have started pre-production on another. That usually means they're pretty much done with the game and rolling over resources to the new one, they just have to wait for the right marketing window to open. I could honestly see a summer 2011 release in the same realm that Star Craft II was launched. It's out of the way of most major titles for next year and leaves plenty of time for PR. I would suspect they will announce it before christmas so they have most of next year to promote it. Todd also mentioned that if Pete told him to show it he would gladly show it, which is another confirmation that it's nearly done. Bethesda does not like to show games were they can't show off a lot. Another thing to consider is that if they are going through any delays they don't want to have it announced and then delayed like Oblivion was. Someone had a development sheet posted on these forums but I can't seem to find it, that was pretty good. To be frank, I DOUBT it will be an MMO, Bethesda likes to target the largest audience possible and all there games have been that way. They use the Mod community to keep the player base excited and alive because they realize there development cycles are longer than most companies(just an assumption, I can't speak for them my self).

[Esther Fernandez]

TESV will be of immediate interest to everybody who bought TESIV, thats a given, and if they only wanted to reach those people they could announce it any day of the week.

But, naturally they want to make a big splash when the announce it, and grab the interest of the entire gaming market if possible. Time is on their side, as they lose nothing by holding back a few months, but stand to benefit in terms of additional pre-reveal dev time and better press saturation when they wait for a perfect lull to announce. That or they already have a date picked out and set in stone, we can't know either way until after it comes out.

If they are waiting for the perfect moment to make an announcement, they will not announce it the same week any other major game is released, or in the same week as any other schedualed announcment (like the project icarus/Bioshock Infinite thing two or three weeks back).

So don't even hope for an announcement if a blockbuster like Halo Reach or Modern Warfare: Black Ops. is being released that week, because those titles will dominate the press cycle for at least the entire week of their respective launches -- huge games have people on payroll tasked to make sure games press bloggers have new and 'exclusive' things to write posts about daily during their key marketing periods. Bethesda will wait for a lull where nothing is going on in the industry, a week like last week would be good (the 'big' release was the Dead Rising 2 pre-release mini game, and the other news was a regional price increase for Live service, no big news).

So if you're trying to outfox the marketing department at gamesas and predict the announcement, I think the first thing to look to is what else newsworthy is on the calendar. In my experience there are usually dead periods in December, but last year January and February were pretty crowded with big releases and this year might be the same. If 2011 is like 2010, there will be a great big nothing going on in March, but big releases in April. So without actually doing any homework, and looking at this year's patterns, I would say for the real optimists mid-December would be the best early window (not too late or everyone checks out for the holidays), and March 2011 would be a more reasonable bet for an uncluttered window. But, thats just off the top of my head, I don't have a release calendar in front of me at the moment.

Food for thought.

Bethesda would be able to get around all of that mess by using Game Informer. A Game Informer cover would definitely serve to bring more attention to the announcement. To get a Game Informer announcement, they'll have to announce it either at the end of the month or at the beginning of the month. Luckily for us I keep a constantly updated chart of the release dates for upcoming videogames, or at least the videogames I'm interested in, so lets see what's going on in the next few months:

September:
6th: Chime
7th: Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions
8th: Amnesia: The Dark Descent
14th: Halo: Reach
19th: Playstation Move
21st: Etrian Odyssey 3
21st: F1 2010
23rd: Darksiders
28th: Dead Rising 2
28th: Battle vs. Chess
28th: Claptrap's New Robot Revolution
29th: Hydrophobia
30th: Final Fantasy XIV

October:
5th: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow
5th: Rock of the Dead
5th: Enslaved: Odyssey to the West
5th: Two Worlds II
5th: Nail'd
6th: Comic Jumper
8th: X Superbox
12th: Medal of Honor
12th: Arcania- Gothic 4
12th: Dragon Age: Origins Ultimate Edition
12th: Borderlands GOTY edition
19th: Fallout: New Vegas
19th: Vanquish (Xbox 360)
19th: Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2
20th: Super Meat Boy
26th: Fable III
26th: Super Scribblenauts
26th: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2

