Microsoft’s $7.5 billion acquisition of ZeniMax (and its subsidiaries at Bethesda) has now been completed, which means ZeniMax’s board of directors has been dissolved.
Pete Hines, the senior vice president of global marketing and communications at Bethesda, told GameSpot in an email, “The prior ZeniMax Media Board of Directors has been dissolved.”
This is not an unusual or troubling development but instead a standard practice for an acquisition like this.
ZeniMax’s board was composed of a variety of executives and celebrities from multiple industries, including Pirates of the Caribbean producer Jerry Bruckheimer, big-name entertainment attorney Ernest Del, former MLB superstar Cal Ripken Jr., former CBS CEO Leslie Moonves, and former MGM CEO Harry Sloan. Private equity executive Michael Dominguez was also on the board. Former US President Trump’s brother, Robert Trump, sat on the board until his passing in 2020.
Hines previously spoke to GameSpot about the importance of the media and entertainment background of ZeniMax’s board of directors. He said Bethesda had been approached many times over the years to make Fallout and Elder Scrolls movies, but the company rejected every proposal thanks in part to the advice of its board members like Bruckheimer, Moonves, Del, and Sloan.
“We have a lot of folks who really know that space really, really well,” Hines said in 2015.
Bethesda is now making a Fallout TV series at Amazon with Westworld’s Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy attached to produce it.
One of ZeniMax’s board members has already found a new board position, as Bruckheimer has landed at the mobile game company Skillz’s board of directors.
The $7.5 billion buyout of ZeniMax is the second-largest video game acquisition in history, only behind the $8.6 billion that Tencent paid to acquire Clash of Clans developer Supercell.
With the acquisition, Microsoft takes ownership of gigantic gaming franchises such as The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Doom, and many others, while the company also gets all of Bethesda’s studios. Looking ahead, Xbox boss Phil Spencer has said Bethesda will release games on any platform that supports Game Pass, and right now that excludes PlayStation.
Following the completion of ZeniMax’s sale to Microsoft, a whopping 20 more Bethesda games have been added to Game Pass, including Skyrim.
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