Fallout 4 Has Sold 12 Million Copies

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

Bethesda give a damn and release the GOTY

The only way for them to fit the entire game on a disc is to use a Blu Ray. Which I don't believe they will. They (the industry as a whole) have been trying to force everyone to go digital, but they don't seem to know, or care, that a lot of people don't have the Internet capabilities to go digital.

 

[Strazdas]

I'm confused by the claim of a record-breaking concurrent player stat on Steam. Is that the most concurrent players in a game that isn't Dota 2? Because at the time of writing this comment, at about 10 in the evening on a Saturday, there are more than 500,000 players currently in-game, 30,000 more than the reported "record". At its daily peak, Dota 2 reports around 1,000,000 concurrent players. Daily.

Do Russians not count as players?

you are correct.

there are Currently more online DOTA 2 players [http://steamcharts.com/app/570] than an all time high for fallout 4 [http://steamcharts.com/app/377160].

Can someone tell me the last time a highly scored AAA game was released and commenters of Internet DIDN'T talk shit about cus... I'm struggling here.

Witcher 3

When Bethesda says they have shipped 12 million copies, they have in fact sold 12 million copies (not sure if digital is counted in this or not). How many consumers who actually bought it is something entirely different and they can't actually say anything about that since they don't know how many buy the game used after someone has played for a few hours and realized they didn't like it (or couldn't stand the bugs) and went to GameStop to get part of their money back.

No. shipping is not equal to sale. remmeber when Xbox One shipped and majority of the devices failed to sell and stolld in warehouses and Microsoft complained that the stores werent ordering more? When a game that was anticipated turns out to be shit a lot of it gets stuck in stores. this is why stores have the "50% off clearing" to at least get part of the costs back. Usually when you talk about shipping numbers only physical is counted unless they count keys sent to Steam as shipped, in which case its even less actually sold because steam gets A LOT of keys that it keeps selling for months since storing them does not cost them anything. Steam only pays for these keys when somone buys the game from steam so they dont have to throw money ahead. (and no steam does not have unlimited number of copies, that is regulated by publisher and there were cases where during a sale steam ran out of copies).

MGS5 was just the Steam installer. Fallout 4 is 5gb on the physical disc, and a 19gb download. Warner Bros. did the same thing with Arkham Knight, but they were totally bigger dicks about it. 5 discs, 7.7gb install off those and you had to download the rest digitally.

how do you put 7,7gb in 5 discs. if you use regular dual layer CDs thats 1,4GB per disck, 5 discs being 7GB and not possible to fit it in. If you use regualr DVDs that are 4,4 GB per disc you can fit that in 2 discs without a problem. how did they managed to split it into 5 discs?

Oh, cmon thread. Why all the hate for FO4? It's a fun game. Sure there's not that many differences from FO3, doesn't have the best graphics, and it's glitchy; But, it's fun, and in the end, isn't that what really matters?

if its so glitchy one cannot play it then where is the fun?

The only way for them to fit the entire game on a disc is to use a Blu Ray. Which I don't believe they will. They (the industry as a whole) have been trying to force everyone to go digital, but they don't seem to know, or care, that a lot of people don't have the Internet capabilities to go digital.

Steams download size is 23.8GB for Fallout 4. This fits in 3 dual-layer DVD discs, which is nothing new for large PC installs for physical copies. Using DVDs is far more preferable to BluRays for install files storage becuase its much cheaper and more universal.

This is 2015. There should be no people that do not have capabilities to go digital. Blame your ISP monopoly, not companies that dont want to be dragged back in time for 2 decades because someones ISP is shit.

 

[Yopaz]

When Bethesda says they have shipped 12 million copies, they have in fact sold 12 million copies (not sure if digital is counted in this or not). How many consumers who actually bought it is something entirely different and they can't actually say anything about that since they don't know how many buy the game used after someone has played for a few hours and realized they didn't like it (or couldn't stand the bugs) and went to GameStop to get part of their money back.

No. shipping is not equal to sale. remmeber when Xbox One shipped and majority of the devices failed to sell and stolld in warehouses and Microsoft complained that the stores werent ordering more? When a game that was anticipated turns out to be shit a lot of it gets stuck in stores. this is why stores have the "50% off clearing" to at least get part of the costs back. Usually when you talk about shipping numbers only physical is counted unless they count keys sent to Steam as shipped, in which case its even less actually sold because steam gets A LOT of keys that it keeps selling for months since storing them does not cost them anything. Steam only pays for these keys when somone buys the game from steam so they dont have to throw money ahead. (and no steam does not have unlimited number of copies, that is regulated by publisher and there were cases where during a sale steam ran out of copies).

