The easiest way to fix the problem is for all of us gamers to refuse to pre-order anything. Wait at least a week after a game comes out before buying it. That would at the very least give you the chance to read reviews and see if there are some serious issues with the game. I loved both Fallout 3 and Fable 2 and because of that I foolishly pre-ordered FNV and Fable 3. I foolishly thought that past quality would be repeated. Fable 3 was not buggy at all, but it was a hugely disappointing game that actually had less replay appeal and less freedom than Fable 2 did. Fallout New Vegas, as everyone here knows, is terribly buggy. But what did I expect? I know that gaming companies are notoriously bad at doing just this sort of thing, especially with sequels or with titles that tie in to an otherwise popular franchise. Back in 2006, for example, I was furious at Bethesda for releasing an almost unplayable version of Star Trek: Legacy for the PC. You literally had to have a patch before multiplayer would even work. There was literally a patch on day one of the release. They knew the game didn't work and they shipped it to stores anyway. Again, they knew that they had Trek fans salivating over the first Trek game in several years and one that promised to feature "all five captains." (It featured bad voice overs from all five captains--no characters actually appear in the game at all!) I had followed all the trailers and everything from the beginning so I went out and got it first day. Worst game decision of my life. Star Trek: Legacy makes FNV look like an exquisitely crafted, well polished and nearly flawless final product by comparison.

So, of course I vowed to never trust Bethesda again. Waited for about two months after Fallout 3 came out before purchasing. I was very happy with that game. Thought maybe they had reformed. But then got svckered again with this game. Having Obsidian as the actual developer probably should have been a clue. It's truly sad that they rushed KOTOR 2 out the door unfinished and looks like they did something similar here. I'm sure they were pressured in both cases by the parent company to do just that. And while I think we gamers need to take some of the blame for being so impatient that we can't wait a few days for some reviews to come down, the gaming companies need to take responsibility, too. There is no excuse for not adequately testing and patching games BEFORE release. The internet, as some have said, makes them feel like they can ship out unfinished products and then finish them as they go. But not everyone has internet, or XBox Live (which just got more expensive). Games don't say on the cover that they are unfinished and waiting on future patches. Would it really kill the game companies to wait until a game is FINISHED before it ships out?

But, we, the gamers, can stop them in their tracks. DO NOT PRE-ORDER GAMES OR BUY THEM ON THE FIRST DAY OUT. I'm having to re-learn this lesson myself. Don't watch all the propaganda trailers and developer diaries and other b.s. that companies put out to get you hyped up about the game. All games look great in the trailers. Next time, wait for reviews. Reviews are usually up within TWO DAYS of release. We can wait that long.

qc turns a game that no one can play much less finish into a game most can play and alot can finish.

Patching handles the rest.

Now bethesda and obsidian likely are the only ones who know the exact details but id imagine of the 5 million who got the game about 5 million not only didnt have problems but also are already on thier next game dont read these boards and dont even know there is a patch or that there is even dlc comming.. heck more then 4 million prolly dont even know obsidian made it.

As for why they dont recall.. because recalls are for safety and because a physical object needs to be fixed in a factory or destroyed at a dump. Herer its just bits and no one ever died from a game bug... well no one we wanted breeding anyway.

greywolfe359 made a good point in the post below yours, and I do believe that people have to now start sharing the blame by not being patient. If you pre-order knowing this is an issue these days with more complex games (almost every game I buy 2 or 3 months later, the first time I boot it, it asks me to take an update), you run the risk of having something buggy right off the bat. I'm not saying it's entirely the consumer's fault, but the blame has to be shared a little bit. It's the same with things like the iPhone. I know people, early adopters, who bought iPhones on day one and they had problems. So what does Apple do? Puts out a firmware update to fix the software issues, and sends you a new phone if it's a hardware issue. No different than what's happening here. It's the price you pay for being an early adopter of anything... you go in blind with information only based on previews (if even that much information).

Might I suggest, that if enough people contact the Federal Bureau of Consumer Protection, they WILL investigate the product,; even if
no one actually gets injured. It's your money, fight for it.

Because game players are desperate folk. They whine and cry trying to get info on an upcoming release and then promptly go preorder it the instant a preorder is available. Then when the game doesn't work, they keep trying to play it anyway. Then they desperately wait for the game company to release some sort of patch to hopefully fix whatever error they are encountering.

If it were a car, it would go back to the dealer as soon as something wrong happened.

If it was a washing machine that quit in the middle of the wash cycle, Sears or whoever would get it right back.

If it were any product basically, that would not operate/work/perform/sit there/ as it was advertised to do, it would go back to the store.


Get your money back and go on with your life. There's the rub. It's not a washing machine, or car, or anything else. It's a specific game that you WANT TO FLIPPIN PLAY! The problem is that. The producer of the product knows that the customer is going to buy and is going to keep the product (in most cases) and will just suffer through.

