Fallout 4 Teaser Site Is A Hoax

[Philip Morgan]

In the end it's not surprising the site was a prank, but it was fun while it lasted. I understand people may be upset, but really this is a laugh (and a good lesson in not letting your sense of wonderment get tarnished despite pranks involving things we enjoy). But as a Fallout fan, as many are, I'll continue to look forward to Fallout 4's inevitable announcement and release. Hopefully it will come within the next year.

 

[aaronexus]

Bravo! Bravo! Encore! Encore!

Seriously though, I am as unsurprised as I am saddened. As soon as the site went down briefly a while back I pretty much figured this for a hoax, and am just as disappointed as I thought I would be when proven right. But hey! Free entertainment for the win!

 

[FoxKitsune]

Maybe in hindsight it's obvious that this was a hoax (and to you smarter/ less `desperate for a fallout 4 to the point of hiding under your bed with a baseball bat squashing imaginary roaches` people, before the truth came out) and we should have known better, but still...

No...Fallout....4 (at least not for the forseeable future.

If anyone needs me I'll be at the dump wearing a fedora and a tight fitting jumpsuit, crying.

Edit: Oh yeah,. and has to be said. If this had been the games announcement, it would have been the best announcement EVER. Good luck topping this Bethesda

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

I tried to not get hyped... I failed.

Oh well, kinda makes you wonder why real marketing people don't do something like this.

because last time Marketing tried something new, Yahtzee got a box that once opened played "Never gonna give you up" non stop and had to be silenced with a hammer.



God damn it Bethesda, you need to fire your own marketing team and just hire this guy to do it. Thing would of been an amazing way to announce Fallout 4.

That takes me back...

Spoiler

Actually, I don't want to be taken back.

It's hard to believe that EA were more poisonous to gaming at large then than they are now with their rushed, micro-transaction, insipid, always online nonsense.

 

[Mr. Q]

I dunno if I wanna congratulate the people behind this hoax or slap them so hard that their brains rattle like the ball bearing in a can of spray paint. Maybe both. -_-

Also, this goes out to Bethesda and Value... get off your fuckin' asses and get some new content out already. Or at least offer us some info/hope that you're doing something more with your time other than having an all-out Nerf war in your offices.

 

[Pink Apocalypse]

I didn't give a crap about that site. I don't care about teasers. Either announce the game or fuck off. Announcing the announcement is just ridiculous.

This.

It ranks right up there with the stupidity of making people watch an advertisement first if they want to see a movie teaser. Really? You want to make me watch a commercial I don't want to see, in order to see a mini-commercial for an up-coming commercial I actually want to see? My eyes can't roll hard enough.

Call me jaded by corporate greed, but it's why I just don't give a shit anymore. Give me the product I want or don't waste my time.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

Well that was fun while it lasted. Wish it was true, made me play the horribly buggy mess that is New Vegas.

Never had a single bug issue in new vegas XD

Then you never had the authentic Fallout experience. I'm old, and I've played em' all! Right back to the very first one, and they all came with their fair share of bugs. And that's the way we liked it too! Why we sent it back if it didn't have at least one game-shattering bug, so we could get our nickel's worth loudly complaining about it.

Damn kids.

Get off my lawn.

 

[momijirabbit]

Well that was fun while it lasted. Wish it was true, made me play the horribly buggy mess that is New Vegas.

Never had a single bug issue in new vegas XD

Wow, how did you manage to do that? Either the game crashes every 5 minutes or the game goes Slideshow mode, on both PS3 and PC.

 

[SajuukKhar]

So, are you really saying that sitting on a rumour for over a month, knowing full well that there will be a major backlash and outpouring of hate all for the sake of promoting a non existent product is a good idea in any way, shape or form?

Backlash? from whom? a handful of people who actually give IRL shits about a website that was pretty much confirmed to be fake day 1?

You do know that there is a reason why Valve keep nipping in the bud all rumours about HL3, right? It's because THAT is PR 101. To allow someone to play a hoax on people's expectations on a highly anticipated game, using iconography from their IP to boot, is just plain dumb, especially in an industry where consumer good will does matter.

You should actually try that again, Valve rarely says anything about HL3, and often lets the fanbase stew in their conspiracy theories that every holiday pic has some lambda logo as part or some giant HL3 ARG campaign, more often then not.

