Why are so many people buying this game?

Sduibek

Sduibek

Creator of Fallout Fixt
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Dear NMA,

Does anyone here have theories on why this game is so popular? Fallout 3 wasn't good, and any sane person could assume Fallout 4 was going to be worse for various reasons. I regrettably spent 60 hours on Fallout 3, and the only reason it sucked me in for that long was the addictive nature of the game. Maybe Fallout 4 is simply more addictive?

I've seen posts saying "I'll buy it when it's on sale to check it out" or something to that effect. Why? Why buy something you already know is going to be bad? Is it just due a huge marketing budget or what? I'm only 30 but maybe I'm becoming too old to "get it" when it comes to the whims of the modern gaming community.

Serious theories welcomed,
-Confused Gamer

P.S. I see that even many of the members of RPGCodex are buying and playing Fallout 4 on their Steam accounts. lol, #irony
 
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From what I gather, the general opinion here is that:

It isn't a bad game. What it isn't, is it's not a Fallout game. But it's a decent game, though with too many glitches and too poor AI for modern shooter standards, with no long-term playability. But it's not... unfun. It's Skyrim with guns. Far Cry was Skyrim with guns too and that game was fun.

If you liked Far Cry and stuff like that, here's another one of those with more features and more bugs. If you want another Fallout game... maybe wait a bit more. Or a lot more.

My opinion is that it:

Is basically Fallout 3 with much better graphics, a slightly better plot, less interactivity, less roleplaying, a better open-world, better combat, much less RPG mechanics, and little to no choice and consequence. To be fair, that's also the general opinion too. So there's that.
 
It's a solid 8/10 game that Bethesda did a LOT of smart marketing for.

Also a fuckload of people bought and liked Skyrim, and considering F4 is Skyrim with Guns (and crafting/building stuff!) it's easy to see how it sold so well
 
It's big like an ocean but shallow like a puddle, so even the lowest common denominator can enjoy it. Skyrim with guns my friend, Skyrim with guns.
 
I plan to buy it once the GECK ships (or some time afterwards); I don't have high hopes for the actual game, but provided I agree with the EULA, mods might be fun, and it's buying a license to use the IP in-game. I may wait for a sale; though... since I don't usually pay Steam directly (if I can help it), I may wait until I can find a discount boxed set.
 
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New Vegas gave me some hope. I foolishly expected Bethesda to take, at least, some notes from what Obsidian did and maybe create a better Fallout game than their first one. In the end I should have paid more attention to what Bethesda did with Skyrim than what Obsidian did with New Vegas. It won´t happen again though.
 
Articulo34 said:
New Vegas gave me some hope. I foolishly expected Bethesda to take, at least, some notes from what Obsidian did and maybe create a better Fallout game than their first one. In the end I should have paid more attention to what Bethesda did with Skyrim than what Obsidian did with New Vegas. It won´t happen again though.
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I didn't have any hopes, thanks partly to Skyrim and this community.
 
frajaq said:
It's a solid 8/10 game that Bethesda did a LOT of smart marketing for.

Also a fuckload of people bought and liked Skyrim, and considering F4 is Skyrim with Guns (and crafting/building stuff!) it's easy to see how it sold so well
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There was pretty much no doubt about that. Just as how you can be sure that the next Transformers from Bay would be the next hit in Cinema, simply from the trailers alone.

However, the difference is that with a Bay movie, you pretty much know what you're getting your self in to, and there is hardly anyone who would either see Transformers as watching the next Citizen Kane or even dare to sell it as one. And enjoying Transformers for what it is, is absolutely fine. Bethesdas games though are ... seriously called deep and hardcore RPG experiences, most probably by people that have never even touched a really deep RPG - it is strange that those that did, and still call Fallout 3 and 4 deep RPGs, very often tell you, that they didn't liked Planescape, Fallout 1 etc. very much.

To love and enjoy something is alright. But at this point, you could call Fallout 4 more or less just a first person shooter.
 
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Well, Bethesda seems to have spend as much money in marketing/publicity as in experimenting in the wrong way, with irrelevant farming with no consequences. But, hey, the promotional videos are awesome. I had a better time watching to the intro and the skill thingy series than playing this general shooter they attached to Fallout franchise. Ok, reasons:
-Marketing and publicity, leading to major hype;
-It's one of the top gaming franchises, I'd say that matters;
-Both F3 and F4 were hugely successful games in all aspects you may think of (we all know the cons, of course)
-It's the marketing, stupid.