November:
2nd: DC Universe Online
4th: Kinect
5th: Darkstar
9th: Call of Duty: Black Ops
9th: Apache: Air Assault
16th: Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit
16th: Quantum Theory
16th: Sonic Colors

December:
7th: Tron Evolution

January:
6th: Venetica
25th: Dead Space 2

February:
9th: Portal 2
22nd: Bulletstorm

March:
8th: Dragon Age 2
22nd: Crysis 2

Of course, you have to keep in mind that those are only confirmed dates, and that there are still a lot of games coming out in "Early 2011" that will fill up January and the later months nicely. But just by looking at the current list, I'd have to agree with you that an early December announcement with a January Game Informer Cover would be ideal. But, it wouldn't really be a stretch to announce it in November either. None of those big games coming out then have the kind of fanbase who would like TES V anyway.

[Allison Sizemore]

Bethesda would be able to get around all of that mess by using Game Informer. A Game Informer cover would definitely serve to bring more attention to the announcement. To get a Game Informer announcement, they'll have to announce it either at the end of the month or at the beginning of the month. Luckily for us I keep a constantly updated chart of the release dates for upcoming videogames, or at least the videogames I'm interested in, so lets see what's going on in the next few months:



Of course, you have to keep in mind that those are only confirmed dates, and that there are still a lot of games coming out in "Early 2011" that will fill up January and the later months nicely. But just by looking at the current list, I'd have to agree with you that an early December announcement with a January Game Informer Cover would be ideal. But, it wouldn't really be a stretch to announce it in November either. None of those big games coming out then have the kind of fanbase who would like TES V anyway.

As I looked at the Benelux expansion I can see that they are dumping a lot of money into the international marketing strategy and are really pushing for a huge 2011. It has to be challenging expanding like this, so I can see needing the extra time even more now. I actually see November as a viable timeframe with a December GI cover (being announced obviously in November). That would give enough time after the Fable III let down *cough* I mean, "media-circus" to have calmed and allow for a truly EPIC rpg to be announced.

[Sebrina Johnstone]

I would agree with this reasoning, the marketing department does have a lot of games to promote at the moment.

Can we find out how large the marketing department at Bethesda Softworks is?

Yes that's true, but New vegas seems to be getting the most miscellaneous coverage, even if at PAX there was a lot of the other stuff. It's also the only one related to a franchise by BGS.

Although I have no clue how big and well-funded the Bethesda marketing department is.

[Lewis Morel]

You've also got Black Prophecy schedualed for open beta in November and release in March.

[Marguerite Dabrin]

Although I have no clue how big and well-funded the Bethesda marketing department is.

Probably pretty small. Pete Hines is Bethesda's VP Marketing, and he also writes manuals. I could only find one other guy who works as a community manager, so I'd say you can count Marketing employees on one hand.

[Sophie Miller]

Today Bethesda opened a new office in Eindhoven ( The Netherlands ) and Jurgen Stirnweis of 2K is also coming to Bethesda as marketing manager. I dont know of any of this info is useful... And sorry for my bad English I'm just 14 so it isn't that good...

[Mackenzie]

Today Bethesda opened a new office in Eindhoven ( The Netherlands ) and Jurgen Stirnweis of 2K is also coming to Bethesda as marketing manager. I dont know of any of this info is useful... And sorry for my bad English I'm just 14 so it isn't that good...

I read about the Netherlands, but I didn't know they were getting a new marketing manager. That may or may not mean anything besides Bethesda getting bigger, but it's good to know. Thanks.

[Elea Rossi]

Today Bethesda opened a new office in Eindhoven ( The Netherlands ) and Jurgen Stirnweis of 2K is also coming to Bethesda as marketing manager. I dont know of any of this info is useful... And sorry for my bad English I'm just 14 so it isn't that good...

Eindhoven was liberated by the 101st Airborn during Operation Market Garden in WWII. Just a little factoid.

[Marguerite Dabrin]

I live in a small village near Eindhoven. ^^

[Natalie J Webster]

I live in a small village near Eindhoven. ^^

neat.

[electro_fantics]

Bethesda opening up another publishing office doesn't really mean anything for Bethesda Game Studios and TES V. :shrug: