Zenimax Media Founder Robert A. Altman Passes Away

Tonight, we at 3Bit have learned the heart-breaking news that ZeniMax Founder and CEO Robert A. Altman has passed away. We discovered the news of Roberts passing on the Bethesda Twitter page, which came with a memo from the ZeniMax Media Inc. and a note from Robert, who would send emails every day to everybody in the ZeniMax Company during the Coronavirus Pandemic. You can view the full letter from Robert below, highlighting the small pleasures he and other ZeniMax employees had discovered during the lockdown and working from home, along with encouraging “everybody to take a break and toast” The “companies 21st Birthday”.

Before moving into the world of gaming, Robert A. Altman was practising Law in Washington D.C as a partner to former U.S. Secretary of Defence Clark Clifford. In his law office Clarke and Warnke., before later opening his own law office in the U.S. Capitol. It wasn’t until 1999 when Robert entered the gaming world and created ZeniMax Media Inc alongside Bethesda Softworks founder Christopher Weaver. ZeniMax became the new parent company to Bethesda where Altman took the role of CEO.

ZeniMax today remains as the parent holding company for Bethesda Softworks, along with id Software (Quake, Doom), Arkane Studios (Prey, Dishonoured), Machine Games (Wolfenstein, Upcoming Indiana Jones), Tango Gameworks (The Evil Within), ZeniMax Online (Elder Scrolls Online) and of course Bethesda Game Studios (The Elder Scrolls and Fallout titles). More recently, Microsoft acquired Zenimax Media, who entered into the agreement to the tune of $7.5 billion (U.S.) and is to be potentially finalised with approval from the EU on March 5th 2021