Edit: I'll make this short.
Bethesda sells X number of copies to retailers = X number shipped.
Bethesda sells x numbers =/= number of copies bought by consumers.
Bethesda ships x numbers =/= number of copies bought by consumers.
You misunderstood me so profoundly that I realized I had to simplify it and put it on the top of my post as you clearly don't read more than fragments of what I say. Hope this helps you to understand at least something of what I said.

You misunderstand me. Microsoft sold as many consoles as they shipped, but consumers didn't buy as many as Microsoft sold. No company ships out goods without being paid for them. They are sold and Microsoft receives no money when consoles are bought by a consumer at a store. From Microsoft's point of view 1 console shipped is 1 console sold. I made this distincition in my first post and I even stated that the number of sales to the consumer were likely less than 12 millions or we would be hearing about shortages, but that for Bethesda that doesn't really matter. They already made the sale.

As for the part about digital, I knew that already. What I wasn't sure about is if number of codes sold to Steam, Sony or Microsoft are also part of the number shipped. The reason I am asking is because shipping generally refers to a physical process of packing and sending an item, but I don't know if that distinction is actually valid.

So thanks for replying to my post. It resulted in me repeating my first post and you did not provide me with any new information. Maybe you should actually read my post the next time? Or am I asking too much? Based on your spelling and grammar errors you didn't actually read your own post before replying, so why would you bother read mine?

 

[008Zulu_v1legacy]

how do you put 7,7gb in 5 discs. if you use regular dual layer CDs thats 1,4GB per disck, 5 discs being 7GB and not possible to fit it in. If you use regualr DVDs that are 4,4 GB per disc you can fit that in 2 discs without a problem. how did they managed to split it into 5 discs?

Think you meant DVDs there. 1gb per disk makes 5, 2.7 remaining. Easy enough to split.

Steams download size is 23.8GB for Fallout 4. This fits in 3 dual-layer DVD discs, which is nothing new for large PC installs for physical copies. Using DVDs is far more preferable to BluRays for install files storage becuase its much cheaper and more universal.

This is 2015. There should be no people that do not have capabilities to go digital. Blame your ISP monopoly, not companies that dont want to be dragged back in time for 2 decades because someones ISP is shit.

If game companies cared, they'd try to help alleviate the stress of dealing with crappy Internet services, not compounding it.

 

[Strazdas]

how do you put 7,7gb in 5 discs. if you use regular dual layer CDs thats 1,4GB per disck, 5 discs being 7GB and not possible to fit it in. If you use regualr DVDs that are 4,4 GB per disc you can fit that in 2 discs without a problem. how did they managed to split it into 5 discs?

Think you meant DVDs there. 1gb per disk makes 5, 2.7 remaining. Easy enough to split.

Steams download size is 23.8GB for Fallout 4. This fits in 3 dual-layer DVD discs, which is nothing new for large PC installs for physical copies. Using DVDs is far more preferable to BluRays for install files storage becuase its much cheaper and more universal.

This is 2015. There should be no people that do not have capabilities to go digital. Blame your ISP monopoly, not companies that dont want to be dragged back in time for 2 decades because someones ISP is shit.

If game companies cared, they'd try to help alleviate the stress of dealing with crappy Internet services, not compounding it.

i...uh... what? there are no disc format we use that is 1 GB in size. there is CD - 700MB - 0,7 GB. there is dual-layer CD - 1,4 gb. There is DVD - 4,4 GB, there is dual-layer DVD - 8,8 GB, there is BluRay - ~30 GB and Dual-Layer BluRay (very rare) - ~60GB. There are other formats such as SD cards, USB sticks, hard drives, tapes, but those are not discs and as far as i know only one handheld device uses SD cards and others are not used for distribution (for good reason).

CDs are too small to fit that in 5 discs, DVDs are too large to need 5 discs.

No. Its not up to game companies to deal with you having shitty internet. its up to you, your internet provider and lawmakers that regulate that internet provider. If i make a file downloadable its not up to me to make sure you have internet access, only that the file is accessible without problem, which steam does. Such things like "internet cap" are not and never were based on any real limitations and should be gone away as a bad price gouging tactic that it is.

