Fallout 76 came underfire once more this week, after fans who purchased the Collector’s Edition noted that the canvas duffel bag the premium edition was supposed to ship with had been replaced by a cheap nylon alternative. Bethesda promised to make things right by providing peeved peasants with microtransaction currency instead, claiming that it was unable to manufacture the original item due to the unavailability of materials.
However, it’s since emerged that the publisher handed press kits out to “influencers” at its Greenbrier promo event packaged in… Yes, canvas duffel bags. While it’s not identical to the one that had been promised to Collector’s Edition buyers, this is a particularly bad look.
To be fair, the publisher’s probably not lying when it says it didn’t have the required materials available – it would have needed to ship many thousand more Collector’s Editions than press kits – but it’s still not going to sit well with disgruntled fans. The microtransaction compensation already felt like a slap in the face, but this is more like a full-blown haymaker.
Editor's Note: The headline has been updated to reflect the fact that the canvas bag given to influencers was not identical to the one promised to Collector's Edition buyers.
[source gamerant.com]
Comments 41
At least owners can take the 'collectors' edition back to the retailer and get their money back on being miss-sold!! A loophole maybe but its still easier than trying to prove they have been miss-sold on the game itself - even though you could potentially argue its not 'fit for purpose'....
Insert Simpsons 'Stop it's already dead!' meme here
O Bethesda...i wonder if this will genuinely have an impact on sales of future products. This has been a disaster
Oooh, that's not good. Why do you have to be like this Bethesda.
Thank god Doom is handled by id and only published by Bethesda. They would probably ruin Doom as well.
An unavailability of materials? Yes because we've all heard of the world-wide shortage of canvas material... Idiots... Should fire their procurement/merchandising team
It's this type of news that make the gaming industry the best reads.
Probably, they've checked for canvass material availability in their utility room only...
A friend just showed me how similar these are to the Herschel Retreat Backpack. Shouldve stitched fallout onto those instead
It's hard to feel bad for anyone who dropped $200 on this when the Fallout 4 CE was garbage. They had plenty of red flags hitting them in the face, that's for sure.
This really goes to show the ever-widening gap between how publishers treat "influencers" versus their actual customers.
"There is no such thing as bad publicity"
Yeah, Fallout 76 would like a word with you.
I can see it being sold (deservedly) for less than a tenner in a month.
I was never interested in Fallout 76 and thus never got it, but this whole fiasco has still shown me how terrible of a company Bethesda is and how much they just don't care. I will not be giving them any more money.
@3MonthBeef speaking of boycott,has there been anyone so far that screamed for a boycott?
would be a discrace if no one says to boycott this game and company for all the stuff they have been doing as of late,but at the same time would happily scream for a sony boycott just because of some censorship (even justified in 1 case).
Well the materials excuse is a blatant lie, which actually fits this game rather well given how it's been described to us since it's reveal.
I've always been a huge fan of Bethesda and it's games but this whole sorry saga has broken most of that trust
You just know that we'll all love Bethesda again when they drop another Elder Scrolls trailer.
I'm not cutting them any slack but it is possible they weren't able to manufacture the canvas one in the quantities they needed. Not that that's okay but...
@get2sammyb I don't know about you Sam or anyone else, but I find this whole thing to be worse than the whole Diablo Immortal debacle. They just can't catch a break, huh?
@Slasher It's all just easily avoidable, that's the problem. In this particular instance I don't think any bad was intended, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place.
That kinda isn't unheard of. I mean it is bad that they didn't ship what they said they would, but commerce is built upon the cult of celebrity. Give celeb a free product even if they have the cash to afford it because people will go out and buy that product to feel like said celeb. I don't like to call people sheep or anything like that...but we are social animals.
@get2sammyb it was probably a cost issue but that's their job to work out how much these things are and price them appropriately before advertising the product. Not to sell them and then find out it's too expensive and then when they knew they were being changed they still didn't inform the customers or change the advertisement. Then just giving a few dollars with of worthless fake currency as an apology just beggars belief.
It's incompetence on so many levels and it pretty much sums up Bethesda's whole approach to this game of let's get it out there regardless of its condition, make our money and deal with the consequences later
@get2sammyb True. But it seems like every attempt of trying to fix and alleviate the mess they cause has only backfired. As much as I bashed them, I have to say I honestly do feel a little bad for the developers. Because let's be honest here: most of the hate and backlash should be directed towards those corporate suits at Bethesda. I guarantee you that this cluster of a mess was because of their influence. Not that the developers aren't to blame though.
