ZeniMax Media CEO Robert Altman passes away at 73

Posted byby Dean Takahashi
February 4, 2021
Updated June 19, 2025
2 min

ZeniMax Media chairman and CEO Robert Altman has passed away at the age of 73. The leader of the parent company of video game publisher Bethesda Softworks was in the midst of selling Bethesda to Microsoft for $7.5 billion.

Microsoft’s purchase of Bethesda for so much money speaks to the strength of the company that Altman built, with game brands such as The Evil Within, Wolfenstein, Quake, Doom, The Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Rage, Dishonored, Prey, and others. Upcoming titles include Deathloop and Ghostwire: Tokyo.

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Written by

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.