There are very few games more well-known or highly-regarded than those of the Elder Scrolls series. A fantasy role-playing epic in every sense of the word, the various Elder Scrolls titles over the years have received broad acclaim for what they dared attempt, as well as considerable scorn when they failed to live up to the great expectations they generated. We had a chance to speak to one of the good folks at Bethesda, the company behind the series, and we began with the obvious question: how, in such a volatile and market-driven industry, are they able to keep rolling along the way they do?

"We have complete freedom to make whatever kind of game we want here," says Ashley Cheng, senior producer of Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion. "We decide where we want to go, not market data. While we do pay attention to market trends, we place the most weight on games that we ourselves are playing and enjoy, and we make the type of game we want to play. So if we change a feature or game system, it is because we ourselves played it, decided it wasn't good enough and wanted to make it better. We are our own harshest critics."