A wise thing to do, especially considering we're talking about Bethesda here. I'm sure you're familiar with a certain nickname Todd Howard has received in some communities.

Thosands of flies eat crap each day, and I'm pretty sure they think it's delicious. Should we start eating it too?

By the mainstream media, yes. I don't recall a Bethesda title (except 76) with a negative reception. And while it has some improvements over its predecessors (shooting, power armor, graphics - although that's not saying much), I found Fallout 4 to be the most tedious entry in the series by far. Between the console-oriented UI, butchered dialogue and lack of actual choice, to the story and all the nonsense that accompanies it, to the graphics (rather underwhelming for a 2015 game... The Witcher 3 puts this one to shame... yes, I know I mentioned graphics as a positive over the older games), to radiant quests and boring content (Kid in a Fridge has to be one of the worst quests I have ever had the misfortune to stumble upon)... An all-around slog, to say the least, I had to make an effort to actually finish it (I never touched the DLCs though, a first for me in these series). Which only enforced my opinion: Bethesda can't write if their lives depended on it. Not as long as the team will revolve around the same group of people.

And yes, Howard has to be one of the best tricksters in the industry.

No need to delve into Fallout 76, we're all aware how that one turned out. Even loyal, hardcore Bethesda fans spat at the sight of it and that's saying something.

I used to be a huge fan of theirs when Morrowind came out then Oblivion. Fallout 3 was fun but since then their games have been pretty shallow and more and more rpg mechanics taken out. I missed F76 as prefered to play single player games.

The Starfield trailer looks pretty as trailers do but shows me nothing to convince me into buying it and sure as heck not preordering it.

Curious b/c this is Bethesda and a new IP - but, of course, I need gameplay footage.

Havent read this thru ,but it seems it will be Xbox store exclusive.
Hope they this game will be not half done now that MS owns them.

probably will be just a reskin for skyrim
If you want to pretend you are one go ahead I don't tell you want not to do :)
but clearly DRM is no way as serious problem as you try to show it to be

game is more important than it has drm or not

*sigh*...I'm going to need to build another rig.

Make it a ghost rig, with a spectral GPU :P. In this ever extended shortage market, we'll have to make due with lowering graphics settings I believe... (just like in the old days!)