The last year has not been too kind to big GaaS (Games as a Service) releases. In fact, in a relatively short time period we saw two launches that were, frankly, rather disastrous. One being EA and BioWare’s Anthem, which both parties are hoping to turn around soon, with the other being Fallout 76. While on paper the latter seemed like an easy slam dunk, the launch was marred with what seemed to be never-ending technical issues and external controversies. But the Bethesda’s VP of Marketing Pete Hines says that, no matter what, abandonment of the game was not on the table.
While speaking with GamesIndustry, Hines said that Bethesda were very aware of the rough launch, but they never had intention of abandoning the game, and actually took it as a challenge, and a sense of pride, to ‘right the ship’ no matter how bad the winds got.
“I appreciate there might be folks who are tempted to throw up their hands and [call it quits], but that’s just not how we’re wired,” said Hines. “We believed in it. The fact that it didn’t go the way we expected and it had issues that maybe we should have foreseen and should have planned for doesn’t mean we didn’t believe in what the game was and could become.
“BGS [Bethesda Game Studios] is a team that’s made a lot of very highly successful things. Still, in my opinion, they are one of the most respected and decorated studios in the world. There is an element of pride — not in a ‘we don’t quit and give up’ way, but we need to show and prove that we are going to stick with it, and that we don’t just hit some adversity and throw up our hands and go, ‘Oh this is too hard, let’s do something else.’ That’s not how we think about things, either as a publisher or as a studio.”
They certainly have done a lot to try and fix course with Fallout 76, with continued updates, bringing back NPCs and traditional quests, and even a battle royale mode. Whether you think they’ve done enough is up to you, of course, but one can’t say they didn’t try. Fallout 76 is available now for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC.
