OXM responds to the Fallout community

[Verevoof]

console vs pc

Who cares.

Anyway, it's OXM's magazine, there has never been a Fallout game on an Xbox before (shhh...), and yes their audience only really know Fallout 3. It's all marketing, these magazines are just a book of advertisements. They want you to buy the game on Xbox, Fallout and Fallout 2 aren't really their main concern. Yeah, it's sad that the games that made Fallout Fallout are being pushed aside to showcase the game that made Fallout a big commercial success (not to mention a generic Bethesda game), but that's just the way it is. I'm sure PC magazines will give more credit to the original Fallout games, because they know that chances are their demographic has played the originals.

 

[ZeusComplex]

This reminds me of a funny story/ experiment I attempted to do with my little brother. He is a frequent player of Modern Warfare 2, and Halo 3. He's the epitome of the average "Bro" Gamer.

I attempted to play Fallout 3 in front of him which he promptly considered "cool" when he saw a Fatman take out Moria Brown. He actually picked up the game and played it for quite some time. Now, I then displayed fallout 2 for him to see, and he discarded it almost as soon as he saw it. His reasons? "Where where the "asplosions! and koo shit?!" "Graphix suck!"

Needless to say that I also did the same with my Pen and Paper group. People who I actually thought would have respect for this time of game. Sure enough, they both discarded it at least an hour later when one couldn't even get out of the damn temple, and the other one gave up in Klamath. The rest just didn't even care to try the old games.

I think it is true. Most xbox gamers don't give a crap about the old games. My brother even said, "There is a reason why Beth changed the games in the first place..." (he's an ass like that)

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

My brother even said, "There is a reason why Beth changed the games in the first place..."

I advice precise and forceful blows to the head.

Old games do not need to be invented in order to appeal to 'his' kind of gamers.

If this generation of gamers can not come up with original games of their own, instead constantly reinventing classics, then they do not deserve games.

 

[aenemic]

don't they realize that deciding what their readers should and should not be interested in is a problem in itself? good journalism covers all bases.

This is simply not true. They don't make a magazine marketed to everyone - they make a magazine marketed to XBox 360 owners. And good journalism, or more properly good writing, always writes for a target audience, not for the widest possible audience.

I never said that. what I meant is that they shouldn't decide wether their readers are interested in facts regarding the previous games in the series, and even blatantly ignore the previous games and act like they don't exist simply because their readers probably haven't played them. how about all the people who enjoyed FO3 and decided to check out the previous games? or those that have played the previous games on their PC 10 years ago and also happen to own an Xbox 360 and read OXM? even if the connections to FO 1/2 and Van Buren are only a fun little fact for a lot of people, I'd still say it's a pretty big deal for the series and worth mentioning wether the article talks about the Xbox version or the PC version of the new game.

 

[Sander]

I never said that. what I meant is that they shouldn't decide wether their readers are interested in facts regarding the previous games in the series, and even blatantly ignore the previous games and act like they don't exist simply because their readers probably haven't played them. how about all the people who enjoyed FO3 and decided to check out the previous games? or those that have played the previous games on their PC 10 years ago and also happen to own an Xbox 360 and read OXM? even if the connections to FO 1/2 and Van Buren are only a fun little fact for a lot of people, I'd still say it's a pretty big deal for the series and worth mentioning wether the article talks about the Xbox version or the PC version of the new game.

There's a difference between pretending previous games don't exist, and simply not writing about them because your target audience by and large isn't interested in that information. And yes, OXM does have to determine what their target audience will or will not find interesting, because their editors have to decide what information does and does not get in. That comes with writing for a target audience. You can argue that they decided wrong in this case, but you can't possibly argue that they shouldn't make these decisions out of some principle.

See? It's as I said: you guys are saying OXM is for kids who weren't around when Fallout came out! Why don't YOU get flamed by trolls too?

Maybe because I'm not saying that OXM caters to 10-year-old kids at all. Also, tone down your responses and stop calling people trolls when they're simply responding to your own claims.

 

[GreyViper]

Honestly the only reason why they would respond is because they showed world wide how stupid one can be. From the article you could read between the lines, they didn't do proper background check. So they paid the price, when their mistake was vocally pointed out. I bet they did'nt make any friends at Obsidian either with their comment.

cogar66 thanks for that pic quite amusing. But honestly PC vs Consoles is so old, both are here to stay and lets leave at that. In current age most families own both.

