The collector’s edition of Fallout 76 cost €300 and included a backpack that was nowhere near the quality shown in the product image.
When Fallout 76 was released in 2018, it was not well received by fans. Empty areas, missing NPCs, bugs, and performance issues dampened the enjoyment of wasteland fans – the feedback was devastating. But compared to the reactions to the collector’s edition, that was actually harmless.
It cost €300 and even looked quite decent at first glance. But when the boxes arrived at customers’ homes, the result had little to do with what they had ordered. Former marketing chief Pete Hines is still embarrassed about it today.
The stupidest thing I ever did at Bethesda
The two most important items in the $300 (!) Collector’s Edition were a portable replica of a Power Armor helmet and a military bag. The latter was supposed to be made of linen, which is clearly visible in the product images.
However, the product delivered was made of cheap, poorly manufactured nylon. To compensate, buyers received €5 worth of in-game credit for free
. It was not until six months later that buyers received the promised bag as a separate shipment.
Pete Hines is still embarrassed about this today, as he recently revealed in an interview with DBLTAP:
My first reaction was, when the hell did I approve a canvas backpack for the Collector’s Edition? (…) [By adding it], they were trying to add more value. We always fought with the finance department over profit margins.& nbsp;We can’t charge $300 for this, it’s a bloody insult.
But in this case, the heart was in the right place. There was a shortage of linen fabric, and some people decided to make [the nylon bag, editor’s note] instead. My biggest mistake was not immediately insisting that everyone who wanted one should get a [linen bag]. I was still annoyed that this thing [the nylon bag] even existed and that no one had told me about it. It’s probably the dumbest thing I’ve ever done at Bethesda.
Just how disastrous the original nylon bag was is shown by Reddit user MikeL0797 shows in a post. He posted a picture showing the first bag and the replacement linen bag side by side six months after the release.
6 months later, long after I had refunded the game and forgotten about it, I finally got my Fallout 76 canvas bag. Thanks Bethesda, I guess.
by
u/MikeL0797 in
gaming
In the end, everything turned out fine with the Collector’s Edition of Fallout 76, even if it took an outcry from the fan community to make it happen. Bethesda has certainly learned a lesson. But we won’t know for sure until the next editions of Elder Scrolls 6 or Fallout 5 are released, and that will probably take some time.
