DICE 2009: Todd Howard on Bethesda's 3 rules of game development

by Jason Dobson on Feb 22nd 2009 10:00AM

Some of us had only just recovered from turning back the Daedric scourge in Tamriel before Bethesda took it upon itself to obliterate the countryside altogether in Fallout 3. Destruction of this magnitude takes planning, and speaking during last week's DICE summit in Las Vegas studio director Todd Howard laid out Bethesda's three simple rules for "making excellent games."

According to MTV Multiplayer, Howard's vision for great game design can be distilled down into the following principles: 1) A dev's ability to leave even their favorite ideas on the cutting room floor, 2) the capability to think smaller and keep things simple and 3) being able to define a project "by the experience you want people to have," rather than just a laundry list of features.

During his time on stage, the outspoken director also took issue with the importance of the Wii's overwhelming dominance of the console market, with Gamasutra reporting that Howard said "if install base really mattered, we'd all make board games, because there are a lot of tables." True, but we'd still be hard pressed to trade away our railway rifle and head shots for a pricey monopoly built on the smoldering ruins of Boardwalk and Park Place.

Source -- The Following Colorful Wisdom Is From Todd Howard
Source -- Bethesda's Howard On Supreme Playability

Tags: bethesda, Bethesda-Game-Studios, Bethesda-Softworks, dice-2009, fallout-3, game-design, oblivion, RPG, todd-howard

Reader Comments (74)

lol i agree with you on that

"2) the capability to think smaller and keep things simple and"

Those other two "principles" are pretty shady, but this one is just plain ridiculous. This is like the exact opposite of what these guys do.

They did dumb down both Fallout 3 and Oblivion when compared to Morrowind and Fallout 2 if that's what they're talking about.

Actually Roto, although these guys don't really apply said rules, that second rule is actually far from ridiculous.

It is pretty much a derivative of these 2 rules of development:

- Easy to pick up, hard to master

and

- Create freedom inside restriction

That's what I meant. :P I guess I should have been clearer. All of those rules make perfect sense, but they don't really follow them very well, especially number 2.

Ah, then I apologize for sounding a bit harsh, yes, I agree, they haven't really followed any of those rules.

As someone who has played the Star Trek game Bethesda did, I can personally attest that Howard is lying! HE'S LYING!

3) being able to define a project "by the experience you want people to have," rather than just a laundry list of features.

wait, doesn't that contradict having games like FallOut 3 and Oblivion be open world?

The first principle makes no sense, and they are definitely one of the last developers in the world to follow the second one. The third one is spot-on, though

As for the install base thing, the fact that they are developing for PS3 and 360 at all is more the happy accident of PS360 being in the range of most modern gaming PCs. Their top-tier projects go there because they can, which makes them much like the other members of that small cadre of PC developers to whom the Wii truly isn't a threat or anything they have to acknowledge, like Valve, iD, Blizzard, or Epic

There IS a Fallout tabletop game, actually.

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Fallout:_Warfare

That picture is rather excellent. Its also kind of creepy in a way!

Todd Howard is starting to sound a little bitter in regards to the wii..

Man there is so much wrong with Bethesda's games, it seems just a bit arrogant for him to be spewing out criticism.

Though I shouldn't be surprised, Bethesda is a pc developer after all and they really don't know much about consoles or people who use them, so its easy to see why he seems frustrated.

Oh, I guess you must be right. Why would they criticize consoles!

Oh wait, they have developed games for the NES, PS1, PS2, Xbox, 360 and PS3.

On other note, TwEE, would you mind telling me why would they be frustrated when their games have been selling VERY well?...

Im looking at list of Bethesda developed games right now.. and Im finding it hard to see where they have much experience with developing console games. What was the last one, Home Alone in 1991? If Im missing something let me know, but the only experience they seem to have with consoles is porting down their niche games and one or two forgettable licensed games like wheres waldo.

Judging by this list of games I don't think Id be completely off the mark saying they're anti-console, and I'm cool with that, they're sticking with what they know.. They're the type of developer that stuck with a "real" gaming machine like the Amiga and ignored that "fad/kids toy" Nes didn't they?

Maybe Im reading too much into it but with his " size of install base doesn't matter" and the "wii is the new Teddy Ruxpin" comments it dose sound like he doesn't think much of the wii or its users. So it might be just a teeny bit frustrating for him to see the mainstream gaming market veer off into strange new territory (a territory that is the antithesis of everything he stands for) instead of down the path that a lot of people predicted and he more then likely hoped for, that consoles would become more and more like PCs.

"the capability to think smaller and keep things simple"

Success!

