Fallout 4 Has Sold 12 Million Copies

[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.

 

[Strazdas]

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.

In my opinion an engine becomes too old when it can no longer support technologies that have become standard and expected in games and when your developement is limited by the engines limitation rather than by your optimization/power of the hardware. If the engine is the reason your game is outdated then the engine is too old. its not about years but more about capabilities. UE or Unity sticks around because they are written in a way that its really hard to hit limitations. Source did got too old and are being replaced by Source 2. Unreal is in its 4th iteration. Unity is universaly known as the lowest common denominator. CryEngine is amazing from a gamers perspective, but its lack fo documentation and mazelike design means its a developers nightmare. I love that engine but i dont blame developers for not wanting to touch it.

 

[Lightknight]

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.

NO, it literally does mean sale numbers to the publisher. The retailer buys the game from the publisher so the publisher SELLS the game to the retailer. It just doesn't necessarily mean sales to the end consumer. However, retailers have been doing this for a long time. Sales that high means that the preorders were crazy high and demand presented the need for that many copies.

So your pet peeve is unfounded. Games shipped is the first sale of the supply line. Do you honestly believe this is what happens?

1. Every game company has personal ties with retailers and just magically sends them millions of copies for free.
2. Retailers then sell the game and pay the publisher back?

No. That would be ridiculous. Instead it's like this:

1. Retailers pay the publisher for X number of games. In this moment, the publisher gets all the money they're going to get from the sale of those X number of copies.
2. Retailers then sell the games at a slight markup (making the bulk of their profit later when people start to trade in the games and they can sell a preowned copy for a significantly higher profit margin, sometimes off of the same copy multiple times).
3. The publisher does not get any money from the secondary sales. Some retailers might negotiate a certain number of buybacks if they don't sell but that isn't as common.

When we're discussing how many copies the publisher has sold and how much money they made, number shipped IS number sold and there's not ifs ands or buts there.

 

[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.

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.

The internet is full of people complaining. People routinely bomb games like this at the beginning and it levels out later. Bomb them as in literally organizing people en masse to go online and "teach them a lesson". Or did you forget Skyrim's launch? It takes awhile for the people who didn't care enough to review the game (aka, didn't have a bad experience to complain about) to see the negative reviews and come in themselves.

Huge sale records don't really lie. Though, it does depend on how many of those were preorders of course, but on STEAM right now it is clocking at around 250k players at this moment. That's a lot. That's more than Team Fortress is doing.

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 really, it only clashes with the story they are trying to do if you stop the main quest and take the time to do it, so that's on you if you aren't in a hurry to do that thing in the place...

 

[Strazdas]

The internet is full of people complaining. People routinely bomb games like this at the beginning and it levels out later. Bomb them as in literally organizing people en masse to go online and "teach them a lesson". Or did you forget Skyrim's launch?

People routinely bomb broken games that are full of bugs and the reviews get better when they fix the bugs? who would have thought!

Its also interesting to see how more and more detached from their audience critics are becoming.

 

[Lightknight]

The internet is full of people complaining. People routinely bomb games like this at the beginning and it levels out later. Bomb them as in literally organizing people en masse to go online and "teach them a lesson". Or did you forget Skyrim's launch?

People routinely bomb broken games that are full of bugs and the reviews get better when they fix the bugs? who would have thought!

Its also interesting to see how more and more detached from their audience critics are becoming.

Huge sale records don't really lie. Though, it does depend on how many of those were preorders of course, but on STEAM right now it is clocking at around 250k players at this moment. That's a lot. That's more than Team Fortress is doing.

You think they're detached but the game is a hell of a lot of fun. The only "bug" I've run into was a character appearing on the roof of a building in a settlement I built. I could either just leave and come back later to find them properly placed or I could build a staircase to their level. Either way, I haven't experienced anything really bad and have just been loving exploring and building.

Sorry if you want it to be perfect. But none of these games ever have. Skyrim, STALKER, even Witcher 3. They all launched with a large number of game breaking bugs that were patched later. It is the nature of massive and complex anythings.

 

[Strazdas]

The internet is full of people complaining. People routinely bomb games like this at the beginning and it levels out later. Bomb them as in literally organizing people en masse to go online and "teach them a lesson". Or did you forget Skyrim's launch?

People routinely bomb broken games that are full of bugs and the reviews get better when they fix the bugs? who would have thought!

Its also interesting to see how more and more detached from their audience critics are becoming.

Huge sale records don't really lie. Though, it does depend on how many of those were preorders of course, but on STEAM right now it is clocking at around 250k players at this moment. That's a lot. That's more than Team Fortress is doing.

You think they're detached but the game is a hell of a lot of fun. The only "bug" I've run into was a character appearing on the roof of a building in a settlement I built. I could either just leave and come back later to find them properly placed or I could build a staircase to their level. Either way, I haven't experienced anything really bad and have just been loving exploring and building.

Sorry if you want it to be perfect. But none of these games ever have. Skyrim, STALKER, even Witcher 3. They all launched with a large number of game breaking bugs that were patched later. It is the nature of massive and complex anythings.

good that you havent experienced problems, but your situation is not representative of most in this case. and yes, there are quite a lot of players that are playing despite admitting that they constantly see bugs. Its mostly because there are no other well designed post-apocalyptic shooter RPG. Rage tried and flopped, Borderlands lives in its own bubble, so Fallout is kinda the monopoly on this.

I dont want the game to be perfect, i just want them not to repeat same (unfixed) bugs from Skyrim (which btw is still buggy as hell)and have at least basic QA, because Fallout 4 is full of bugs that should have been caught in the first round of testing, such as zooming with rifles randomly teleporting players because players follow camera location instead of the other way around.... not to mention the suicidal and broken companions (which thanfully at least got an excuse of being immortal). The AI is still the same one from Oblivion. its as broken as it always was. Bethesda creates great worlds, but coding they dont know shit about.

STALKER has actually fixed a lot of bugs and it was coming out from an idie studio that had such a bad budget it basically bancrupted and sold out after the trilogy released. Witcher 3 had no game-breaking bugs as far as i know. there were a few that would make a few sidequests unfinishable and a few funny ones like the weird walking bug or the floating chair, but nothing major. same goes for GTA 5, and Mad Max, and MGS5. Turns out, not all games launch with massive amount of bugs and there is a reason Bethesdas games are called the buggiest ones around. Heck, even the COD fixed its bugs within 5 hours of release (BLOPS3 released recently).

i dont want perfection, i just want not to ben randomly killed when i touch a car or use vats (because apperently you fly away and die if you use vats sometimes).