The Elder Scrolls Online doesn't always get the credit it's due for being a genuinely good MMO that's been putting out regular expansions and new storylines for a decade. Even though I mained it for a few years myself, I'm guilty of sometimes overlooking it in the shadow of Skyrim's eternal relevance and flashier MMOs. But the numbers win out, as Zenimax Online Studios director Matt Firor revealed during a talk at the Game Developers Conference this year. Over its lifetime, TESO has made nearly $2 billion and has no plans to stop expanding its world and story.
In his GDC talk, 10 Years In Tamriel: Success of The Elder Scrolls Online, Firor started with TESO's conception, when it was originally pitched as The Elder Scrolls: Origins. Its inspirations were drawn from World of Warcraft—in the era when so many MMOs were envisioned as WoW-killers—Firor's past work on Dark Age of Camelot, and the then-popular Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.
