First off, this is in no way intended to bash Bethesda or their marketing strategies, it's merely a question I truly do not know the answer to.

In July 2013, the film Batman vs Superman was announced. Filming hadn't even started at that point. It was originally intended to be released in 2015 but has since been delayed to March 2016. So there is an almost three year gap between the announcement and the (as it now stands) release. The announcement was just a little teaser, with news slowly getting out over the months.

Now I'm wondering; Is anyone going to skip this movie because it was announced too early? To be honest, I think not. I don't believe anyone will say "I've been a massive DC fan my entire life but I will not watch this movie because they didn't keep us in the dark for longer than they have."

Grand Theft Auto 5 was announced in October 2011, it was finally released in September 2013. Yet people still bought the game. Quite a lot too. Apparently not many people decided that the wait was too long and decided to pass the game altogether.

So here is my question: Why does Bethesda seem so insecure or secretive about their game announcements? I'm not talking about a choir of angels in power armor with Todd Howard in the middle launching a nuke and having the smoke read "FALLOUT 4", just simply letting the fanbase know what they are working on. A bit of info would soothe a lot of fans' nerves, I think (lol). There must be a strategy behind this, Beth must believe that keeping the fans in the dark will somehow lead to more sales. Why?

I would really like to hear some kind of announcement, so there would be something to look forward to. The only reason that I can fathom, is that this is their way of building anticipation for the product? If so, it seems to be working.

I don't think there is any kind of secrecy regarding any announcement, I just think they don't have anything they want to announce, or don't have the game in a state they feel is showable, which is what everything we have heard from Todd implies.

I'll take a guess.

Speculation begins immediately. Unsubstantiated, unsupported, fan speculation.

The longer the time period the speculation has to exist, the more people take it as fact. No matter how much the devs say it isn't true, or avoid answering it altogether to try and prevent that from happening. People start building their idea of what they want the game to be. When the game is finally released the outraged rants about how game mechanic "x" isn't in there, the devs lied, and the fabric of space-time is going to rip apart because something the devs never said was in the game isn't in the game.

My own personal daydream is that Bethesda will keep everything under wraps until the game goes gold. Then they make an announcement, point people to screenshots and other information, and open forums for discussion. But not one single breath of a hint about the game until then. Enforceable by a ninja death squad if needed, especially if the game is leaked ahead of time. [and that is not pc exclusive; the last several games the first leaks were not the pc versions]