It freaking sucks for so far.
 
Oh look, it's THIS question again.

If I buy it and do not like it, it's my fault for giving the game a chance.
If I do not buy it and do not like it, it's my fault for not giving the game a chance.

This is getting old. The game is selling well because they poured an immense amount of money into their marketing of the game. This is how businesses work. The more money spent on marketing, the more sales.

Fallout 4's "features" were tailored to appeal to mass demographics. Crafting is "so hot right now" so they put that in. Dogs are "so hot right now" so they made sure to market the hell out of Dogmeat. And so on and so forth.

Also, the game is just acceptable enough that I am playing it with some enjoyment. However I just bought Saint's Row The Third: The Full Package for $5, and I can tell you that game has better voice acting and dialogue. And it's not even an rpg - it's a third person GTA-like game. Not that Fallout 4 is an RPG.

I'm allowed to buy a game, say it's mediocre, and still play it.

 
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It's popular for identical reasons to Destiny and Borderlands. Its simple, easy to understand, and designed to appeal to psychological gratification structures in our brain. It doesn't need complexity as long as it can appeal to the lowest common denominator. And their assessment of quality is in sales figures, not critical reception. This is actually the lowest rated Fallout game ever released on Metacritic.
 
I, for one, know that this isn't an RPG and I don't care. I play Beth games for the same reasons I play Borderlands or Far Cry; it's fun. I play games primarily because they're fun and more entertaining than my regular life. I'll probably wait until February to play, but I'm thinking that's when PS4 mods will be out anyway.
 
Ben Soto said:
I, for one, know that this isn't an RPG and I don't care. I play Beth games for the same reasons I play Borderlands or Far Cry; it's fun. I play games primarily because they're fun and more entertaining than my regular life. I'll probably wait until February to play, but I'm thinking that's when PS4 mods will be out anyway.
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Awesome. Then you're heads in the right place about it. Though I would caution you waiting on mods. PS4 modding support probably won't show up until around July.
 
Ben Soto said:
I, for one, know that this isn't an RPG and I don't care. I play Beth games for the same reasons I play Borderlands or Far Cry; it's fun. I play games primarily because they're fun and more entertaining than my regular life. I'll probably wait until February to play, but I'm thinking that's when PS4 mods will be out anyway.
Click to expand...

I'm mostly the same. Mostly. Not entirely, since I'm still very on edge about the amount of linearity the series is taking in its writing, but in terms of the game overall I feel pretty much the same way.

You know, I have two types of games I play. One that I slip into and have a relaxed session of fun and action with, nothing complex. And when I want to slip into something a bit more immersive, something more, I play games that are more indepth in design and world-building. Games that I can lose myself in for hours, kinda like a different world.

Funny how not all Fallout games in the series all categorises into one of the above. They split into two. Which one is which, you can probably guess. But I enjoy most of them, so I don't really think about this much. Just a little detail I noticed. Games in the same series usually have consistency in what kind of game they're supposed to be. Fallout has an identity crisis, in my opinion.
 
It was one of two early Christmas gifts from my wife, I had no plan on buying it until my wife seen it was out that day and sent me a copy over steam along with MGSV. Her reasoning was the I already have every other fallout game, collectors of 3 and NV and went to midnight launch for them so I would want the new one.

The game is pretty average, has it moments but then you end up sloughing threw the same muddy combat system. I didnt really notice just how bland it was until I stopped playing it and played The Witcher 3 and MGSV for a bit last night. Its night and day between them.
I have taken the stance that Bethesda is capable of making a good fallout, but choose to make a main stream AAA money printer instead. Eventually sometime before the year is over im going to set down and play Fallout from start to its current state over a few months.

I want to finish the game at some point but im going to check out MGSV for now since its much better experience even with the supernatural stuff going on everywhere. I just started chapter 2 and have about 90 hours logged and im pretty sure ive been everywhere you can go on the top half of the map (north of DC) and I want to explore the bottom half before progressing the story very much.
The game has so much potential but fails to use it and makes me sad, even the quest generator could have been done better, if the minutemen has a stockpile location you could stock with supplies such as food, armor, weapons and medicine and it gets used as settlements need and npcs can equip themselves out of it.
Mods can fix most of whats wrong I think and I can deal with the rest.
 
I wanted to see what it was like first Hand, plus if I criticize it fanboys can't say "You can't talk bad about it unless you've played it.".
 
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