Todd Howard Talks About Criticism; Is Bethesda A Target?

Todd Howard is finally asked about the criticism that Bethesda gets, as a company.

MrMattyTalks interviewed Todd about the harshness off the criticism that Bethesda gets, going so far as to describe it as ‘having a target painted at your back.’ While it’s true that a lot of criticism that the company gets is warranted, Matty also points out that it reaches a point where critics are literally making things up.

As you can imagine, a veteran studio head like Todd had a mature point of view about all this. But if you were a gamer who bought one of Bethesda’s games and got mad enough that you let them know, you will want to read this.

Here’s what Todd said:

“Well, you know, I would say you alluded to it, but you’ve experienced some of that, right? And your creating of content and what the people who view it and say and what their comments are.

The stuff that we do, you reach a level of popularity, and a hype, and you just have to understand like for us I know a lot of that comes with it. OK?

And you do grow a pretty thick skin if you really want to do this. You have to grow a thick skin in accepting the criticism. That’s what makes us better. And these franchises and the time that people spend in the games, they’re really really important to them.

It’s not always pleasant to read, no. It’s like, you wish people would be nicer. But it does matter a lot to them, and so I usually – and yeah, well, the answer is yes, it does affect people here.

They put their hearts and souls into these projects for years and years. And they care about it, all of us, so much, to do the best job that we can. But at the end of the day, the fans and the consumers, they should – if it’s not living up to what they want out of it, we expect that criticism.

We need to hear it, and we need to get better, and we’re really really welcoming of it. We’re actually, like, our harshest critics here in terms of all of that.

And so, um you do get used to it. You do have to grow a thick skin, and just, we love it so much that – look, that’s part of it. We know it’s coming.

And you know, we dive into Reddit a lot – I’ll probably read all the comments on this video. So, hey, everybody, yeah. I’m reading them,  be nice. Or don’t be nice. If I say something that’s stupid, call me out on it. It’s fine.

And I’ve done that in enough interviews to know. You know, I’d say the same thing to any creator out there. Whether it’s what you do, Matty, in making these videos, or people making music, putting them on Soundcloud, doing all these things.

When you’re a creator, no matter what you do, whether you’re a game developer an artist or whatever, that’s going to be part of your experience. And you just have to make sure for yourself like, do we love this? Do we feel good about it? If so, then we’re going to put it out there. And hopefully, it’ll find an audience that feels the same way we do.”

It’s certainly easy to forget, whether it’s game development, or talking to someone at customer service over the phone, that there’s a real person at the other end, who will take in whatever you tell them. Sometimes you may say things that are fair, sometimes you may express opinions not everyone will agree with.

But Todd Howard saying that creatives like him any field have to grow a thick skin, is not a license for toxicity and abuse. We consumers have to remember that there’s a human cost to development.

While it’s true that many workplaces in the industry turned out to be toxic, sometimes, we are the people incurring that extra cost to those developers.  We don’t necessarily have to be ‘nice’, but we should be fair, and more importantly, civil.