Social gaming "not where" Bethesda's "interests lie," says Hines

Bethesda PR and marketing VP Pete Hines has ruled out the company making a move towards social gaming anytime soon, saying its main aim is the core audience.

"That's not where our interests lie," Hines told GI.biz at QuakeCon recently. "That's not what we're known for and it's not the kind of stuff we've traditionally done. I think we're pretty self-aware in terms of who we are and what kind of games we make, and we want to keep trying to make those games bigger and better, and not go off and do something that is completely different that we don't have a lot of expertise and knowledge of."

The exec added that Bethesda's focus was on the hardcore, saying its wanted to "make the kind of games that somebody who likes Rage would want to play, and who likes Skyrim would want to play, and there's a much clearer path from the guy who likes Rage is also probably going to like Skyrim also probably likes Prey 2 also probably likes Dishonored, or at least there's a much bigger chance of moving an audience from one to the next."

The company has a pretty core lineup on the horizon, with RAGE releasing next month, Skyrim launching worldwide on November 11 and Prey 2 and Dishonored all to come next year. All of this is on top of the yet to be shown DOOM 4 from id and Shinji Mikami's first project at Tango.