ZeniMax told us "Dare to dream," says Bethesda

As the spotlight falls on the relationships between developers and publishers, particularly in light of EA's ambitions on Take-Two's studios and redundancies and closures at others, the ZeniMax-Bethesda partnership has been held up as a shining example of how it can work well.

According to Pete Hines, Bethesda's VP of public relations and marketing, when ZeniMax bought the developer its message was one of support and vision.

"I think what ZeniMax has done is come in and allowed us to remain private, and really changed the direction, gave us the resources to do more than we had done - to stop thinking small time and start thinking about where we wanted to go," he told GamesIndustry.biz.

"ZeniMax came along and said: 'Dare to dream, we'll make it happen,' and I think that's why we've gotten to make really grand games like Oblivion, to spend three of four years on a game like Fallout 3 to make sure we do it right."

Bethesda is currently working on its latest open-world title, Fallout 3, for the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, and Hines believes that without the support of ZeniMax, the company wouldn't have been able to aim so high.

"The number one thing that ZeniMax has done has allowed that - allowed us to go after things like Fallout," he said.

"They asked us what we wanted to work on next, and we said that nobody was working on Fallout, can you get us that? And lo and behold they went and got it, and told us to make it...so we are.

"I don't think the Bethesda of 1994 would have contemplated being able to do something similar to that - it was a different business."

The full interview with Pete Hines, in which he talks about the design ethos behind Oblivion and Fallout 3 is available on GamesIndustry.biz now.