Todd Howard

Todd Howard (born 1970 (age 38)) is an American video game designer, director, and producer. He serves as director and executive producer at Bethesda Game Studios, where he has led the development of the Fallout and The Elder Scrolls series.

Early life
Todd Howard was born in Lower Macungie Township, Pennsylvania. He has an elder brother, Jeff. He developed an interest in computers, particularly video games, at a very young age. He considers Wizardry and Ultima III: Exodus to be inspirations for his future games. He is a 1989 graduate of Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. In 1993, he graduated from the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, with a major in finance/business, despite his desire to create video games, later saying that "it seemed like the easiest path to get through college".

After obtaining Wayne Gretzky Hockey, during the Holiday break of his senior year in college, Howard visited the offices of the game's developer, Bethesda Softworks, which he passed by daily on his commute to and from school. As he asked for a job at the company, he was rejected and told that he needed to finish school as a prerequisite. After completing school, he went back to Bethesda for a job but was rejected again. Following his graduation, Howard was rejected again by Bethesda Softworks due to a lack of job opportunities at the time. Instead, he started working for a smaller game company in Yorktown, Virginia, which enabled him to visit several conventions like the Consumer Electronics Show, where continued approaching Bethesda Softworks to request being hired.

Career
Howard was eventually recruited by Bethesda Softworks in 1994, originally as a producer. His first game development credit for Bethesda Softworks was as producer and designer of The Terminator: Future Shock and Skynet, followed by design on The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, which was released in 1996. He was project leader for the first time on The Elder Scrolls Adventures: Redguard, released in 1998.

In 2000, Howard was appointed as the project leader and designer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and for the expansions that followed. He then led the creation of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion as its executive producer. After this, he was the game director and executive producer of Fallout 3.

He returned to The Elder Scrolls series to lead the development as the creative director of its fifth installment, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, which was released in November 2011. Howard directed Fallout 4, which was announced with its first official trailer on June 3, 2015, and released in November. Howard was also the director of Fallout 76, a multiplayer installment in the series that attracted criticism upon its release in November 2018.

Opinions and work's recognition
Howard's ever-increasing notoriety of games he directed and produced turned him, and some of his quotes, in an Internet meme. Regarding his own views on video games, in 2011, he admitted that The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion sacrificed what made The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind as "particular", saying: "With Oblivion, we're dealing with the capital province, and we wanted to get back to the more classic Arena and Daggerfall feel of a fantasy world that felt more refined and welcoming. But in that, we sacrificed some of what made Morrowind special: the wonder of discovery." He said Bethesda's philosophy for The Elder Scrolls games was to allow people to "live another life, in another world".

In 2012, Howard also said to be favorable to modding in video games, claiming he did not understand why many developers do not allow it. In 2016, after the release of Fallout 4, Howard admitted that he was well aware of the criticisms received by the game, especially with regards to the dialogue system, saying: "The way we did some dialogue stuff [in Fallout 4], that didn't work as well. But I know the reasons we tried that - to make a nice interactive conversation - but [it was] less successful than some other things in the game."

Howard has been a frequent speaker at industry events and conferences. He spoke to developers at the 2009 D.I.C.E. Summit, sharing his rules of game development. He returned as a keynote speaker at the 2012 D.I.C.E. Summit. He said developers should ignore demographics and installed base, and follow their passions, saying that "if install base really mattered, we'd all make board games, because there are a lot of tables".

Howard's work received attention by the generalist media and press; his games have been featured in Newsweek, CNN, USA Today, and The Today Show. Howard was the 16th recipient of a Game Developers Conference Lifetime Achievement Award. Magazine GamePro named him "Top 20 Most Influential People in Gaming over the Last 20 Years". Howard also received the D.I.C.E. Award for "Best Game Director" in 2012 and 2016. In 2014, he was awarded the Lara of Honor, a lifetime achievement award from Germany.

He was finally inducted in the Hall of Fame of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences in 2017. IGN listed Howard 70th in a ranking of "The Top 100 Game Creators of All Time".