Nolan Bushnell (left) and Christopher Weaver (right) Christopher Weaver
Bethesda’s first video game, released in 1986, was Gridiron, the football simulator that went on to inspire EA’s Madden series, but it wasn’t until 1994 that Elder Scrolls: Arena, the first entry in the series that would eventually spawn Skyrim, was released. Since then the company’s increased its influence by taking over iconic franchises like Fallout and Wolfenstein, which broke into the mainstream conversation this year thanks to its jarring portrayal of Nazism in America.
More than 30 years after it was founded, Bethesda is more relevant than ever—but the company’s founder is focused on even bigger things. Christopher Weaver hasn’t had any direct involvement with the powerhouse game publisher in over a decade. These days, he spends his time teaching video game development and, more recently, working on an archive tracking the history of the industry for a Smithsonian project.
We spoke with Weaver about everything from his early days at Bethesda to the future of video games. We also got his take on some of the biggest (and most controversial) topics in gaming today, from virtual reality to loot boxes.
The history of video games it the history of innovation
At Bethesda, every early project came from a desire to see what was possible—rather than simply to sell games. “We invented things,” Christopher Weaver says. “We constantly innovated things. We adapted things to our use. We created new technologies where none previously existed.”
The Elder Scrolls series, for example, came out of a challenge to bring pencil and paper gaming to a digital medium. Gridiron, the football game that inspired EA’s Madden series, was an experiment to bring real-world physics to a sports simulation.
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In their interview, Weaver asked why Sampson would spend all that time creating the background image for a side-project with a few other people at MIT. He smiles into the camera and says, “Because it was wrong, and it had to be done correctly.”
Throughout all these interviews—Weaver’s been at it for a year and a half and he’s about 50 percent finished—the same attitude seems to play a key role in the history of video games.
“It’s not about the money or the position,” Weaver says. “The thing I’ve seen over and over again is: Because it needs to be done, because it’s challenging, because it’s a problem that needs to be solved.”
On the state of the industry today
While Weaver is busy interviewing video game pioneers, the industry continues to move ahead at full steam, and even if he isn’t directly involved, he can’t help but have opinions on some of the latest developments in gaming.
When I asked about how video games should make money in the wake of the loot box-ificiation of AAA titles, Weaver’s first response was to criticize the freemium model.
“I’m not a big fan of people believing that you get something for nothing,” he says. “If you want to try something like a single chapter first or subscribe, I’m ok with that.”
As for games like Star Wars: Battlefront 2 and Middle-Earth: Shadow of War that entice players to buy loot boxes even after paying full price for the game, Weaver warned that players will continue to rebel against the already unpopular strategy.
“This nickel and dime approach to payment may well backfire as it interferes with the flow of a game and disallows for players to lose themselves in its play-world,” he says, adding that, the best solution may simply be paying more for new games up front rather than having to deal with hidden costs. “Players may have to absorb the increasing costs of creating AAA games to allow publishers to remain profitable.”
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Christopher Weaver working at Bethesda in 1987 Christopher Weaver
At the end of the day, though Weaver isn’t too concerned. “The nice about teaching students is, I don’t have to worry about the economics anymore,” he says.
Weaver’s much more interested in how video game mechanics and technology can improve other parts of society. He points to researchers at John Hopkins University who use a dolphin simulator game to treat stroke victims by remapping their brains. He added that flight simulators have now become so realistic they actually offer better training than a real plane, and that the rise of video games has given the U.S. Air Force its best crop of pilots yet.
In his own courses at MIT and Wesleyan University, he focuses on how video games can enhance our lives in unexpected ways. “I have no interest in teaching you how to make a video game,” he says. “I have an interest in teaching you to use gaming technology to solve other problems. The next chapter, if you will.”
When asked to name a recent video game that impressed him, Weaver skipped over Bethesda’s latest released and pointed to That Dragon, Cancer, a game created by the parents of a child with cancer to help them deal with their loss.
“That was a mind opener,” he says. “It showed me the ways people can use game technology in an emotional way. Helping other parents deal with their own pain.”
He’s also interested in the prospects of virtual and augmented reality, though he’s quick to note that VR is nothing new. The technology has been in development for decades. MIT worked on it in the 1970s and the military was involved too. The only difference now is that the hardware is cheaper and there are more people with the training to use it. Still, Weaver doesn’t think VR will ever really explode without a killer app.
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Source: Rollingstone