Former Bethesda Softworks marketing lead Pete Hines has opened up about how he saw the Fallout publisher get “damaged and broken apart” before announcing his retirement in 2023.
The now-retired gaming industry veteran touched on why he chose to step away from Bethesda during a wide-ranging interview with Firezide Chat. When reminiscing about his decades-long journey through the release of everything from Doom to The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, Hines shared his feelings about changes within the company and what ultimately drove him to leave.
Hines had previously stated that it made sense for him to retire around the launch of the long-awaited Starfield and reiterated that point in the new interview. Although moving on meant leaving colleagues like Bethesda’s Todd Howard and Erin Losi, there was more than simple timing influencing his decision.
“I just hit a point of yes, [Bethesda] needs me, and I am powerless to do what I think needs to be done to run this place properly, to protect these people, to maintain what we worked so hard to create, which is an incredibly efficient, well run video game developer and publisher,” he explained.
“And when I was unable to do what I thought my job should involve in continuing to have that place be, you know, if not the most efficient publisher in the game industry, it was way the f**k up there. And when I couldn’t protect it, and I saw how it was getting damaged and broken apart and frankly mistreated, abused, whatever word you want to use, I said I am not going to sit here and watch this happen right in front of me.”
