I dont know if this business tactic has a common name but I call it Darth Vaders Deal. Heres how it works: You partner with a company that is smaller than you to provide you with services (in Arkanes case, to develop a game which Bethesda will publish for them, under which they have a profit sharing agreement.) Ideally, your partner will be so much smaller than you that they dont have the means to survive if they lose your deal and dont have the financial means to fight you in court if you screw them over. This is why Bethesda almost always partners with small, independent developers. Once the project is under way and the developer is a decent amount into it, you start throwing up hurdles. You reject milestones for no good reason, you say the quality isnt good enough, you start delaying reviews or changing your design requirements. You basically conjure up reasons why they arent holding up their end of the bargain so you can withhold crucial payments to them that they need to keep their company running and to continue working on the project. Then you offer to give them the money despite them supposedly not meeting your requirements but say that will require altering the terms of your deal.
You keep doing this over and over again until the developer is on its knees, likely struggling to make payroll and keep the lights on. It doesnt matter if what youre doing is truthful or in some cases, even legal under the terms of your agreement, the developer needs you to survive, they cant say no. At that point, you offer them a choice: Let them be acquired by you for a fraction of their true worth (in some cases, only as much as they owe you, plus any other debts), try to have them find other money so the project can be finished on your conditions (but likely with poor quality because they no longer care about pleasing you) or if they blink, they go out of business. Youll lose the time and money youve put into them so far but you get to keep whatever theyve worked on to shop around to someone else and barring that, you write it off your taxes and move on. Were I to hazard a guess, Id say Bethesda has experienced all three of these scenarios. Arkane would fall into the first camp, Rebellion would fall into the second (go look up Rogue Warrior) and Human Head with Prey 2 falls into the third. Human Head does technically still exist but by all accounts, theyre basically a husk of a company now and are for all intents and purposes, out of business.