 

[Ausir]

By the way, one the best Fallout 3 preview I've seen was actually in a Polish console magazine, and was much more balanced than those in any PC mags. And many people writing for Polish console mags and sites (like myself for Polygamia.pl) are actually fans of the original Fallouts.

 

[Jet1337]

LOL, reading that OXM reply was so retarded it was funny.

This is why I don't waste my money subscribing to these 2-bit fucktard magazines.

 

[Ixyroth]

LOL, reading that OXM reply was so retarded it was funny.

This is why I don't waste my money subscribing to these 2-bit fucktard magazines.

Included in each issue is a buy-one-get-one-free coupon on your next lobotomy.

 

[Ixyroth]

Agree on all counts and I must sadly add that due to getting older and the whole dopamine receptor cell increase for gaming stimuli among other things, experienced gamers need games to be even more engaging than Fallout 1/2 ever was for even something that good is no longer enough since we've been there and done that and it somewhat is a reminder of youth past nowadays.

Indeed. To satisfy the truly experienced gamer, you'd need to go several orders of magnitude beyond FO1/2 in terms of depth of gameplay, scope of choice & consequence, story development, etc.

Why bother when there's always a fresh batch of humies who don't know from shit? It's much easier to slap a new coat of paint on the same old formula.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

The average video game player is a player of at least 23 years of age, at least in the UK. In the US the average player is 33 years old. http://www.theaveragegamer.com/averagegamers/

And your point is...? That has nothing to do with the average age of readership nor with the targeted audience of a company or game. Again, who they're targeting isn't just kids, it's just that most tweens and teens fall into that category. When a game is advertised as being targeted to get a mature rating, how awesome it is to shoot off heads, and how epic the giant explosions are, it's pretty clear that it's meant to appeal to the "AWESOME!" group which includes a lot of teenage male gamers.

 

[TheGM]

Stuff involving words

Reminds me of when my Brother said Independce Day was a good movie.

 

[cogar66]

The average video game player is a player of at least 23 years of age, at least in the UK. In the US the average player is 33 years old. http://www.theaveragegamer.com/averagegamers/

And your point is...? That has nothing to do with the average age of readership nor with the targeted audience of a company or game. Again, who they're targeting isn't just kids, it's just that most tweens and teens fall into that category. When a game is advertised as being targeted to get a mature rating, how awesome it is to shoot off heads, and how epic the giant explosions are, it's pretty clear that it's meant to appeal to the "AWESOME!" group which includes a lot of teenage male gamers.

Your logic is undeniable, appeal to one of the minorities in an attempt to get the majority to buy your product.

 

[UncannyGarlic]

Your logic is undeniable, appeal to one of the minorities in an attempt to get the majority to buy your product.

A) OXM's audience isn't necessarily the same average age as the average age of gamers in general.
B) The average age of Bethesda's following may not be the same as the average age of gamers in general.
C) Appealing to specific subsets of gamers may very well involve appealing to a different average age group than the average age of gamers in general.
D) Not all games are targeted at the average age of gamers in general, nor should they be.
E) Average age alone is not enough information for any sort of targeted marketing.
F) It's as much or more about the type/interest of gamer than the age of the gamer.

 

[KillerBee256]

Those people are morons, but we all know that, just looking around other gaming forums like gamefaqs and there is a lot of love for the first two games, even more than for FO3 actually.

 

[terebikun]

Needless to say that I also did the same with my Pen and Paper group. People who I actually thought would have respect for this time of game. Sure enough, they both discarded it at least an hour later when one couldn't even get out of the damn temple, and the other one gave up in Klamath. The rest just didn't even care to try the old games.

Come on, man. Both FO and FO2 have an extremely slow intro, an unintuitive interface, and drab graphics in the beginning. My brother didn't bite when I showed him either, and I don't blame him for it, I blame a game that takes a little time to get going. The best route, that originally worked on me, is to show them a game save much later in the game, or at some of the easter eggs.

 

[Jet1337]

Yeah, you might as well be showing people how to peel potatoes at that point.

