November 14 2015

I will start off saying that this is a MASSIVE let down on Bethesda softworks part, I spent $60 for a hard disk copy of Fallout 4 for numerous reasons, first and foremost I wanted a hard copy of the 25GB game. Let me start by saying not everyone has a high speed internet connection, yes many/most people do have it but not everyone, in addition there are those with connections that have limits on data transmission, and I have a slow connection. I wanted to get my hands on a hard copy of the game so that I can spend 1 hour downloading 5-6 DVD's or one BlueRay then play the game, now I have to spend 10 minutes downloading 1 disk and 40 HOURS DOWNLOADING THE REST!!!

The claim that this was done to combat piracy in my opinion is a weak to nonexistant argument. Piracy has always existed and will continue to exist becauise there are and will always be unscrupulas people, I have seen digital download only games that have been pirated. If you want to combat piracy do it in an interesting way such as making the game unplayable unless a steam key unlocks it. It may require more work on Bethesda's part but customers who specifically purchased a hard copy of the game will not have to spend time waiting/downloading to play the game they though they bought a hard copy of. The reason why this came as a surprise to me is simple, I did not want to uncover spoilers of the game (real or otherwise) and therefore the only thing I found out of Fallout 4 was the Release Date.

I have hard copies of Fallout 3, Fallout NV, and Skyrim, In reality I prefer to purchase hard copies of games because I often delete games from my library for one reason or the other and reinstall them. I have doubts that ...this bad business decision was done out of necessity to combat piracy, but in reality to cut cost, Why spend One extra dollar per copy when that can be pocketed. As someone who goes out of his way to make an effort to buy a hard copy of the game I consider this to be one of the worst decisions to date, and a slap in the face to those that buy hard copies of the game! Personally if the game was going to be a single disk with over 20GB of download then WHY BOTHER with selling a hard copy of the game?

Now if you will excuse me I am going to apologise to my room mates for hogging the bloody bandwith. In closing... this is the first time and HOPEFULLY the last time I say this, I hope your game gets pirated.

you have to realize, most people buying the PC version have internet connections that make the download no big deal. I don't have numbers, but I'd wager they sell far more digital copies on steam than they do hard copies. it only makes sense that they cater to the majority and not the minority. it's actually a wise business decision, not a bad one. and if you want prof of that, just look at the sales. the game is breaking records left and right.

The game will always be pirated but with such games most sales are made in the first few weeks so a reasonable attempt to slow that marks a big increase in sales. Besides, more people have high-speed internet than have blu ray drives (blu ray adoption has been abysmally slow) and putting out 5-7 DVD box sets isn't practical for publishers. PC gaming has almost totally moved online now, as the above poster has pointed out that's where the market is.

Part of your argument is true, but at the same time you are forgetting something, Options.

Most of the people buy the game online and download it, that is true but the minority who take the extra step to buy a hard copy of the game do so because they do not want to download the entirety of the game. I am one of them. I went out of my way to buy the the game on a disk so that I do not have to download it on line.

I took the extra steps to find, and purchase a hard copy of the game because I like having hard copies. If you are going to offer options then you have to abide by it. A hard copy implies that 99% of the game is already there, I do not mind day 1 patches, or small necessary downloads but when the entire game must be downloaded even after buying a hard copy. That is unacceptable and false advertisment.

Mr. Pete Hines in my opinion has made a very bad public relations decision and aliennated every customer who purchased a hard copy of the game.

This is one of the few times I have been pissed off to say this, I hope Mr. Peter Hines looses his job.

They did this with skyrim too, and i honestly cannot remember ever seeing New vegas pc disks at all (though i could be wrong).

I will rephraze it, "Most of the people buy the game online and download it, that is true but the minority who take the extra step to buy a hard copy of the game for their own reasons."

I (under false advertisment) purchased the disk vairant of the game because I did not want to download 25G worth of data, Now I have to download 20G worth of data.

I am finding a lot of people who wanted the entire game on hard disks and were dissapointed. Even worse said catch was not on the package or in online descriptions.

There is a saying, "Never assume because you make an ass out of you and me." Someone assumed everyone has unlimited high speed internet connections. I am fuming because of false advertisment, or in this case neglect.

so have you downloaded the game yet?

You also ASSUMED you would not have to download anything, that sentence goes both ways. and anyway it was dumb, since had you done ANY kind of research, you would know Bethesda has not only started doing, but pretty much ALL gaming companies that make PC games have started doing this, heck, not just games either, as Microsoft has also gone a similar route.

How is this false advertising anyway? you GOT the game, that is all you are promised.

which is getting the game.

8 GB down (that is 3 downloaded), 16 to go (or 32 hours).

I could not agree more, that is the same thing as buying the steam version.

Putting it in terms some may understand, I purchased a product thinking it was fully assembled but recieved a box of parts.

you mean the real world? yeah.

I find it ludicrous to even sell a physical copy if the game does not actually ship with said copy.

Oh how I hope in the name of sanity that they never do this again, that they have learnt from this. Keep key-files for download if you think that will serve a purpose (it sure won't stop piracy) and force us to activate it with Steam if you feel that is needed (Steam for single-player games never made sense to me, but I had to get it for Skyrim alone), but for goodness sake, Bethesda, don't ship a fraction of the game next time.

Although I doubt Bethesda themselves will actually read this...

