It is going to be the next Elder Scrolls, out within a year, supposedly. Arguing over if it is going to have 'VI' in its name is just semantics, as regardless, it is going to be the next Elder Scrolls game, and will therefore impact any further titles in the series (If any).
It's not semantics at all. This was developed by an entirely different team than the main games and from the looks of things it's not going to have any more to do with them than the Oblivion cell phone game did.
There have been five singleplayer, open world games created by Bethesda so far. Therefore it stands to reason that their target audience since 1994 (barring redguard) has been fans of singleplayer, open world rpgs. The new game is an MMO, a genre that has very little to do with any of that-it is aimed at peopel who are fans of the Elder Scrolls AND like MMOs over singleplayer rpgs, they have narrowed the target audience significantly, turning away from what has been their historical audience. I don't think it is too far a stretch to call it a 'betrayal' of the previous audience. we aren't talking about something like adding shouts or horseback riding, we are talking abotu switching over to another genre and target audience, this is not a 'blending' of genres, this is like making the next mario game into a shooter. MMOs can make a lot of money due to monthly subscriptions, so I wouldn't define this as being so much of a 'big risk' in terms of adding new things/changing gameplay as it is an attempt to make more money out of the franchise.
Just because a company makes one spin-off game outside their usual genre it does not mean that they are somehow betraying their fanbase. I seriously doubt they are going to stop making single player RPGs just because this one game.
And even if they made a Mario FPS it wouldn't be a betrayal any more than Zelda 2 and the cdi games were a betrayal or that Halo Wars game was a betrayal. It's not like they're saying "Ok guys, every Mario game ever from now on is going to be about Mario tracking down a hardcore meth dealer named Spike and shooting anyone who gets in his way." It's
just one game. A company is not obligated to make every game in a series the same genre.
Furthermore, MMOs have HUGE development costs. They may rake in the money with the subscriptions, but remember, they've got to earn back the cost of development, make a profit, and maintain their servers. A bad MMO is much worse for a company than any other type of bad game. It's not the gameplay risk I'm worried about (although transitioning from First Person realtime combat to generic MMO combat
is a risk), it's the financial one.
Quite frankly, the fact that the same team that made Skyrim is not the same one that is making the MMO should be cause for concern if anything, as they are more likely to have a different idea of what the Elder Scrolls should be, and that idea could very well effect the way that the future of the Elder Scrolls series looks like, in much the same way TOR has.
I sort of agree with this, except that to me the fact that it's a different team produced by the umbrella company, along with the rumored gameplay and lore details we've seen leaked just leads me to believe the main dev team is just gonna ignore this ever happened. Hell, they're probably more embarrassed about it than anyone.
That doesn't make it a good idea.
I didn't say it was a good idea. In fact, I said myself that it doesn't make it a good idea. All I'm arguing is it's not necessarily a grab for cash like it's being made out to be.
Some people can put two and two together. They also understand that there's no harm in waiting a week or two after release to buy a game (in fact, it likely benefits the overall status of video games as a medium). Until a publisher demonstrates the quality of their product, the consumer has every reason to be wary.
I think you're mistaking my argument that "This will likely not have much effect on the main series" for "You don't know if the game is going to be bad or not." I don't even like MMOs. I might try this one because I also don't like having money, but I don't think I'll
enjoy it. I just don't feel like Bethsoft has personally put a knife into my back because of it.