Bethesda Game Studios is marking its 40th anniversary by sharing staff stories and memories on a dedicated site. Among them is Alan Nanes, now a design director, who says his path to becoming one of the studio’s first full-time quality assurance testers began with spending time there as a friend of its developers.
Nanes’ connection to Bethesda began while Morrowind was in development. He recalled that friends across several departments let him visit the studio, play multiplayer games and get to know the team, even before he was an employee. During one of those visits, Todd Howard asked him to try out the game.
His testing sessions soon drew interest from developers, who watched him play and asked for his thoughts on their design decisions. Nanes said they would take notes and discuss possible changes while observing him. He described the experience as the first time he felt he was helping make a video game, adding that his name appears in Morrowind’s manual under “Special Thanks.”
After the informal sessions became a regular occurrence, Howard and Ashley Cheng decided that the team could benefit from having QA staff working full-time in the studio. Nanes took on that role, later moving into quest design for Oblivion. He was also credited as lead companions designer on Starfield.
The anniversary story contrasts with the later challenges faced by QA workers at Bethesda parent company ZeniMax. Employees voted to unionize in 2022, forming ZeniMax Workers United-CWA in January 2023. After contract talks with Microsoft continued for more than two years, the union authorized a strike in April 2025. The contract was ratified that June, and, following layoffs in July 2026, the union negotiated severance terms for affected members through an effects-bargaining process that concluded with an agreement in September 2026.
Sources: PC Gamer.