This is a scam.
Huh. I thought everyone here was pretty cool with publishers generally funneling all the really cool goodies into “press kits” designed to influence their customers instead of delight them. Guess when there’s a bandwagon of hate going around, people’re just going to jump on it.
I keep seeing that they couldn't get the materials in the required quantity, but I've seen - as I'm sure others must have - an email reply from Bethesda Customer Services which was very abrupt, saying that the materials were too expensive and that they weren't planning on doing anything about it.
To me that puts a very different slant on it. Unavailable materials might be forgivable... changing materials to save money amounts to a bait and switch.
@get2sammyb I think saying that no bad was intended with this is really giving them too much of a benefit of the doubt, considering how they've behaved post-fiasco.
1) They could've announced that the canvas bags were ''unavailable'' beforehand instead of letting people find out for themselves. Why didn't they? Because at that point people could still cancel their preorders, resulting in less collector's editions sold.
2) They could've offered a partial refund for what was clearly false advertising on their part. They misled people knowingly, and we shouldn't give them a break just becuause materials were ''unavailable''. Offering 500 atoms instead of y'know, a proper refund, is just insulting. Not to mention the fun fact that with those 500 atoms you couldn't even buy the in-game version of the advertised bag, which just adds even more insult to injury.
3) Even if we believe that materials were unavailable, they could've delayed the collector's edition bag until further notice. Sure, it'd be a logistical nightmare, but anything would be better than straight up lying to consumers. Instead they rushed out a nylon bag with the collector's edition. Why? Because they thought they'd get away with this kind of stuff, as they have many times in the past.
Bethesda absolutely does not deserve the benefit of the doubt in this in this situation. They've simply scammed people. That's the hard truth to it, and they've made no effort to actually resolve the situation. Even a company like Warner Bros. had the decency to take Arkham Knight off of Steam when it turned out to be a buggy mess and refund people. Bethesda has no legs to stand on, and it annoys me that anyone would even try to defend them in this scenario. I don't care about Fallout or Bethesda really, but watching them treat their customers this way is disgusting. Bethesda did what they did knowing exactly what they were doing, and they should be treated that way.
@Tjuz I can't disagree with anything you said really. These companies are big, though, so it's probably just a case of PR doing one thing while the product managers do another.
I agree with you, though.
@Fath What hate bandwagon they sell a broken early access game that should have been €20 at te most or pushed back the release. You think that anybody would be talking about the bag. And do lie about what you are selling but a lot of CE have dissapointing quality but atleast they give you a working game. 😜
@Tjuz With the Batman Arkham Knight i got to play the digital version while they worked on the CE because of the qualityissues. (it still looked terrible)
But they tried to fix it and i got the game in time and got the CE game later and atleast some kind of response that was half decent.
Bethesda should play dead for a while you cant salvage this situation anymore.
@Slasher Sorry there's no excuse for langauge. As per community rules
Do not use profanity; Use of unsavoury language including profanity and swearing is not acceptable, please remember that this website has users of all ages.
Thanks for understanding
Man this whole situation is just gifts that keep on giving
So they gave real canvas bags to influencers, knowing already that they wouldn't be able to do the same to those who bought the collector's edition. This is an even bigger sign that they willfully tried to misled consumers. It's blatant false advertising. This is going to help those suing Bethesda. What the hell were they thinking?!
This is also so sad to see. I'm a huge Bethesda fan, and I consider them one of the best third party publishers in the industry. But there's no defending what they've done with this game and everything surrounding it. They deserve all the hate and the lawsuits.
@Tasuki My apologies. It won't happen again. Also, who the HECK downvoted your comment? I have no idea who would, consider it's your job as a moderator to inform me of my mishaps with my language(even if I was speaking the truth). Like seriously, you're only doing your job. It's stupid and kind of baffling.
You really can't make this stuff up at this point you would think Bethesda are doing it on purpose now, no company can be so arrogant and have such bad PR, oh wait it's Bethesda!!
Oh dear, they couldn't have failed harder if they tried!
I’ll bet the ‘influencers’ were ‘triggered’ by this.Hard life isn’t it.
Just plain scum, they didn't tell anyone they had switched the bag and don't really care.
Can't believe they think £4 of virtual currency makes up for ripping people off. I'm usually a huge fan of Bethesda games. Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Skyrim are among my favourite games, but this is disgusting.
@suikoden Agreed. It will be ignorant to defend them at this point.
Fallout 76 is the Fyre Festival of games at this point
is the bag to chuck the game in then bin it
Show Comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...