 

[Gatlank]

Its not up to game companies to deal with you having shitty internet. its up to you, your internet provider and lawmakers that regulate that internet provider. If i make a file downloadable its not up to me to make sure you have internet access, only that the file is accessible without problem, which steam does. Such things like "internet cap" are not and never were based on any real limitations and should be gone away as a bad price gouging tactic that it is.

Then i guess it's better to buy other games. It's true they dont have to deal with shitty internet but i believe if they can make other choices available they should specially since i dont think i should spend 60? on something i wont physically own.
I think that would be good business but if they want me to spend my money elsewhere i will *cough*CDProjektRed*cough*.
Of course that won't stop me from calling their games crap if they keep release crap.
I also dont have to deal with their bad practices and greed, fooling myself saying it's fine.

 

[Strazdas]

Its not up to game companies to deal with you having shitty internet. its up to you, your internet provider and lawmakers that regulate that internet provider. If i make a file downloadable its not up to me to make sure you have internet access, only that the file is accessible without problem, which steam does. Such things like "internet cap" are not and never were based on any real limitations and should be gone away as a bad price gouging tactic that it is.

Then i guess it's better to buy other games. It's true they dont have to deal with shitty internet but i believe if they can make other choices available they should specially since i dont think i should spend 60? on something i wont physically own.
I think that would be good business but if they want me to spend my money elsewhere i will *cough*CDProjektRed*cough*.
Of course that won't stop me from calling their games crap if they keep release crap.
I also dont have to deal with their bad practices and greed, fooling myself saying it's fine.

you are free to buy or not buy whatever game you like. Your argument here boils down to "i dont have a CD player so they should still sell music in tapes/vinyl instead of CDs". You are free not to buy them, but badmouthing them for keeping up with the times when you havent isnt going to make it any better for anyone.

That being said, i too think CDPR is much more deserving of money than Bethesda.

 

[Gatlank]

Your argument here boils down to "i dont have a CD player so they should still sell music in tapes/vinyl instead of CDs".

When were DVD's considered an unsupported format? Did anyone released the news that support was going to be over because i didn't got the memo?

You are free not to buy them, but badmouthing them for keeping up with the times when you havent isnt going to make it any better for anyone.

It's kinda funny in a ironic way since they are using an engine from 2002 and just dont let it go.
It's more a frankengine by now that was begging years ago for someone to end her pain.

 

[Strazdas]

Your argument here boils down to "i dont have a CD player so they should still sell music in tapes/vinyl instead of CDs".

When were DVD's considered an unsupported format? Did anyone released the news that support was going to be over because i didn't got the memo?

You are free not to buy them, but badmouthing them for keeping up with the times when you havent isnt going to make it any better for anyone.

It's kinda funny in a ironic way since they are using an engine from 2002 and just dont let it go.
It's more a frankengine by now that was begging years ago for someone to end her pain.

noone has anounced the death of vinyl or casettes. heck, the official death of Betamax was just last week even though the format was effectively dead for decades. People just moved on to newer formats and the old ones got less and less releases. Digital sales consists of 94% of videogame sales. consider this a memo delivered.

Yeah, and they are being completely lambasted for the outdated engine and the problems it brings with it. This, despite shipping numbers, seems to be worst recieved bethesda game from what i remmeber. The ones that know how Bethesdas engine work are begging them to change it. For years. and yes, in this case Bethesda is fully responsible for being dicks and trying to go on with an engine that is clearly incapable to serve anymore.

 

[Lightknight]

It is an important difference, because they are not definitely sold. Retailers often have a clause that allows them to return copies to the manufacturer for some form of compensation if they have too many in stock and they can't sell them, and they often use that clause. Again, look to ET for the historic example.

*sigh* yes they are sold. Bethesda, just like any company in business with retailers, sells them when they ship them. What "retailers" do is irrelevant to Bethesda's sales numbers. One retail shop owner in Utah could have purchased 10 million of them in order to scrap them and build a settlement and it would still be 10 million copies that Bethesda sold. Bethesda is consigning them in game shops. The game shops bought them.

Supply chain. Company sells to store, store sells to consumer. It is sold twice.

What's also important to note is that retailers don't just dick around with buying too many copies. If they bought 12 million units then there was that kind of demand for it.

So what you probably mean is that Bethesda didn't sell 12 million copies to the end consumer. Which is true, but they also didn't sell 1 copy to the end consumer just like most companies don't sell directly either.

