Pete Hines obviously ignored the internet two day before the game "officially" released and fyi pirates do not pirate physical media in regards to games, and haven't for a longgggggg time.

Who give a (self censored)?

Achievements and badges are only good for bragging about at school.

....and yet the totality of your console functionality is entirely tied to MS LIVE or Sony PSN....how is that any different?

Sorry, but I can't blame Beth for going the path of least resistance to ensure some level of piracy prevention. The days of gaming on an isolated island without any connection have been over for several years (and they are not going back).

It is not possible for me to be less upset about this. This information was readily available beforehand. Personally, I am glad that it utilizes Steam.

Only if you failed to inform yourself before buying. It never was a secret.

Huh? I think you might have misread that. I'm not at all upset about this. I'm glad it's on Steam. I was well aware of it ahead of time.

Yeah, this pissed me off when I learned it. Luckily, I found out before launch, so I could switch my pre-order to Steam from physical, and pre-load.

As others have said "uses Steam" is way different than "you have to download most of it, even if you have the disc."

Not "normal" practice, as far as I'm aware - after all, didn't people get all torches-and-pitchforks when MGS V released without the data on the disc?

Nope, gotten lots of them. And Skyrim only had a small download in addition to it's disc. And doing a little research shows that Evil Within and Wolfenstein came on multiple discs.

note: we're not talking about the "normal" thing of installing 95% of a game from disc and then Steam downloading the last little bit + the day 1 patch. Yes, that's normal, and has been for previous Beth games (and most other companies'). We're talking about the stupidity of putting out a physical copy that only has 20% or less of the game, and having to download the rest (for hours or days, depending on how crappy your broadband is; and possibly over-running your bandwidth cap. Remember many of the people who buy physical do it because their internet blows, and they don't want to download piles o' stuff.)

Sorry, really sorry. I thought, you were referring to the OP.

You're so funny. Pate Hines has said a lot of things over the years. Occasionally it has been true.

Anyone who uncritically accepts the statements of the PR man for a corporation is a complete fool.

No worries.

Yeah, I was planning to buy a physical copy of Fallout 4, but when I heard that you still needed to download a large portion of the game, I simply decided to purchase it from Steam. My first Steam game.... WOOT!!!!

While the physical version of Fallout 4 could have been sold with multiple DVDs to install with minimal additional cost for Bethesda, from an anti-piracy point of view this tactic of downloading from Steam regardless if you bought the digital or physical copy seems to be effective way to deter piracy. I am sure there will be a pirated version of Fallout 4 sooner or later (if it does not already exist), but because a large portion of the game is hidden behind Steam's DRM, it makes Fallout 4 more difficult to pirate compared to if the entire game were on multiple install DVDs.

While I was disappointed about this fact, I can completely understand because piracy is rampant and it can threaten Bethesda's bottomline; or any game developer / publisher for that matter. Not every pirated copy of Fallout 4 (or whatever game) is a lost sale for Bethesda because not every one of those pirates would have even bothered to buy the game. However, if gamers who actually do want to buy Fallout 4 were given a choice of buying the game or downloading a pirated copy how many would simply download the pirated copy to save money?

At the end of the day it is the legitimate consumers that ultimately looses in the "piracy war". Game developers needs to protect their product from theft otherwise if the return on their "investment" does not justify the money spent on a game's development, then there is no point to develop games from a business point of view. Or worse, the develop / publisher may simply go out of business. That would mean no Fallout 5 or The Elder Scrolls 6 (a.k.a "Skyrim 2").

At the end of the day, you don't have a point. Unless you were already gaming in the early 2000s when DRM really was an issue. Physical copies all around, due to low internet speeds. All of them carried DRMs, some very intrusive. Much more intrusive than Steam can ever dream to get.

So, the first thing I did back then, was looking for a No CD patch before buying any game. I'm comfortable with steam. I love the concept of my games being available everywhere and everytime. I don't need a DVD to shelf. Steam is less intrusive than any of the competing clients, such as origins. Their TOS can really give you nightmares if you read George Orwell. No surprise there, since we're talking about EA in the case of Origin.

Well, are you on facebook? Steam compares to facebook like a firecracker to a nuclear device.

I never said I believed him. I was just pointing out his reply in an interview when he was asked why they used Steam.

And just to emphasise the point I made earlier. I have no problem with Steam as a DRM and I have no problem with buying games digitally.

What I do find objectional is Bethesda deliberately keeping their customers in the dark that the physical PC copy would require a 20Gb download (80% of the game files).

They never mention it once in all their marketing, it isn't even in the small print on the box and have never addressed it since either.

Begs the question, why you give any credit to marketing. Maybe I'm cynical, since I spent the last 25 years in marketing. But if you take anything marketing says seriously, I'm tempted to call it your own fault.

I had heard that Beth did this. Why would they do it?

I bought the game for both PC (because I thought about mods in the future and wanting to get them) and on console, but, once I started to install on my PC it told me that it needed to download a bunch of stuff so I didn't even install.

All I did on the PS4 was stick the friggin' disc in and start playing.

Why the difference?

Just curious.

The point is DRM was developed to combat piracy. Some DRM is more invasive than others. Legitimate consumers suffer because DRM can mess up some PC so that a complete re-install would be necessary. It does not happen very often, in fact it is probably pretty rare, but I have read a lot posts over the years that some people's PC have developed issues as a result of DRM.

Some people do not like to install NoCD because they can potentially contain a virus or worm.

I personally prefer physical copies of games. It is simply a personal preference. Steam is convenient though.

I do not use Facebook. I prefer to limit my online socialization to forums and either speak to my friends over the phone / text message. However, I did buy several hundred shares of their stock when it was around $19.

One word. Blueray.

It doesn't take much to put something on the box to make customers aware. "This product requires activation and a potentially large download via Steam" would have done.

I still would have bought the collectors edition anyway. But fore warned is fore armed. Even when the rumours started appearing Bethesda kept silent. Very bad form from a company of Bethesda's reputation.

Well.... That answers that! Thank you.

What's with Steam though? I can't imagine giving them the kind of access they require or trusting a company that doesn't even really exist physically. It's just creepy.

But, then again, I'm old. All this new fangled "cloud" technology just doesn't seem safe to me.

Correction....

It's Blu-Ray.

You can cal me Ray or you can call me Jay...

Physical discs are a *secondary* market to many game publishers now, so don't expect them to have all your needs met.

I understand the frustration, but the game industry has moved on to digital download long ago.

When it comes to technology, it's always better to quit on a technology at the right time than to have a technology quit on you at the most inopportune time.

But you don't need to be connected to PSN in any way (or even have an internet connection for that matter) to play F4 on the PS4. What are you trying to say?

Actually that makes sense.

Physical discs are still big market for consoles (especially for those of us that like to have a copy on our shelf - I usually buy both a digital and a physical copy for my consoles), but, I can see that, on PC they wouldn't be.

Interesting!