 

[klaynexas3]

I'm a bit bothered by Bethesda here, more than I am at the guy who made the website. We've been at it for a month, just look at these stats that show how popular the damn thing was http://i.imgur.com/pzY99i8.jpg yet they didn't even tweet a simple "thesurvivor2299.com is not us".

It was a fun quite fun though, and it made me play Fallout once again.

This is how I feel. Assholes will be assholes, no matter how people feel about them, but Bethesda, you couldn't have said a damn thing about it? Seriously, it's not even a matter of them letting any thing loose or anything, just say, "These guys are not with us" and any follow up questions get the no comment treatment. Dammit Beth.

But as to the prankster. Eh, bravo actually.

Then again, maybe Bethesda wanted to see how far the prank would go too...

Ah what the hell, it's a bit disappointing, but hey, I'd say there was little harm here.

 

[Dragonlayer]

Awww what? Oh man, I was getting excited for a new Fallout and everything! Family will be dead disappointed when I tell them....

>_>

 

[immortalfrieza]

I'm a bit bothered by Bethesda here, more than I am at the guy who made the website. We've been at it for a month, just look at these stats that show how popular the damn thing was http://i.imgur.com/pzY99i8.jpg yet they didn't even tweet a simple "thesurvivor2299.com is not us".

It was a fun quite fun though, and it made me play Fallout once again.

Free publicity. It gives them something to take to the investors and say "See? Look how big the next games gonna be. We've gotta dump truckloads of funds into this game."

Pretty much this. The enormous response this got is a sure sign to investors that there's interest in the franchise- and where there's interest, there's money to be made.

Marketing is a dirty science, but a necessary one.

Put down another vote from me. It's true, Bethesda didn't really have anything to lose by allowing this hoax to happen. Regardless of what happened at worst they would have ended up no worse off than before.

 

[Edapurg]

I dunno if I wanna congratulate the people behind this hoax or slap them so hard that their brains rattle like the ball bearing in a can of spray paint. Maybe both. -_-

Also, this goes out to Bethesda and Value... get off your fuckin' asses and get some new content out already. Or at least offer us some info/hope that you're doing something more with your time other than having an all-out Nerf war in your offices.

Or at the very least, post videos of said Nerf war.

I am kind of bummed that this is a hoax, but hopefully all the publicity this got will encourage them to get going, or make an announcement if they've already made a lot of progress.

 

[Andrew_C]

Well that was fun while it lasted. Wish it was true, made me play the horribly buggy mess that is New Vegas.

Never had a single bug issue in new vegas XD

Wow, how did you manage to do that? Either the game crashes every 5 minutes or the game goes Slideshow mode, on both PS3 and PC.

The only bug I had in New Vegas was the coyotes occasionally walking sideways. There are also a couple of bugfix mods for the PC version , which fix the most common bugs and stuff like misplaced models and textures (like Mission Mojave, although that also changes too much for my taste). There is also a stutter remover mod (requires NVSE).

 

[hermes]

It's kind of strange that Bethesda didn't come out to say something about it sooner

Not really, its basic PR 101.

Not saying anything about the site being fake or not
A. Gives reasonable credence to the theory that it might be valid building up hype for a non existent game, and for Bethesda products in general
B. Allows Bethesda to go "yeah, shit was fake the whole time" if at any point the site does something they don't like/approve of.

Saying it is fake from the beginning ruins an sort of exploitable hype potential, while confirming its validity from the beginning ruins the whole point of the ARG.

Even when I understand where you are going to, I still think Bethesda should have taken a stand earlier.

The reason is simple. Once they decide to make Fallout 4 (because its a question of when, not if), Bethesda's marketing will have an uphill battle to make people in the Internet get excited for cryptic announcements or reveals because of the looming shadow of the time they let their fans being deceived for over a month with what was, essentially, fan fiction. I can picture a near future where everything, from screenshots to trailers, short of Todd Howard coming forward swearing it is for realsies this time is going to be called into question.

 

[EightGaugeHippo]

This wasn't surprising, with all the info that came up about the site it was essentially already confirmed as fake.

However, well played guy who did it, now that you've jump started Bethesda's hype machine it's only a matter of time until a real announcement.