 

[Lightknight]

Yeah, and they are being completely lambasted for the outdated engine and the problems it brings with it. This, despite shipping numbers, seems to be worst recieved bethesda game from what i remmeber. The ones that know how Bethesdas engine work are begging them to change it. For years. and yes, in this case Bethesda is fully responsible for being dicks and trying to go on with an engine that is clearly incapable to serve anymore.

And yet the game is wildly loved by gamers. But whatcha gonna do? The heart wants what the heart wants and even with the general bugs this is still one the best games I've played in years. The settlement building component alone warranted its release.

 

[CaitSeith]

Can someone tell me the last time a highly scored AAA game was released and commenters of Internet DIDN'T talk shit about cus... I'm struggling here.

The only reason I ask is because nowadays I tell the difference between people trashing a game because it's genuinely bad, and a game that's trashed because people just like hating on a ge

GTA V? I remember that any reviewer that didn't give it a 9 or 10 was shamed to death.

 

[Blachman201_v1legacy]

So what you probably mean is that Bethesda didn't sell 12 million copies to the end consumer.

Look, the bottom-line is that "shipping numbers =/= sales numbers", everyone who knows their basic economics knows this. It might be a pet peeve of mine, but it is such a cheap way for a company to generate empty hype and so many, like the article writer, readily and uncritically swallows the bait.

 

[Areloch]

You are free not to buy them, but badmouthing them for keeping up with the times when you havent isnt going to make it any better for anyone.

It's kinda funny in a ironic way since they are using an engine from 2002 and just dont let it go.
It's more a frankengine by now that was begging years ago for someone to end her pain.

Not to say they shouldn't either a) do a mass overhaul of the backend stuff instead of just glitzing up the graphics or b) use a new engine entirely, but I just want to point out that MOST major engines are just persistent rewrites of older builds.

The old Quake 1 core is/was the foundation for several engines still in use, such as Quake becoming GoldSrc which eventually became Source, which as far as we know is now Source 2, Unreal is still Unreal, even after all this time, etc.

Heck, Witcher 3 just uses a souped-up version of the engine in Witcher 2.

The reason for this is because it's REALLY expensive and time consuming to draft a new engine from scratch. Once you have an engine - especially if your content creators such as your level designers, artists and scripters are all familiar with it - it usually takes until the engine is completely unfeasible to use or upgrade before a total rewrite or engine switch occurs.

Anyways, while I agree that they really need to do a total overhaul of the core, or switch to a new engine, the rhetoric that the engine is old and has merely been upgraded over time is kinda a "Well, yeah, you just described almost every engine you've ever heard of".

 

[Gatlank]

Anyways, while I agree that they really need to do a total overhaul of the core, or switch to a new engine, the rhetoric that the engine is old and has merely been upgraded over time is kinda a "Well, yeah, you just described almost every engine you've ever heard of".

There's one major difference with the other engines. They work!
And in better ways with less bugs than the one being used now which was already showing it's age on Skyrim.
The moment your dev's stop caring about the bugs is way beyond the point of considering a new engine or it's needed to reach when they can't be arsed to even fix gamebreaking bugs?

 

[Areloch]

Anyways, while I agree that they really need to do a total overhaul of the core, or switch to a new engine, the rhetoric that the engine is old and has merely been upgraded over time is kinda a "Well, yeah, you just described almost every engine you've ever heard of".

There's one major difference with the other engines. They work!
And in better ways with less bugs than the one being used now which was already showing it's age on Skyrim.

Oh, to be sure. It definitely means that at minimum, their engineers need to stop being so freaking lazy, or, more likely, they need to hire more guys that JUST work on the core engine, rather than the game mechanics and graphical code. Just saying that "it's old" is almost a non-argument when it comes to why an engine is bad.

"It's a buggy, held-together-with-spit-and-string mess", however, is a perfectly valid point

 

[Strazdas]

Yeah, and they are being completely lambasted for the outdated engine and the problems it brings with it. This, despite shipping numbers, seems to be worst recieved bethesda game from what i remmeber. The ones that know how Bethesdas engine work are begging them to change it. For years. and yes, in this case Bethesda is fully responsible for being dicks and trying to go on with an engine that is clearly incapable to serve anymore.

And yet the game is wildly loved by gamers. But whatcha gonna do? The heart wants what the heart wants and even with the general bugs this is still one the best games I've played in years. The settlement building component alone warranted its release.