Unless that ever changes, software delvelopers that take advantage of it, will never change. It's just too cost effective for them to do it this way.

Car companies have to physically have your car to fix it, they have to be able to replace parts. Any piece of software does not have physical parts it's just code that can be fixed through an online connection. If car companies could do that they would.

It is virtually the same thing.

And I guess since it didn't happen to YOU or someone you personally know it doesn't happen or isn't important? That is the lamest "arguement" ever. Read the forum, it has happened to many of us (not everyone with the issues signs up here either) whether you know them or not is totally irrelevant.

As for the car example I didn't say brakes failing I said the engine breaking but whatever now you are playing word games. Plenty of consumer items with NON safety related defects have been recalled. That is the main point which you completely missed.

That still doesn't take into account someone who has lost 50 hours and has to start over due to this bug. Since the game doesn't warn you at all that it is defective and needs to be patched up, this will happen allot. This is why it should be recalled (other than the fact that it NEEDS a broadband internet connection to fix, but isn't stated either). Games that require a hard drive say it on the box, games that need an internet connection (online only games) say it, Kinect games that need that device say that.

Everyone keeps wanting to compare this to a car recall.

THe difference in this case is with the consumer, not the product.


If we put this situation into a car related story, it would have to go like this...

You buy a car you really really like. Drive it down the street and POP the doors come off. In your amazement, you accidentally jerk the wheel a little more than normal and POP the tires explode. You are not sure what to do. You really really want to drive this car. You've been dreaming of it for months!

You call up the dealer and he tells you that there is a fix coming soon for your model of car, but not right now. You cross your fingers and put the doors back on and get new tires and keep driving, cause you really like this car! You go to a car club down the street and everyone laughs at you for driving this wreck, but you don't care. Even when they tell you that the model of car that the Company made just before your model of car had the exact same problems and that people that are still driving the earlier model of car are STILL waiting for a fix and that the Doors on that model still keep popping off!

You don't care. Instead of taking the car back to the dealer, you just keep looking at it sitting in your driveway. You know in your little heart of hearts that some day, the magic car fairy is gonna pay you a visit with the door fix and special tires for your car.

The difference between real life car issues and software bug ridden products is that it's a known fact. The gaming community has allowed this to happen and now that the cat's out of the bag, it will never ever change.

5 million plus copies of this game sold. Even though Fallout 3 was released with the same type of problems. Although many less scripting errors, I will say.

Word games? Ok... anyway, I never said it didn't happen or isn't important, nowhere on these forums have I ever said "you're making up the DLC error, it hasn't happened to anyone". I said the word "most" does not apply. You don't know that MOST people had game breaking issues, I don't know that MOST people didn't have game breaking issues. The word "most" means you believe that 51% or more of the people who purchased this game for the Xbox 360 (so, we'll say they sold 5 million copies worldwide, to simplify this we'll say 1/3rd were for the Xbox, or roughly 1.7 million, 51% of that number is over 860,000 people) experienced a bug that ended their game? I'm telling you if 860,000 people got 15 - 50 hours into their game and suddenly couldn't play it anymore, there would be a LOT more people signed up on these boards. I know not everyone is going to sign up, but even 5% of that number is 43,350 people. This board had no where near that many people on here starting complaint topics. That said, I don't know for a fact that it's not true, I will agree there's a possibility that 870,000 people (over 51% of all estimated Xbox FO:NV players) have the DLC error if you'll agree there's a possibility that less than 17,000 people (1% of all estimated Xbox FO:NV players) have had the DLC error. Anything's possible. But the word "most" is not the correct word to use.

Anyway, the point YOU completely missed is that a recall doesn't always mean that they take the item from you. As I said... if a car is suffering from a mechanical issue that potentially causes radiator fluid to leak into the engine oil, and cause major damage to the engine, you may be expected to return that vehicle to the dealership you purchased it from for repairs. They won't come to your house and get the car, and often times you'll still have the same car when they're done, they don't give you a new one if they don't have to. They just "patch" the car and you move on.

These games are advertised (very expensively), promoted at game shows, on TV, magazines etc. and nearly always with a release date.
They want you to go out on release day to buy it, you want to go out on release day and buy it.
What you expect in return is that the publisher holds up his end of the bargain by selling you a game which is finished and bug-free.
As a consumer, that is our right. To purchase a product which is fit for purpose.
I know we do not live in an ideal world and bugs are going to happen and we can accept that to a certain extent but really, something like the debacle we are experiencing here is completely avoidable by simply holding back the launch date until the game is stable.
There is no way that anyone can persuede me that this game wasn't put out in the full knowledge that it was this unstable. It should have been held back until after Xmas and Obsidian should have been allowed to finish it.

It just has rush job written all over it.

