Gamer Savings Time: Beating Bethesda at its Own Game(s)

Anyone that's a video game fan has probably heard about the Homeric Odyssey of PR rocks and shoals Bethesda's been through in the past few months. Bag-gate, messing up a bottle of whiskey, Fallout 76's critical scorching all over the internet, a pretty significant data breach, just to name a few. It seemed like Bethesda couldn't go a week without some fresh PR hell. Well, it isn't getting better, not yet anyway, because it looks like 2 other studios are poised to out-Bethesda Bethesda. Yeesh.

First, we have Obsidian's upcoming game, The Outer Worlds. I'm very excited for that game. Judging from what's been shown of it so far, it looks like Obsidian just went ahead and made the game that a lot of folks were hoping Bethsda's Starfield was going to turn out to be. From what we've seen so far, TOW looks like Fallout, Borderlands and Mass Effect went to space, got drunk and had a whacky threesome while rewatching Firefly. Then, someone got in The Family Way and that glorious little sci-fi RPG baby will be The Outer Worlds. And to dump just a little salt in that wound, they had to take that little shot at Bethesda in the Game Awards trailer. It was a bit immature, but funny. I'll admit that I laughed.

As if that wasn't enough, the Ubisoft decided to come in and steal Bethesda's cake. I know that last year, I was hoping for a good post-apocalyptic title. I was uncertain, but I had some hope for F76. Yeah, that didn't pan out. Then Ubisoft stepped in, gave us a hug and said, "There, there. We understand. Don't cry, Little ones. Here ya go, Far Cry goes Post-Apoc. Far Cry: New Dawn. BOOM! You're welcome." New Dawn looks to be a damn good Post-Apoc game, another squirt of lemon on Bethesda's paper cuts. I'm a big fan of post-apocalyptic games, so I'll definitely be keeping an eye in this one.

So, it does rather loom like Bethesda is getting beaten to the punch twice in 2 different games by 2 different companies. Ouch. I know it looks like I'm jumping on the Bethesda Hate Train, but that's really not what I'm doing. I'm actually hoping that Bethesda takes a hard look at all this, wakes up, smells the coffee and learns a lesson. I hope they take that lesson and realize they need to knock both Starfield and Elder Scrolls 6 out of their respective parks. Then, I hope they keep that train a-rollin' and come up with a new Fallout game that equals or even surpasses New Vegas.

That's what I hope happens. It is possible, but given how lazy and cash-grab focused the AAA game industry can be anymore, I'm not going to hold my breath, and I'm not putting all my eggs in that basket, but I'll remain hopeful until I'm given a reason not to be. In the meantime, well, I'll just look forward to New Dawn and The Outer Worlds, I guess. Seems like a decent plan.

Mahalo, my friends.

Gamer Savings Time: The Fall(out) of Bethesda...

Yes, I'm extremely late to the party when it comes to talking about what is probably the biggest dumpster fire in gaming news that was the reception of Fallout 76 and the way that Bethesda reacted to it, and indeed continues to react to it. Hey, I told you guys in a previous post that I'm not going to be an Out in Front type when it comes to gaming stuff. But basically, I just felt like running off at the fingers about this for a bit. And it's my blog, so I will. NYAH!! hehe.

Anyway, I'll preface this whole thing that even though it may look like it, I'm not jumping on the Bethesda Hate Train. I don't hate Bethesda, I'm not even really angry at the company, what I am is disappointed. I'll also give the caveat that I haven't played Fallout 76 myself and honestly I don't intend to. Not right now anyway. I may check it out at some point in the future because I WANT it to become a good game because I love the Fallout series. Hell, I love more than one of the series of games that Bethesda puts out. I've lost countless hours to Fallout 3, Fallout 4, and my all time favorite Bethesda Era Fallout, New Vegas(quick aside, I will say that I'm hyped as HELL for The Outer Worlds coming out this year from Obsidian. But that's another story for another time).

Anyway by now, you've probably heard about all the ways Bethesda has bungled the response to more than one PR disaster after another surrounding F76 so I won't repeat them here. If you haven't well, you can just go and find TONS of stories, YouTube videos and blog posts around about BagGate, RumGate, the 500 Atoms, what have you.

Like I said, I'm disappointed in what Bethesda's been up to for the past couple of months, apart from seemingly making one of, if not the, most lambasted game of the last few years. I'm not going to pile on. And if you're one of the people that actually likes or even loves Fallout 76, that's great! Seriously, I'm glad that you like the game. I don't want people to be disappointed in the things that they buy, and like I said, I really hope that they'll do something to fix F76 and make it an actually good game. Time will tell.

And I'm not particularly worried that this whole thing will kill Bethesda as a company. Although it seems like with the regularity with which they keep shooting themselves in the foot, PR-wise, I can't help but occasionally wonder if this whole thing as been some kind of odd, The Producers-esque scheme to get out of the business. I doubt it, but the idea has occurred from time, mainly because my brain loves a good Mel Brooks reference. heh. Anyway, it's been bad for them for the last couple of months or so, but they can take some comfort in the fact that people on the internet have VERY short memories and attention spans.

Seriously, if Bethesda could just avoid shooting themselves in the foot for a month, Hell, even a couple of weeks, I think most people would largely forget about all the cattywampus around Bethesda and Fallout 76, the whole thing would blow over, and they could get back to doing what they're supposed to do, and folks won't be kicking them in the teeth on a daily basis.

That's not to say that there won't be any lasting consequences from this whole thing. There will. Bascially, I think that Bethesda has pretty much burned up their entire stock of Community Good Will with their fan base. Basically, Bethesda REALLY can't afford to mess up again. Both of their main upcoming games, Starfield and The Elder Scrolls 6, and probably at least a couple more future titles have to be simply awesome. I mean, I think they need to make Game of The Year contenders for at least the next 4 games they put out as a studio. That's about the only thing that's going to replenish that stock of good will at this point.

And I WANT them to succeed in doing that. I mean, I'm huge fan of Sci-Fi games so I definitely want Starfield to completely knock my socks off. I'm a huge Elder Scrolls fan. Hell, I bought Skyrim for the 360, bought all the DLC, and then got it AGAIN when it got remastered for the XBox One. And Skyrim has spent a huge amount of time living in my various consoles. It's a very rare thing when Skyrim spends more than a couple of weeks not loaded into my console. So yeah, please give me an awesome EC 6.

Basically, I'm disappointed in Bethesda, but I want to see that they've learned a lesson from all of this and they'll actually take that lesson to heart. Basically, I hope they've learned to stay in their wheelhouse. And their wheelhouse has always been engaging, single-player, story-driven RPGs, not Online-Only Multiplayer games. Please Bethesda, go back into your wheelhouse, make Starfield, EC 6, and at least your next few titles just gobsmackingly awesome. Not only should it be your goal anyway, I think it'd do a huge amount towards getting you back a lot of the good will that you had. Just my many cents. Heh.

Mahalo, my friends.