Is it, though? Its wildly loved by reviewers [http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/fallout-4], but the user score is 5.2. and while Steams reviews are mostly positive [http://store.steampowered.com/app/377160/] the "most useful" ones are either negative or with big reservations. the internet is full of people complaining about bugs, outdated engine, poor animations, and so on.

Also funny you mention the settlement building, because while in theory i love that concept, it completely clashes with the story they are trying to do.

Not to say they shouldn't either a) do a mass overhaul of the backend stuff instead of just glitzing up the graphics or b) use a new engine entirely, but I just want to point out that MOST major engines are just persistent rewrites of older builds.

The old Quake 1 core is/was the foundation for several engines still in use, such as Quake becoming GoldSrc which eventually became Source, which as far as we know is now Source 2, Unreal is still Unreal, even after all this time, etc.

Heck, Witcher 3 just uses a souped-up version of the engine in Witcher 2.

The reason for this is because it's REALLY expensive and time consuming to draft a new engine from scratch. Once you have an engine - especially if your content creators such as your level designers, artists and scripters are all familiar with it - it usually takes until the engine is completely unfeasible to use or upgrade before a total rewrite or engine switch occurs.

Anyways, while I agree that they really need to do a total overhaul of the core, or switch to a new engine, the rhetoric that the engine is old and has merely been upgraded over time is kinda a "Well, yeah, you just described almost every engine you've ever heard of".

Engine overhauls usually are too homoginized from the public view. yes, there is code from the original quake engine in the last CryEngine. but does that matter, though? if i build a new car and put the bumper on from my old car does that mean i just upgraded my old car instead of building a new one? are all cars just upgrades of Ford (or whatever was the first combustion car engine) because they still use combustion engine?

Also CDPR built an entirely new engine for Witcher 2, which isnt that old you know.

Bethesda of all people certainly have both the finances and the time to rebuild their engine at least once in a decade. i can understand if you were talking about a small studio, but bethesda has released widely profitable games constantly, they certainly can afford it. Fallout 4 is evidence that this engine is unfeasable. Heck, Skyrim was evidence of that. The engine was bugged from the start but it really show how bad it is now when the competitors have supassed it a lot.

 

[Areloch]

Not to say they shouldn't either a) do a mass overhaul of the backend stuff instead of just glitzing up the graphics or b) use a new engine entirely, but I just want to point out that MOST major engines are just persistent rewrites of older builds.

The old Quake 1 core is/was the foundation for several engines still in use, such as Quake becoming GoldSrc which eventually became Source, which as far as we know is now Source 2, Unreal is still Unreal, even after all this time, etc.

Heck, Witcher 3 just uses a souped-up version of the engine in Witcher 2.

The reason for this is because it's REALLY expensive and time consuming to draft a new engine from scratch. Once you have an engine - especially if your content creators such as your level designers, artists and scripters are all familiar with it - it usually takes until the engine is completely unfeasible to use or upgrade before a total rewrite or engine switch occurs.

Anyways, while I agree that they really need to do a total overhaul of the core, or switch to a new engine, the rhetoric that the engine is old and has merely been upgraded over time is kinda a "Well, yeah, you just described almost every engine you've ever heard of".

Engine overhauls usually are too homoginized from the public view. yes, there is code from the original quake engine in the last CryEngine. but does that matter, though? if i build a new car and put the bumper on from my old car does that mean i just upgraded my old car instead of building a new one? are all cars just upgrades of Ford (or whatever was the first combustion car engine) because they still use combustion engine?

Also CDPR built an entirely new engine for Witcher 2, which isnt that old you know.

Bethesda of all people certainly have both the finances and the time to rebuild their engine at least once in a decade. i can understand if you were talking about a small studio, but bethesda has released widely profitable games constantly, they certainly can afford it. Fallout 4 is evidence that this engine is unfeasable. Heck, Skyrim was evidence of that. The engine was bugged from the start but it really show how bad it is now when the competitors have supassed it a lot.

You'll note I never said they should be content with the current state of their engine
In fact, I'm very much in the camp that thinks it needs quite a lot more work, or replacing.

On the Witcher engine point, sure, it's not that old, but really, what makes an engine "too old"? The Witcher engine is 4-ish years old. Unreal Engine 4, Source, Unity, CryEngine all almost assuredly have baggage spanning back a decade or more. And those are THE engines.

My point, specifically, was that "the engine is too old" isn't any kind of reason or justification for why an engine is bad. An engine being around for a long time can lead to the engine having a lot of old, crappy code, but the engine being old by itself isn't an issue.