So I saw this posed on the Bethesda Blog and it really caught my attention:

http://www.bethblog.com/2014/01/23/the-elder-scrolls-online-voice-cast-revealed/

This is really a huge success and puts Skyrim and TES on the same level as other blockbuster games like Call of Duty, Grand Thief Auto, and other top selling franchises. It can't be understated how much a finical success Skyrim has become. The point of this thread is to speculate what this means for future TES games and Bethesda in general.

First of all money talks and developers/publishers will go where the money takes them. There is nothing wrong with model either as we live in a capitalistic society and the purpose of any business is to make a profit. Its no coincidence you see other developers listing Skyrim as an influence as they all want a piece if the Skyrim pie. That said I think we can look at the things that made Skyrim a success and make reasonable assumptions or predictions that these things will make a return in TES VI.

The first thing I look at in any TES game is the main character, the game world. To me its no coincidence that Skyrim's world is so beautiful and interesting, and that the game sold so incredibly well. If you compare it to Oblivion which is more bland and you see a lot of re-used (copy/paste) assets. I expect the next TES to continue this trend with interesting and varied environments like Skyrim (and Morrowind).

Next thing I would look at is the game mechanics of Skyrim. A lot of TES hardcoe will insist that Skyrim is being "dumbed down" with the removal of birth signs, skills, attributes, etc. being replaced with perk trees. While I don't agree that this is hurting TES, I do agree these things broaden the audience which results in greater sales. I would expect these things (streamlining) to continue for TESVI.

With TES becoming the leading franchise for Bethesda, I would expect them to through more resources to Bethesda Game Studios in hopes to shorten development time by a bit. Maybe Bethesda can grow the studio to two teams concurrently working TES and Fallout so that the wait between games for both franchises is shorter.

That's all I got right now but I think there are lots of consequences on future TES games based on Skyrim's success. What does everyone think the success of skyrim means for future games, good and bad?

and, therefore, the next tes game has no excuse for being released incomplete or deficient in basic gameplay.

Nice, congrats Bethesda.

It will, unless they take ten years to make it. Anyway, even if they took twenty years to make it, people would yell that it's "incomplete and deficient in basic gameplay". So...

I just hope they make a step as big as Morrowind->Oblivion again.

lol, that's quite a built-in excuse you're giving them.

now, "basic gameplay" takes 10 years or more?

they've got 5 previous tes games to BUILD upon and so "unless they take ten years to make it" is quite an irrelevant comment.

This kind of step is generally considered "dumbing down"...

for lots of us, less is less.

and, "new" isn't eliminated.

You don't understand that whatever the time they take to make their game, people will always think that it's not complete, not good enough, "dumbed down" and so on? So, five years if will probably be, and, it will be incomplete and whatever you wrote earlier. And you'll come here whining about it.

really? More money does not equal to less problems. Just look at other big companies.

This was known since April 2013 when gstaff announced on the Bethblog that Bethesda Game Studios is moving on to their new project.

Anyways I hope Bethesda Game Studios does not casualize "dumb down" the next new The Elder Scrolls video game as much as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim got. Otherwise I will not be purchasing it.

I hope regenerative health is gone so we can heal ourselves again with food, healing potions, and healing spells. Otherwise what's the purpose of having healing potions and healing spells when on easy difficulty I can run and kill 5 or more NPC's without using any healing potions or healing spells then on master difficulty run and kill 3+ NPC's at a time and not use any healing potions and healing spells i can just keep circling the NPC's after they hit me so I can heal up, etc. Also I hope level scaling is removed. Everything I read about The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt that there will be absolutely no level scaling and how they are developing The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt to play without any level scaling at all sounds incredibly good to me.

Next at least Bethesda Game Studios needs to develop 2 separate User interfaces (UI's) one for PC and one for the consoles like how CD Projekt RED is doing for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. The The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has the best User interface (UI) for a PC version of a video game.