I must say I like it, even if it is a little painful not to know so many details yet, it is keeping me from harvesting too much info on the game and making me bored before release...

Of course this often leads to loads of speculation, rumours, imagination and discussions mutating and going wild

To all those saying they don't like this marketing strategy let me say this:

Todd Howard likes for people to discover things, so does Pete Hines. In the final days/weeks/months coming up to Skyrim that game was pretty heavily marketed (everyone should remember they rented out the entire side of a building to put a huge Dovahkiin there). A week before the game came out, Werewolves were spoiled. I was SO disappointed. Crushed, really. Pete Hines ranted on Twitter about the leak. It was bad, in my book. Skyrim was probably a factor in them being more cautious. I can see us getting a hardcoe mode, but they won't even say a thing about difficulty levels. Pete even said they weren't saying a thing about it on Twitter. So much secrecy, but for so many reasons.

Granted, the werewolf spoiler was probably an internal leak, but so was the leak of the opening scene which they didn't want to show off as soon as it did. They have simply became more cautious. Keeping things a secret internally was probably a main goal of their 'offseason' so to speak.

I personally don't like the tight-lip approach from devs. But when I saw the formal presentation of FO4 by Todd Howard in which we saw a reasonable dose of what to expect but without giving anything away on a silver platter, I said, ok, I had enough. Fair enough. Let's wait until it comes out and lets STOP bothering them. Besides, let's face it, even if Beth had only shown a freaking poster with the word "Fallout 4" and that's it, the fans - considering how absurd is their loyalty - are going to buy the game in droves anyways. Yeah, they might be cursing along the way but they are going to buy it; the special edition, collector's item, pre-order it, whatever.

Beth is lucky that they have everyone, so it seems, in the palm of their hands.

I think it's smart to announce games close to release, it's just better and safer. Best to announce a game that's a sure thing rather than cancelling it or sticking it in development hell (thinks of Prey 2 and Runemaster )

Im not a fan of their Marketing Stratergy of closed door gameplay trailers, But i do love the rather small gap between announcement and release and wish more companies would do it because it means its going out when its complete with out hearing about delays and such

Agreed. Looking at you, Mass Effect: Andromeda (1 year wait... minimum) and Half Life 3 (FINISH IT ALREADY, VALVE!)...

I would like more actual gameplay to be visible pre-launch, though I'm not sure whether or not that'd be wise from a business perspective. Bethesda tends to have clunky animations that don't really translate well into epic trailers and so on.

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I do like the shorter wait between announcement and release though.

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Haven't pre-ordered as it's not a major release must-have for me, unless Bethesda is straying from their formula in some interesting way and/or dramatically improving their combat or writing I see it as "slightly better graphics Bethesda game in a post-apocalyptic setting".

Meh, I'm fine with the lesser wait time for it to hit shelves. It means less time for speculation...Yes I know, it's time honored and all in good fun and not, but I am not a person who can stomach a lot of baseless speculation and wishlisting...With less than a year before the announcement, the boards for once have been mildly tolerable.

We're mere weeks from release and we've only just now hit the "The End is coming, fallout is ruined" period.

a little late to bellyache even if you weren't fine with it. We're so close to launch now.

I prefer the method of short announcement to release time frame. Expectations remain quite temperate versus a very early announcement, and it avoids the blunders of games like Watch Dogs (and possibly the division).

Voted no yes yes in that order. Don't like the whole trust us approach and not because of anything Bethesda has done but its a marketing strategy I don't like from anyone. You're a company not a person. Trust is a lot to ask. That said I don't believe I'll be disappointed, what I have seen I'm thoroughly excited about. Yes I'm extremely happy with the short announcement to release date. Who isn't? Annnnd yes I preordered for Xbox one. Twice. Digital so I can play straight away and pip boy....cuz pip boy. Nuff said.

As long as the game turns out to be good, I have to say I think their marketing is brilliant. Get people excited with not that long to go and keep a lot of mystery around the title!

I know they've got me salivating and dreaming about what this game could be like (and I'm brand new to the Fallout universe as well).

