@wingover, I wondered if he was stoned as well, glad I'm not the only one finding it hard to see the sense in the comment?

PS: Just to clarify people buy the Hard Copy DVD's to be able to re-install without downloading the whole game for one good reason, another is they/we like having the product we payed for, simple as that really and why not you feel that you have actually purchased something with the hard copy and not just a Key Code for a download which all Steam really is.

People don't need to do research, developers need to be up front. Hines saying "the full game is not on the disk" was vague as hell to say the least. This will hurt Bethesda in the next go around, not much, but enough for them to notice.

Well I for one have sworn off any UbiSoft and EA products, now I'll just stop buying any more Bethesda. As long as there are companies like CD Proekt Red, 4A Games and Roberts Space Industries out there I won't need them. I paid for this game (FO4) so I will play it, but this is the last one. And I'll be damned if I purchase any of the DLC.

That'll teach them! They'll notice that one purchase for sure! I like that you mention RSI which has produced absolutely nothing (yet). Star Citizen sounded great until they turned pay to win and allowed people to spend real money on ships. Some of which (carriers) are extremely end game.

So I should keep purchasing their products even though I don't agree with their policies because they won't notice if I stop spending money with them?

I have been a backer of RSI since 2013 [Edit: since 2011] and have been following the progress of development closely and they have accomplished much in Two years. How long did it take Fallout 4 to come out when Bethesda had an existing engine that they have been using for how many titles already?

Star Citizen is hardly pay to win, except for cosmetic items, everything you are awarded with for your donations is achievable in game. Why does everyone get this simple idea backwards, people are not buying ships they are selecting award packages for their donations. The game is being entirely financed through crowd funding.

But this thread is not about Star Citizen. It is about Bethesda/Zenimax misrepresenting their product either intentionally or through negligence. And I am not the only one who is upset by this.

Why can't the f@nboiz get it through their thick skulls that if a company screws the pooch they need to be called out on it.

Cry about it some more please

I fully intend to as that will make sure that this post remains at the top of the forum. Thank you for your assistance.

Sorry in advance about the grammar / spelling. English is my 1st language, and I have a U.S. education. Kappa

You have my support wingover. I picked it up on Steam after the review embargo lifted and some opinions trickled in. I had no idea so little of the game was on the disc. When I worked in retail, I would have returned the game for you opened or unopened as soon as I heard your explanation.

Bethesda was just being cheap about it. The only way to really guarantee the quality of multiple discs in a single box would for them to be individually packaged considering how many it would take. Each one in its own sleeve, etc. I've seen the results when discs become loose. It's also maybe worth noting that those packaging options aren't as readily available anymore either. The costs are probably considerably higher than "back in the day".

Anyway, none of this really excuses the fact that the box was not clearly labeled. I've seen many software products that do clearly label the box in some way letting them know the box is basically empty and exactly what they are purchasing (a key). In this case, you might have a ton of people totally pissed that the box art was ruined by a sticker. Well, maybe my final message is that its impossible to make everyone happy.

Oh its kinda sad to see apologists who have no ties to the company show up on their behalf lol... strange behavior that is.

Thank you for the kind support. I bought it through Amazon so I could not even guess that the box only had one disk and the only way you can really tell that there is only one disk is to open it. But it says on the box that by opening the box you agree with the policy. Gahhhh!

Still livid and now that I am playing the game and fumbling around with the UI I am ticked all over again but that subject is already being covered all over the interwebz.

Of course people should do research. Video games are expensive, and people need to be smarter consumers before they buy them. It's marketing's job to convince you to buy, it's your job to be a tougher sell. I imagine if bandwidth was an issue for me, i would wait until after release to decide which version to buy.

And people should stop pre-ordering. Period.

Edit: I'm not trying to justify Bethesda's packaging decision, nor any of the publishers on how physical PC distribution has been handled. Just trying to point out that people should exercise some consumer savvy to avoid being burned

While I downloaded it.. I support you guys. This is just messed up. And Bethesda owes you. I looked at pics on the box and nowhere does it mention you have to download the bulk of the game.

Can you return it to Amazon?

If you live in a rural area in he US, you are getting your connection via sat which means you have a cap. And you pay for extra bandwidth.

pretty big stink about this, bet they include it on the next one.

And that's just something people will have to live with. Plenty of people had to upgrade their hardware to play and some even bought new consoles to play. Lot's of people complaining about it not going on last gen consoles and they had to upgrade. Sorry they can't cater to every single person in every single situation

Cater? What, people living in rural areas are suppose to move to play this game? Look, it should've been VERY clear on the box, what was expected. It wasn't. And the OP is right, why selll a box version if you have to download it. Ok you want marketing space - make a poster.

If you hit up Office Depot and buy a copy of MS Office, it says in big letters that the software must be downloaded. That the box only contains a product key. This is what Bethesda should have done. Informed the buyer that only the steam client was included. Hell, why even include that? Do what MS does and give the buyer a card with a URL on it (and a key if needed).

The OP and the many who got burned by this, deserve to be pissed.

Thanks for trying but some people are so thick skulled that there is no room in their heads for common sense.

from personal experience, it wasn't a big deal. once i opened the package and realized there was only a single disk, i put two plus two together, shrugged and just left it downloading through the night. enjoying the game a great deal at the moment.

fallout 4 is the bomb. pun intended.