One of my friends won't play Fallout 3 because he says there's a big lack of enemies to kill. The idiot hasn't made it past Rivet City! xD

 

[rehevkor]

Crap. I have an Xbox, does this mean I should be disregarding the original Fallout games in order to fit in? :/

I was planing to play F2 this afternoon, now what?

 

[King of Creation]

This was my original post on DAC

OXM Editor Jon Hicks has responded to Fallout community criticism about the magazine's latest edition featuring Fallout: New Vegas. The Fallout community, and the various sites it encompasses, rose in criticism of the article, which seemed to portray Bethesda's Fallout 3 as if it were the original model of the Fallout series - seemingly ignoring the previous critically acclaimed entries in the series. In addition, there was a quote from the article that struck particularly hard to the core of the Fallout community:

"Clearly, you have a responsibility to push the series forward, but there's also nothing worse than a misguided attempt to differentiate a follow-up that only ruins what everyone loved about the original. Throw in a new developer - [Fallout] New Vegas is being developed by Obsidian rather than Bethesda's in-house team - and there is no doubt that a fair few Fallout fans will be more than a little concerned that this could be a recipe for nuclear disaster" - OXM UK, Fallout: New Vegas article, March 2010.

The irony of this quote was certainly not lost on the Fallout community, which has been continuously derided for criticising the changes that Bethesda brought to the Fallout series. Heated by frustration with an article that seemed to me at the time to be little more than a PR piece written by Bethesda and published under the OXM name, I commented on the Duck and Cover forums that it was "an absolute travesty that this [OXM article on Fallout: New Vegas] is even considered 'journalism.'"

OXM Editor Jon Hicks responded to my comment, and directed it not only at my comment, but at some of the gripes that the Fallout community had with the article:

"[On] the subject of the “absolute travesty,” we’re well aware of the previous appearance of those factions in the original Fallout PC games. That information was originally included in the panel referring to Obsidian’s heritage, but was cut for reasons of space - and because it won’t be of interest to the majority of Xbox gamers who were introduced to the series by Fallout 3." - OXM Editor Jon Hicks, February 2010

Understandably, OXM caters to the XBox market. The Fallout RPGs prior to Fallout 3 were never available on the XBox, so it is logical that subscribers would probably not be as keen to see changes to their "beloved" game. What a lot of people still don't understand, however, as the previous quote from the OXM article illustrates, is the fact that Fallout has been the "beloved" series of a large number of people years before Bethesda's Fallout 3 was even thought about. There are changes to the series that Bethesda made that the Fallout community has accepted and learned to deal with - namely Fallout 3's first person aspect as opposed to the previous third person, top down viewpoint. What the Fallout community still cannot stomach, however, are the changes that Bethesda made which curtailed aspects that made the original RPGs so popular - the superb, complex, and creative writing, the story, compelling NPCs, classic role-playing elements including truly multiple solutions to quests....all of these elements, and more, received vast changes or were entirely not present in Fallout 3.

Instead, Fallout fans - new and old - were forcefed carefully handled PR leading up to and after the release of Fallout 3. Promises made by Bethesda for things like hundreds of different endings to the game just didn't exist. The role-playing aspects of the game were found to be superceded by the first-person shooter aspect. This hyrbridization of genres resulted in a game that was not terrible, but did not succeed in either aspect.

So, after all of this (and after this post morphed into a broader critique), it is logical to assume that the Fallout community took issue with this OXM article and that quote from the New Vegas story in particular. I think I can speak for the entire Fallout community in saying that any changes Obsidian make in Fallout: New Vegas will be for the better - whether by increasing the role-playing aspect, descreasing the FPS aspect, or fixing the various game-ruining bugs that plague Fallout 3. I have faith in Obsidian and in their staff of writers, designers, artists, and coders. For the first time in a while, I have hope for the Fallout series.

And I don't think I'm alone.

Hicks emailed me about this post. I guess it struck a nerve.

 

[jero cvmi]

we’re well aware of the previous appearance of those factions in the original Fallout PC games. That information was originally included in the panel referring to Obsidian’s heritage, but was cut for reasons of space - and because it won’t be of interest to the majority of Xbox gamers who were introduced to the series by Fallout 3.

there won't be any connection to those [original Fallout games], though

Apparently, a random misinformed sentence about New Vegas not being connected to the original fallout games is of great interest to the majority of XBOX gamers.
That's why they buy OXM: it's the official source of misinformation.