I got FNV physical version. No additional DL from steam.

It's still a terrible business decision. If you're going to release a game on physical disc, put it on the damn disc. And if you're not going to put the game on the disc, don't bother releasing a physical copy. Avoiding the download is a big part of why people buy a physical copy.

(Also, several other large Bethesda-published games this past year were put out with multiple DVDs. So it's not like they hadn't done it before.)

Me, I heard about the fact the whole game wasn't on the disc before release happened, and was able to switch my pre-order to digital (so I could pre-download). If I hadn't, and I brought my disc home so that I could get right to playing, only to discover a 4 hour download first? Yeah, I'd have been pissed beyond belief.

I get that it's frustrating, but that doesn't make it a bad business decision. They save money by not having to put out multiple DVD's (they could do a blu-ray but then a whole different group of people would be upset) and only upset a small handful of people since the vast majority of their pc sales are digital, and even the ones that aren't are likely to have a strong internet connection. This is also hardly the first time this has happened, as it's something many pc games have been doing lately, both as a slight deterrent to piracy and as a way to save money on physical copies of the game which have been steadily decreasing in sales as high-speed internet has become more and more widespread.

I can sympathize with peoples frustration with this decision and I'm certainly not trying to say it was right or wrong in every sense as it does alienate a specific group of people, but I just can't see how anyone would think it's a bad business decision.

In my opinion that's absolutely no valid point, sorry. If you decide to sell hard-copies of your software in stores, you do not do it like this.

And the "wise business decision" in that case would not be to screw people over by putting almost nothing in the box, but to adjust the amount of produced hard copies downwards to your plans/sales expectations - or do not sell them at all, if infact it's a digital version with a box...

that's your fault for not properly researching the product. Unfortunately for you we now live in the digital age and a vast majority of things are moving ever faster to a download only format. Quite frankly I am surpised that they even offered a pc disk version for such a large game. while I can sympathize with your position your out of line calling for the game to be pirated or for someone to lose thier job when you fall into a niche group of users that buy the game.

But once again, there shouldn't be a need to "properly research" a physical copy - it's a physical copy, the data should be on the disc.

Yes, digital age, etc. That means people buying the digital version if they are ok with downloads. People with good connections, who like to download things, don't buy the physical version, so there's no reason to create a physical version for them.

(And everyone knows that the "keep it from being pirated" is an excuse. It's easy enough to do that with most of the data on disc and a small download/decryption on install. It doesn't require 80%+ of the game to be left out.)

No matter if it's "niche" or not (everyone always assumes that their way is the popular/common one), if they didn't want to put the game on the disc, and they wanted to make everyone download 20+GB, they should have not bothered putting out a disc in the first place. If you want everyone to go digital, just release digitally, don't bait-and-switch by claiming to offer a physical version when it doesn't actually include the game.

(personally, I only heard of one other "big" release this year that did this - Metal Gear? - and people [censored]ed up a storm about that one, too. The rest of the major releases stuck a bunch of DVDs in the box. Bethesda included, so it's not like it's a corporate policy with them. I was honestly surprised by the switch.)

For all EA's faults at least they have the decency to warn their customers. http://www.gamestop.com/pc/games/star-wars-battlefront/121211

We needed another complaint thread on this? They had a couple options here

1) bluray, then you'd have people making threads complaining about bethesda holding them at gunpoint to buy a bluray drive

2) USB flash drive, which has been proven to be extremely expensive in comparison to DVDs so would likely come at a higher cost (Win10 USB version is $25 more and only on a 8gb flash drive)

3) press 5-6 DVDs to fit the entirety of the game on antiquated media, a still more expensive endeavor than option 4

4) Steam download for the majority of players that don't have data speed/limits imposed on them

The only cause for a physical copy I've even heard in recent years was just to have something to put on the shelf. A physical "I own this" and nothing more. I'm shocked that PC gamers today really have such restrictions in internet speed and cap. I haven't thought of anything like that in 10+ years.

PC gamers will always complain about needing to go 100% digital. Not all PC gamers worldwide have good internet connections and some like me, have monthly data caps. I have 300GB monthly data caps from Comcast.

#1. Blu-Ray disks don't hurt me I have a Blu-Ray drive and a Blu-Ray player.

#2. Can't comment on USB's. They could be a option.

#3. Discs are not antiquated media. They are still viable options to use. Internet doesn't last for ever for lets see people moving, people with poor internet connections, and people who have absolutely no internet for whatever reasons. Rural places around the world are one of those reasons.

#4. Physical boxed PC versions of video games sold are cheaper than Steam more times than often not.

I honestly didn't even know physical disks for PC gaming was still really much of a thing. I used to work retail (best buy) and their selection along with the local gamestops was next to nothing. I'd be interested to see the actual number of digital to physical on PC.

Another thing I'm shocked on is the apparent lack of BR drives on most of these "high end" builds people talk about. If you're not supporting the media format, why would publishers bother to adopt it as standard?

DVD's are certainly antiquated in todays streaming/download society. There will always be those people that want a physical DVD of a movie to have but the shrinking DVD sections of stores show that it is a dying media format.

Having not been really a PC gamer I wasn't aware of physical games being cheaper than steam options. Doesn't steam do some pretty absurd sales around the holidays? But again, moot point on a brand new game. Lot's of people found digital downloads for Fallout 4 considerably cheaper than a retail copy