THAT BEING SAID

i can understand, and agree with how dishonest the whole "not telling you you need to dl 24 gb of data" thing is. as mentioned multiple times by multiple posters, nowhere on the box does it say that a 24gb download is required. it was not made known before the launch of the game, it was not written even in the tiniest print on the box, on beth's webpage, or anywhere else. i can only imagine the frustration of players looking forward to the game only to have to get cockblocked by a poor internet connection or data cap. and beth isn't the only publisher guilty of this practice.

there are many ways to HELP these players, one of the most obvious being actually delivering the entire game in the box. when you buy, and receive a game in a box, that's what you're looking for. a game in a box. not a downloader client.

but if being HELPFUL is too much to ask, the least that could be done was to put that information on the box. this way, people can make an informed decision BEFORE purchasing. someone said that if you see only one CD within, it's obvious the game has to be downloaded. yes. that is true.

what's also true is that you can only come to that conclusion (like i did) after purchasing, receiving the sealed package, unsealing it, opening it up and looking inside. since time only goes forward, finding out that information can only come AFTER purchase. not BEFORE. you can't make an informed purchasing decision if the research only comes after.

it takes close to no time to put the info on the game box. if bethesda needs my help to do it, i have a number of designers willing to do it. some will even do it for free. it takes something like 10 minutes. 15 if you include the transferring of print assets.

It would have been less of a problem if I had known that it was a digital download only. I could have rationed my my internet usage and downloaded it from Steam as intended. Telling customers that they are purchasing a hard copy of the game while doing nothing of the sort is dishonest.

IMO, if they want to ship the game on only 1 disc, they should put it on blu-ray. I have a blu-ray drive for my pc, for hopes that one day they will finally make the switch, because I don't see ISP changing their ways anytime soon, for rural folk in particular, which I am a part of, so I have a cap of 30 gigs. I haven't installed FO 4 yet, I'm saving as much data as possible until near the end of the month so I can install it a couple days before my new data rolls over, and I've been playing on PS4 until then.

Yes, that made no sense. Why pretend to have a physical release when 3/4 have to be downloaded anyway? Though BGS does have a history of trolling. So far it has just been by characters in their games, not them themselves

And yes, i consider myself lucky, i live in a country where everyone is by law required to have access to a reasonably priced broadband connection. Took me only 3 hours. Information society, babies! Obviously, most of the world is not anywhere near that, and it's ridiculous to propose that people not on a broadband aren't target audience anymore

But that's what i love in the post release afterglow on the official forums. Everything has a perfectly valid reason

I agree. Feel free to read the rest of my post. Imo having it only available via digital download is reasonable (cos no one wants their game cracked by pirates at least within the first month)

What isn't reasonable is not providing that little tit bit of information on the box. Blizzard pulled a similar thing with d3, not mentioning that an internet connection was required for play. If memory serves me right, they were forced to refund lots of eu players who returned their game

Well, it seems to me they did this to try and curtail piracy of the game. But yeah, those of you with data caps really got to be feeling it. I ended up buying the game then taking my computer over to a friends house where he has comcast and a much faster speed then I can get in this area.

Honestly, the download would STILL be going on for the game if I tried using my ISP for it. I think it took me 4 days to download the last Max Payne game and that was like 22 GB or something like that from Steam.

The requirement to download nearly all of the game, despite the purchase of a physical copy of said game is the sole reason why I decided to forego it. It really is pointless to even bother, if you're going to be required to download the game anyway.

Besides, Blue Ray disk drives don't cost very much money (they can be had at Newegg for about 50 US dollars), and they're so easy to install, even a caveman can do it .

Bethesda, there really is no good reason you can give that validates your purpose for not releasing the pc version of the game on Blue Ray. This isn't a new technology that just came out this year, in fact, they've been around for over ten years now. Bad move, Beth, very bad move.

I sincerely hope this is biting sarcasm and you simply failed to convey that, but in the event it's not, you are aware that retailers take a cut of the profits as well, right? For shelf space reservations etc.

Physical stores also require the licensing and everything else you're getting at, just like anyone else. Valve absolutely does not deserve one thin dime from copies sold through other channels.

What Bethesda did with FO4 on disc is wrong and should not be allowed to happen. Either put it all on a blu-ray and tell people "you want physical, get with the times" or sell exclusively digital copies through whatever means they decide on.

So long as they don't perpetuate the lie they did with Skyrim (and now FO4 too) where it says Steam is only needed to activate it. This is a flat out lie because you REQUIRE the Steam client to be active whenever you play - that does not fit the wording on the box. "Activation Only" would fit more in line with how Gothic 4 worked. Pinged the mother server exactly once to register the key, then never again unless you asked it to go fetch a patch.

If PC games are not making the transition to Blu-ray and requiring the majority of the game to be downloaded, then it will force PC users in rural areas or other places with lousy internet connections to use a console. It is getting more and more common with MGS V and Fallout 4 being the most noticeable examples. And games are just going to require more and more memory to play the game. In a few years, we should have games that have surpassed the 100 GB mark and that is too much right now to download for one game. This just seems like the beginning of the end for old school PC gaming.