Bethesda Might Not Join E3 Next Year, Or Ever Again.

Looks like Bethesda wants to take its time before hosting another E3 press conference. They participated in E3 for the first time this year, and they brought with them news of Fallout 4, DOOM, and Dishonored 2. That was a pretty good show, and an excellent one for a first-timer.

But Bethesda Softworks has been in business since 1986, so to VP of PR and marketing Pete Hines, this year’s E3 didn’t feel like much of a “breakout” moment for the company. He says of their well-executed program: “If we’re going to do a showcase, we’re going to do it our way. No celebrities involved, no famous people coming up there.” He tells The Telegraph that they’re there to talk about games and nothing else, and that’s probably why fans have been singing praises. With such a positive response, surely Bethesda will come back next year?

Bethesda’s presence at this year’s E3 was not meant to cement their position in the gaming industry; they’ve already secured their spot with plenty of well-loved franchises. So why’d they do it? “It felt like more than we could accomplish in a booth. [N]o matter what we do in our booth, we only get a subset of people that attend E3. There’s no way we’re getting 40,000 people to our booth to see everything. You’re lucky to get four,” said Hines. So they took what they felt was a solid lineup, and ran with it.

Today’s game industry seems to be some sort of race, seeing who can put out a new game the very next year. “We’re not the sort of publisher that focuses on 'what’s our 25 titles for 2015',” according to Hines. "We do smaller stuff, we don’t publish to scale, we try to publish to quality. Make sure everything we do is noteworthy.”

They’re not in any rush, so will we be seeing Bethesda at E3 next year? Hines said, “I don’t know if we’ll do one again. This year felt like the right time to do this kind of thing.” Maybe we’ll see them at E3 again in a few years with another epic lineup?