Probably, but I've said it and others have said it, the consumer has to share some of the blame here. I rarely pre-order games anymore or buy games at launch, in the same way I don't go buy expensive new gadgets on release day. Sure it'd be NICE if publishers held up their end of the bargain, but they're not going to anymore... as I mentioned in previous threads, New Vegas wasn't even the only console game released with game ending, save corrupting bugs that MONTH, never mind in a year. Yeah, the publishers spend all that money to get you hyped to buy it on release day, but there's something still to be said for free human will. If a person becomes brainwashed by a corporation to be basically frothing at the mouth over a new game that they think they NEED to have (need vs want folks, you NEED air, water, and food, you WANT almost everything else), well... like I said, some blame has to be shared.

You're right, the game was no doubt put out with full knowledge by someone in the company that it wasn't ready for release. But they had a million pre-orders, the hype train was full throttle, release date was set... they certainly could have NOT released it, had a large number of people pull their pre-order so they could buy something else (Fable III, COD, etc), and had everyone think that Obsidian/Bethesda are liars and can't hold a release date, but... they're a corporation. #1 on the todo list: rake in money. It was there for the taking. If anything, if people stopped pre-ordering, they would have pushed back the release date, not so much to work on the bugs (they would but that's not the main reason), but to continue building hype and getting more pre-orders.

The customer has to share some of the blame. I'm not saying half, I'm not even saying anything more than say... 10%. But a person can't complain about buying a buggy game, especially from a series KNOWN for buggy, incomplete games, when they didn't do their research. I don't think I've played an Xbox 360 game yet that didn't ask me at some point to accept an update, which means every game you play these days could very likely have a bug to some degree.

It's a consumer driven marketplace 100%. If it wasn't profitable to put games out in a buggy form, they would not do it. That's how it works in every business.

The problem is that the marketers of computer games have effectivly taken themselves out of the line of fire.

Since most gamers will just buy the games they like and then wait for a patch, it doesn't cost the company anything to release the game early and use the gaming world as beta testers. Even in this case where the biggest problem (imop) is a memory tasking problem that can't be fixed by Obsidian or Bethesda. The Crashing in FLNV is here to stay and they still will have 5million + copies sold.. including my two copies.

CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT...yeah, there are attorneys out there that would love to have a case like this....change the industry...hold the comapny responsible for making CRAP THAT DOES NOT WORK....

Not a chance of success. The patch is in progress so the company hasn't abandoned you or the product. You can't sue for the time you've put into it because time spent playing a video game is pretty much the definition of wasted time. The time had no value to begin with. There are no damages to claim.

This comes up in every game forum since the beginning of the internet. Every game has some group that is pissed about something and threatens to sue.


Never ever gonna happen.

Ok now it is the buyers fault for not doing an investigation before buying a game? I didn't run out on day one and buy this I got it in November. My big "mistake" was not first going on the net and typing in "Fallout New Vegas game save corruption bug" I suppose. I DID go to all of the game review sites like IGN etc and there was no mention of game killing bugs. They talked briefly about scripting bugs but I expected that. This though is a mess, a true nuclear bug-bomb.

This is absurd. A game is an item that you just expect to work to the point of being playable. I don't think anyone expects any software to be 100% bug free, but this game takes the cake and certainly reaches a new low for quality control. There has to be SOME kind of standard. I guess this is just par for the course in the new world of rampant corporatocracy. Eggs that kill you, killer tomatoes - literally, lead paint on toys to make your kids r3tard3d, cheap Chinese food that kills your dog, cars with runaway engines, and games that erase your progress. The end is nigh.

All you would have had to do was go to this forum for research, you would not have needed to know about specific bugs, just have known to type in "Fallout New Vegas Feedback" or "Fallout New Vegas forum" or went to Bethesda's website.

Also the examples you give are a tad dramatic, and this is what we're talking about. This is just a $60 game that CAN be patched. It's not ideal, I'm not siding with Bethesda/Obsidian or the game industry as a whole. It's a bad practice, but the consumer allows it by pre-ordering and purchasing games that have bugs even after that same company has released games (in the same series no less) that were buggy and required four months of patches for some users to be able to play it properly. Also why are you feeding Chinese food to a dog? I'm confused by that one... but anyway, if people just kept buying say, toys with lead paint, knowing that their children might be harmed but just saying "eh, but it's a good toy for the most part", well... they'd still sell em. But a video game can't kill you. It just makes you $60 poorer. That might be a lot of money for a person, and I'm not going to argue that, though I would suggest if $60 is a lot of money for a person, they should consider not spending it on a video game and save it for essential things (back when I was younger and broke I wasn't buying video games), I'm not going to tell people how to spend their money, but that said, losing $60 vs losing your life is a monstrous difference. Anyway, I mentioned it already, but this isn't even the only game with what appears to be poor QA released this month, a quick look at the Fable 3 list of fixes from their big patch shows that some of their users had things just as bad.

It might be a Pekinese dog!

If the clamouring for a pre-order on Skyrim is anything to go by, I don't think consumer revolt against Bethesda is in the works.

Yeah that game will do fine. As will Fallout 4... the couple hundred people on these forums do not represent the majority.