In light of a lot of complaining about the negative reaction of the Fallout fanbase to Bethesda's vague announcements about their Fallout plans, I thought it a good idea to copy the venerable Saint Proverbius' words on the matter (thanks Teatime) into the news (hope you don't mind, Saint):<blockquote>
You know, the obvious thing is that so far, this has been a PR nightmare. Let's recap this thread's take on history to put it in perspective.
Interplay announced Fallout 3 after Bethesda passed over a check to them, which supposedly catches Bethesda with their pants down. I'm not even sure this is true because the press release I got was from Pete Hines himself rather than from Interplay. Pete Hines emailed several sites about this. If you even read the press release, it starts out with "Bethesda announces". Now, you can argue whether or not Interplay wanted this, but you really can't argue that it was Bethesda that did the announcement.
At this point, people start thinking about Morrowind and Pirates of the Caribbean, their two most recently released CRPGs. This tends to get a few people a little worried and they have some doubts about whether or not Bethesda will make a Fallout 3 similar to what Fallout and Fallout 2 were considering PotC and Morrowind are nothing like the Fallout CRPGs.
Bethesda then procedes to give three interviews with various big name sites about what's going on. In those interviews, you have snippets like, "We're not going to make a top down isometric game because that's not what we do best." and "We don't know if we're going to use SPECIAL or not." Right there, you remove a lot of doubts people had about what Bethesda is going to do with Fallout.
Fans react, and not just the vocal hardcore people that every wants to think this is. I've been around the Fallout community for years now - since 2001. I've never even seen a lot of these people, and they're reacting negatively. But the point is, these people reacted because those interviews basically confirmed their fears. Before those fears were confirmed, it was pretty much a wait and see thing for a lot of people. Some people reacted quickly and violently before this, but after the interviews, more people reacted because they had ammunition.
So, next up, you have Bethesda folks also reacting to the fans reacting, and that's not pretty at all either. That only fuels the fire of the fans that much more. Really, this kind of thing is not going to stop because the fans won't stop on their own. There's no hive mind governing them nor any control in place to stop the lot of them. Bethesda on the other hand could tell their people to keep a tighter lip on what their people are saying, because that's what's really fueling this right now.
In hindsight, Bethesda probably shouldn't have announced. We can say that maybe, just maybe Interplay forced them to announce. That's fine and dandy. It's possible given that Interplay needed something good to show it's shareholders. However, Pete Hines did give those interviews to people, as did Todd Howard. Those are clearly the fault of Bethesda. Interplay can't force them to give interviews.
Sure, people have reacted poorly to this, but that's to be expected considering the history of dealing with the Fallout franchise. It's been a dumping ground for quickie buck titles since the turn of the decade. However, Bethesda employee's reaction to the situation is very, very poor and hardly constructive. In fact, it's very destructive.
What I'm basically saying is this is a viscious cycle right now, and there's really no way to get one side to stop, the larger side with no controlling body in place to tell them to stop. Fallout fans won't stop, but the Bethesda people could stop themselves or be told to stop doing things like what triggered this news item. All that does is fuel resentment.</blockquote>I'd like all of the newscomers to our site, people observing from others site as well as people joining up here, to keep the above in mind before judging us harshly. Opinions are welcome, but a lot of people have no real right to judge us as harshly as they have or state we're just plain wrong for reacting like we did. It's a big mess on both sides of the court, but the easiest way to fix this has always been on Bethesda's side.
Also, I'd like to add to Saint's thoughts that the assumption that the announcement of the Fallout license trade is Interplay's doing has to be pretty correct, as Interplay is a public company and can't keep such a deal a secret, since it's such "positive news" (notice how the stock's failing again now that the initial boost has died down). To announce that the game is "in pre-production" and to let very bad-sounding things about the game slip is all Bethesda's choice, tho'
You know, the obvious thing is that so far, this has been a PR nightmare. Let's recap this thread's take on history to put it in perspective.
Interplay announced Fallout 3 after Bethesda passed over a check to them, which supposedly catches Bethesda with their pants down. I'm not even sure this is true because the press release I got was from Pete Hines himself rather than from Interplay. Pete Hines emailed several sites about this. If you even read the press release, it starts out with "Bethesda announces". Now, you can argue whether or not Interplay wanted this, but you really can't argue that it was Bethesda that did the announcement.
At this point, people start thinking about Morrowind and Pirates of the Caribbean, their two most recently released CRPGs. This tends to get a few people a little worried and they have some doubts about whether or not Bethesda will make a Fallout 3 similar to what Fallout and Fallout 2 were considering PotC and Morrowind are nothing like the Fallout CRPGs.
Bethesda then procedes to give three interviews with various big name sites about what's going on. In those interviews, you have snippets like, "We're not going to make a top down isometric game because that's not what we do best." and "We don't know if we're going to use SPECIAL or not." Right there, you remove a lot of doubts people had about what Bethesda is going to do with Fallout.
Fans react, and not just the vocal hardcore people that every wants to think this is. I've been around the Fallout community for years now - since 2001. I've never even seen a lot of these people, and they're reacting negatively. But the point is, these people reacted because those interviews basically confirmed their fears. Before those fears were confirmed, it was pretty much a wait and see thing for a lot of people. Some people reacted quickly and violently before this, but after the interviews, more people reacted because they had ammunition.
So, next up, you have Bethesda folks also reacting to the fans reacting, and that's not pretty at all either. That only fuels the fire of the fans that much more. Really, this kind of thing is not going to stop because the fans won't stop on their own. There's no hive mind governing them nor any control in place to stop the lot of them. Bethesda on the other hand could tell their people to keep a tighter lip on what their people are saying, because that's what's really fueling this right now.
In hindsight, Bethesda probably shouldn't have announced. We can say that maybe, just maybe Interplay forced them to announce. That's fine and dandy. It's possible given that Interplay needed something good to show it's shareholders. However, Pete Hines did give those interviews to people, as did Todd Howard. Those are clearly the fault of Bethesda. Interplay can't force them to give interviews.
Sure, people have reacted poorly to this, but that's to be expected considering the history of dealing with the Fallout franchise. It's been a dumping ground for quickie buck titles since the turn of the decade. However, Bethesda employee's reaction to the situation is very, very poor and hardly constructive. In fact, it's very destructive.
What I'm basically saying is this is a viscious cycle right now, and there's really no way to get one side to stop, the larger side with no controlling body in place to tell them to stop. Fallout fans won't stop, but the Bethesda people could stop themselves or be told to stop doing things like what triggered this news item. All that does is fuel resentment.</blockquote>I'd like all of the newscomers to our site, people observing from others site as well as people joining up here, to keep the above in mind before judging us harshly. Opinions are welcome, but a lot of people have no real right to judge us as harshly as they have or state we're just plain wrong for reacting like we did. It's a big mess on both sides of the court, but the easiest way to fix this has always been on Bethesda's side.
Also, I'd like to add to Saint's thoughts that the assumption that the announcement of the Fallout license trade is Interplay's doing has to be pretty correct, as Interplay is a public company and can't keep such a deal a secret, since it's such "positive news" (notice how the stock's failing again now that the initial boost has died down). To announce that the game is "in pre-production" and to let very bad-sounding things about the game slip is all Bethesda's choice, tho'
.
s Saint Proverbius
