In recent days, a lot of information and poison has circulated on the cost of production of TESO.
Following a tweet announcing that the cost of developing Elder Scrolls Online would have been 200 million, a sarcastic addiction was posted on the Play4real site posing as Matt Firor with bizarre denial remarks to say the least.
(ex: "Given the beta testers' feedback on the quality of the game, little money has been put into this game" or "With a game at 200 million dollars, everyone would come knocking on our door to be able to play it. play, which is not the case "or the fact that the representatives of Zenimax are not aware of an Elder Scrolls Online ...)
No mystery about it since Play4real is a site of intoxication, it is a FALSE and pure and simple intoxication (as we can see below in the comments of the article, this is pure sarcasm). Nevertheless, many fan sites, or even professional press (such as Forbes), pick up on these rumors and the web seizes them.
While waiting for more details from Zenimax (assuming they wish to communicate on this subject), it may therefore be useful to give a little reminder of the facts that we know:
- In October 2007, the company "Zenimax Media Inc." (which owns Zenimax Online and Bethesda) received private funding from 300 million from Providence Equity Partners. The purpose of this investment was to finance an increase in development and publication activity, to facilitate acquisitions and to finance the development of MMOs (at that time, the TESO project was not yet known)
- En October 2010, a new contribution of funds 150 million, again from Providence Equity Partners, completes the first investment of 2007 with the aim of boosting their game development and advanced publication operations as well as strategic acquisitions.
We know that Zenimax Online Studios (ZOS) was formed in 2007 with the aim of creating an undisclosed MMO and the initial contribution of 300 million was certainly used to create the company, acquire equipment, licenses and recruit staff. . The next contribution of 2010 will have allowed to deepen production, to swell the ranks of employees / developers, to prepare advertising campaigns and future promotions ...
Finally, the investment of 450 million dollars is certainly not exclusively dedicated to TESO but also to launch and run the company Zenimax Online. The announced sum of 200 million dollars for the development of the game remains very plausible given this financial information.
For information, among the various investors or shareholders of Zenimax Media, we find, among others:
- private investment funds "Providence Equity Partners"manage an investment park of over $ 37 billion in 20 countries and have invested heavily in Zenimax since 2007.
- ProsiebenSat.1 Media, also shareholders of Zenimax, well known for their television network in Germany but also their recent role in the world of MMOs (F2P Alaplaya games, the partnership with SOE for their MMORPGs in Europe, their partnership with TF1).
- Tony Coelho, a member of the US Congress from the state of California, is a private investor for Zenimax Media Inc.
- Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer of numerous Hollywood blockbusters and the CSI series, is a director of Zenimax.
- Harry Sloan, president of Metro Goldwyn Mayer until 2009 and Leslie Moonves, president of the American television channel CBS, have been contributors to Zenimax since its inception in 1999.
and many others...
