Hi all,

I waited patiently to buy and play the third game of a franchise I've loved since the original.

I'm more than concerned that even though I have a way too new computer (Win 7 Ult, Core i3, XFX radeon 5770, 4GB Corsair RAM, etc etc) that I haven't even seen the first user interaction other than BOY/GIRL, choose your face (and that was after REINSTALLING WITHOUT the newest patch.

This is now 3 hours after I decided I would have a little fun.

I don't have time to play games alot, and when I saw this on sale finally for the price I thought I would have the time to give it (will maybe play a few hours here and there when internet goes out etc.) I jumped at it.

I am in IT and have a meticulously maintained Gaming Only PC that plays about 2 games at a time.

I liked the fact that this game had the CORRECT level of DRM (Securom, no internet checks)

I really don't have time to waste on pirating/circumvention and I was very willing to wait for the right price as I realize I am a "secondary" market for games.

My concern is that I have heard forever about the "Death of PC Games" and didn't give it a second thought since I don't buy every game, or even lots of games.

My new belief is that this may in fact be true.

I will never own a console, since I have a major investment in my PC gear.

So I am curious as to how Bethesda and their distributors/parent company would like to go about getting my money, or if in fact there is any interest there at all.

I installed Fallout 3, immediately patched it with the most current 1.7 update and got a black screen with heartbeats as my reward for being diligent.

I discovered with a little research that Securom doesn't like virtual drives, and as a TECHNET subscriber I constantly have Virtual Drive software running for the occasional Virtual PC test.

Disabling Daemon Tools got me to the BOY/GIRL choice but then hang again.

I reinstalled everything this time WITHOUT the current patch and got all the way to what I suppose is the nursery or the first non cut-scene and hung again.

I reviewed the forums and most people are posting entire dxdiag dumps making them almost impossible to read and I know mine are current and signed.

I am on the fence here, is PC gaming dead?

I feel you may be losing a great deal by not focusing on your slightly older franchises.

If I had enjoyed the game I certainly would have been willing to pay for DLC.

If I had a good 1st ACT free demo when the game came out I may have purchased it at full price at that time.

(I am after all your target audience, how many people really played FALLOUT 1 when it came out? and on an ORIGINAL IBM XT and had the color monitor?)

I have also been a great supporter of Bethesda buying many of your other games when I WAS a ravenous must have new now gamer.

I suppose the goal of this message is to alert you to the fact that I don't have any more time to dedicate to getting this working correctly.

I will attempt to return it to the store just to send the message that I didn't have a good experience and really should have.

I usually do that to vote with my dollars.

In this case it is a vote I really didn't want to have to make.

And it's not about gameplay or content since I never had a chance to see that.

My humble suggestions are these:

1. Really kick-ass FREE 1st act DEMO content that shows the NON-cut-scene gameplay and allows me to test my hardware against the games requirements and DRM.

2. If you do put out a GOTY edition and subsequently lower prices on the original, don't let them lie fallow, go back and make the current patch make them THAT MUCH BETTER, or include your KNOWLEDGE BASE on the re-issued original, or put up a web-site area with the knowledge base clearly indicated on your home page.

3. Heck, remove the DRM entirely off the boxed retails after the GOTY edition, everyone who wasn't willing to contribute to the franchise and wanted to pirate them already has them by then.

I won't be buying the Fallout DLC, GOTY or Bioshock 1 or 2 or Mass-Effect 1 or 2 now because of these problems, maybe not all yours, but there are many other games I really looked forward playing which are also impacted by this, and those have worse DRM.

I REALLY hope I am in the minority, I don't want to have to raise a child to be forced to get a console to play games again.

I think a certain company I remember had the ID to release the first 3 levels for free, and that didn't turn out too badly for them.

What happened to that business model?

Sincerely,

An Admirer.

Did you check whether your "way too new computer" was the problem? Quad core CPUs, I believe, were not released at the time the game was issued and the engine has a problem with them. There is an easy fix, though, detailed in the Tech Support forum. It only requires adding some extra lines to the Fallout.ini file.