3 game principles of Bethesda:

1. Figure out which engine/assets we can recycle from the previous game to keep costs low.

2. Take the actual number of unique speaking characters, divide by 100, get on the phone and hire voice actors. Shortcut: use 5 people, which include 4 friends/relatives and one well-known actor for no more than 30 seconds of dialogue.

3. Skip Q&A when close to deadline. Crash to XMB/desktop, hard freezes, disappearing/dying NPCs, impossible to complete quests are all acceptable to a gold release.

Bitter? Just a little, but it's because it kills me to see such good concepts as Oblivion and Fallout 3 halfway destroyed by what appears to be the accounting department. If these guys ran Ferrari every car would look great but have a plastic interior, slowly fall apart and use a 4 cylinder Peugeot engine to save on costs.

And the thing is, it's not just Fallout 3. Every Bethesda game all the way back to Daggerfall has had an absurd number of game-killing bugs. They are definitely a company where QA is not a high priority.

I really wish people like Todd Howard would stick to talks about how to make more money off their sandbox iteration by sticking a cult license to it and not handing out advice on game design.

I think this part from the gamasutra article really sums all things Bethesda up nicely.

"You can pull up a review of Arena, our first Elder Scrolls games, and if you black out a few words, you can't tell what Elder Scrolls game it is, whether it's Daggerfall, Morrowind, or Oblivion," he said.

He totally failed with Bethesda's 3 rules of game development. They are:

1) Make all games we make look like they're a spin-off of the Elder Scroll Series.
2) Dialogue writers are unimportant - hire monkeys instead.
3) Watching people die in slow-mo a billion times through one playthrough is always hilarious.

Bethesda might not make the best games ever, but I don't quite know what they've done to deserve such hate.
Every site i read seems to be full of anti-bethesda torch-wielding mobs.
Did it start with the Horse Armor, or getting the Fallout IP?

These rules DO seem a little odd, as they don't seem to be the rules bethesda plays by. However they DO make great games.

Sure their games can be similar, but so are hundreds of other devs. Sure their voice acting might not be top-notch.... but we've all played dozens of games with bad voice acting, and those haven't become hate-figures.

So many people seem to focus on the flaws with Bethesda games... its like they get punished more for making a great game with flaws than other devs do for making a poor game.

On the one hand I agree with almost every negative point in these comments... but on the other hand I've had great fun with almost every Bethesda game i've touched. So i think all the flaws still amount to nit-picking.

Plus, Future Shock is still one of my fave games, so they still have my good will.

too bad they didnt add

"4) make sure your product is thoroughly tested before it leaves the studio so it doesnt frustrate and annoy your customers till theyre blue in the head."

that would definitely have helped my fallout 3 experience quite a bit. oh and also:

"5) when you release the first patch, make sure it doesnt ACTUALLY MAKE THE BUGS WORSE."

I love Bethesda games. I've played every Elder Scroll game since Arena. Love their work, and they are one of my all time favorite developers.

This despite the fact that they make some of the most buggy, broken software ever unleashed apon the human race.

Most of the criticisms here are valid. Bad AI, bad voice acting, bad animation, buggy games, all true. But despite all that, I can't help but love their games.

I just wish they would bring back the mouse control of the sword attacks from Daggerfall. I miss being able to chose between a slash, chop, or stab depending on how I moved the mouse.

The console games (both Fallout 3 and Oblivion) do support different slashing techniques. However it's implemented pretty poorly. You have to aim your analog stick different directions...which also happens to be the same stick you move with. So if you want to do a hard strike you hold up, which makes you walk forward when you attack. This isn't always a good idea. Similarly, a crossing strike is done by moving the stick from left to right, which can turn your character.

I still don't know what they were thinking with that.

I honestly don't understand why Todd's "install base" comment was taken so far out of context.

He's talking about being a developer and pitching a game to your boss. Your boss is going to tell you "Release it for the PS3 (or w/e) they have the largest installed user base!!!!!" Todd is saying that using that as your only consideration would be silly...hence the "table" comment. The Wii might have the largest installed base.. but if they released Fallout 3 on that system exclusively how well would it have done?

He's NOT saying IGNORE the number of people playing in any particular format, just that it isn't the end-all-be-all of statistics to be considered.

Previous 50 Comments

DICE 2009: Todd Howard on Bethesda's 3 rules of game development

Reader Comments (74)

Posted: Feb 22nd 2009 7:57PM Clinton O said

Posted: Feb 22nd 2009 11:40AM Roto13 said

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Posted: Feb 22nd 2009 3:29PM TwEE said

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