Sometimes, less is more, and in this case I think they've released just enough to make us all want to see/know more. I also love the information bursts in terms of the S.P.E.C.I.A.L. videos, etc.

I find a game more magical if I only know some things about it initially, rather than the tons of info I was given about Skyrim.

At least Bethesda isn't boasting features which would be in limited form in the final game (no essential NPCs, yeah right).

If they hyped the game with more information much earlier though, wouldn't it spread much more and gain greater publicity?

Oh trust me, it's spreading fine anyway.

Plus like Pete said, they aren't trying to convince you to buy there game, they just giving us the basic knowhow and leave it up to each person to decide.

Well first of all a game like Fallout 4 does not need huge advertising for years. It is not like we've been fed up with a new release every year, so that noone really bothers about it anymore. Another plus is that we only had to wait five months for release since announcement.

I have a problem with it technically still, and simply because of the gameplay we've seen so far that put so much emphasis on stuff that I largely do not care about (crafting and settlements), while other parts of that are essential to me were left out unknown for months and/or even until release. That especially is aimed at character development and quest design, basically the RPG elements. So much of this is still guesswork, though I tend to be more optimistic now than in June. Still I do not know essential stuff, like: Are there speechchecks (i.e. does Charisma replace the speech skill)? Are there perk or other attribute related checks? I always built my character around speech and sneaking so this is key for me, otherwise Charisma is not special at all. Also, do you have to chose between raising a stat and a perk, or do you have two to distribute. I guess you have to choose but I do not know for sure...Then some mechanics like the power armour are still hazy at best and while we have seen so much fighting and dismembered limbs (which I really do not care about) we have not seen much of the dialogue system and if it is as important as before or just a sidedish. I do not care for 11k lines of text if it does not mean anything in the world I am in, or if it is just a way to direct you to the next generic enemy that you can behead.

That being said, knowing Bethesda games, I appreciate that the game was largely done even in June, meaning that focus on bugs was priorized in the last months, which hopefully prevents the gamestoppers and broken saves that I encountered in every TES and Fallout game so far within the first 12 hours, and then again at hour 20, at which time I at least had a working save that was not right after character creation.

Limiting the time between release and shipping is probably the best idea since releases became a thing.

There isn't enough time for the excitement to wear off.

I'm very satisfied with this turn of events.

Telling me something is coming in 2 years is a good way to get me to forget it. This however has been up front in my head for too long now.

I think it's better to release stuff much closer to release. You are in a much more stable state (code-wise) so what you're showing off will more than likely be what the final product will look like. Anyone remember when Oblivion for consoles was to have dynamic shadows for buildings and such but then was scrapped because they just couldn't do it? Probably better to avoid ball dropping like that.

I think they were a bit light on the amount information they have released (I would have liked a bit more) but it's great that they aren't opening the flood gates with stuff.

I've got my PS4 Pip Boy Edition pre-ordered and I'm incredibly excited for November 10th!

I just want to know specifically what the start date for fallout 4 post waking up is.

You must have a lot of trust issues.

Really its all about how someone feels. I like big surprises. We'll find out hardcoe, PA Questions, and all that when it comes outs.

Speaking of Power Armor, I'm surprised we haven't seen any perks related to PA seeing as how it looks like it will be a core piece this time around.

Not going to happen until we play the game. Personally, I don't think its precisely 200 years. We'll know for sure very soon.

Check out the perk chart - Strength 10

While I have plenty of unanswered questions, it's nice to have almost everything be a surprise, so I went with indifferent. I do like the short release window after being announced and yes I did preorder.

well pretty simple

its a good approach if....

...the game is good and blows us out of the water

its a bad approach if...

...the game is an unfinished buggy mess

I am giving bethesda the benefit of the doubt cause their games have never disappointed....and fallout / elderscrolls are pretty much the only games that are guaranteed buys

I liked it and I knew something was coming, since they didn't work on eso and they only published other developers games these last 4 years they had to be working on something, and my questions where finally answered with Fallout 4. The way they kept this secret that whole time was amazing.