So hmmm new to this "canary" thing, so its a embedded code? how would that help know who is posting spoilers and screenshots though? COuldnt they just photshop that out? IF their typing spoilers it would be untraceable which many press and early pre release copy people did because they knew they werent being tracked. Monitoring all of their activity until release is the only way to protect the brand image of an IP maybe? These people who damage the brand cause harm to the company monetarily so a little monitoring to keep people honest doesnt cost anyone anything.

I was referring to leaked copies of the game itself. It WOULD be possible to add a bit of code that adds a watermark to screenshots that is only visible using a special filter.

I don't really give a toss what the reason is for the download.

It just plain svcks, i paid for this game back in June and have eagerly awaited it since.

Disc was couriered to me form the other side of the country to get to me on the day of release.

So i rush home to play and have to wait over 36 hours for a bloody download so i can play it.

Why the hell would i buy a disc, if i had pre ordered a digital version i could have pre downloaded it and already be playing.

That is the answer i would suggest. They want all purchases to be digital and nothing physical.

Either way i am extremely ticked off and can understand all those people i know who just pirate software..

They released all this information before the game came out....

I didn't buy FO4 thanks to Konami and Warner Bros who gave me a heads up about this bullcrap. Now, I always check first if a game is exclusively digital or not. So far, it appears that Just Cause 3 won't have this bullcrap tactic. They will have both digital and a full game physical pc version. And btw, the JC3 install size is going to be about 42GB.

Why would that be a problem to anyone? (Including Bethesda)

*Anyone buying a physical copy not only expects the whole game to be on the discs contained, but is likely impressed more by finding several discs (presumably full of content) in the box.

**The caveat that I can think of, is that four discs means 4x the failure rate for the discs, and the return/replacements that ensue. But that comes with the territory of releasing a physical product.

With the system requirements for this game, I would be surprised at anyone who doesn't have a blue-ray reader on their PC these days.

most computers today dont have disc drives so seems unfair to use a media format that only people with optical drives can use, what about all the people who dont have optical drives since modern computers dont use them anymore really? This computer Im typing on has no disc drive, maybe they should put the game on flash drives or would that be to expensive? Could be fun if it was like a radioactive symbol USB?

Ah, but is it fair to sell on niche media ~and not actually sell on the media?

*The thought occurs of the fun that could come if Walmart replaced all of their DVD and blu-ray movies with packaged discs that installed Silverlight and a Netflix subscription.

(Actually more like Amazon... The disc crediting your movie library.)

** Is this not effectively the same thing as the steam-stub?

All the people who don't have optical drives? I'd say a computer without an optical drive is not the computer of a gamer. I go to multiple lan parties a year and have yet to run into someone who doesn't have an optical drive. Optical drives are pretty much the standard even in bare bones prebuilt systems. As for disk drives, I assume you mean floppy drives. I haven't seen one of those in years.

hmmm alot of computer cases they cant have optical drives since they have no slot for them? Maybe that is a more recent thing? Lots of laptops, desktops and other units are made today with no optical drives but we all do have USB ports, so maybe a flash alternative would be best for modern computers since not everyone has optical drives?

I call BS on their part. They could have had most of the game on a couple of DVDs and download the rest from Steam, important files like the executable.

Took me 16 hrs to download the preload game over the weekend.

And even it if was... they wouldn't be electing to buy the physical disc edition; while the ones that did, almost certainly have the drive (or bought that too).

**Also: External drives exist and are common to use with systems that don't have a drive ~by those that want to read discs.

maybe discs are just outdated? It is old tech but would it be cheaper to use flash drives or more expensive? The games install size says 24gb which means it could be put on flash drives which are only 5-8$ which seems cheaper than buying a whole optical drive for a disc. Plus if they bought flash drives in bulk it could be as low as 2-3$ per unit making it competitive with optical discs which are biased against people who dont own optical drives which just seems unfair, every computer has USB ports though?

But the issue is not alternative media... it is selling an optical media product, and only including 20% of it in the box. They made the box (and whatever else they put in it). It would be the same problem even had they shipped the box with a pipboy styled custom 30 gig flashdrive in it ~with 5.8 gigs of data on it.

I gotcha now, your saying a disc should contain the data if people bought it weather they could use it or not.

Was thinking they didnt bother including discs because not everyone has disc drives hence the comments about using alternative media instead of discs in future physical releases? Plus it would be fun to get some kind of fun looking flash drive thats a radioactive symbol or nukeacola bottlecap or something that flips open? Great way to merge the marketing PR into the actual look of the game physically making it unique?

It's my understanding that they included a single disc with 1/5 of the game on it. Anyone that buys a DVD/Blu-Ray product plans to use the disc (and expects enough of them to install the product)... but the disc in this case does not install the game.

*I wonder if it might just be the cutscenes.

I'm not opposed to that at all. But Bethesda still screwed up royal by requiring so much of Fallout 4 to be downloaded, and there's nothing I can think of that really excuses it. Price of discs? The data limit of DVDs? If those were such limiting factors, why even bother selling physical media?

Have a disc here but just used the steam code, heard the disc for some people had 1 byte of data to begin the steam download though, didnt try it myself since no disc drive.

Maybe its that alot of people who buy physical things have no intention of using them? Like people who are collectors and buy action figures but just hang the package on the wall, same thing happens with games. Talking at the stores it seems alot of people like buying the physical game to have the box and manual or just to own it with no intention of ever using the item. Fallout 4 had a real nice box, the steelbook is nice too so maybe its mostly collectors that buy physical things but we dont use them so they dont put the game on the disc since alot of people never intend on using the physical product? Specially since alot of us and more and more as computers are made less of them have these optical drives.

Just think it is cheaper to use alternative media like a flash drive since its cheaper than buying an optical drive. Doesnt seem fair to us who dont have computers that can have optical drives to sell a disc we cant use but were gonna buy anyway so we get the package and other stuff.

Of my 25 GB install, 13.5GB is just the textures with another 3 taken up by meshes and animations. Just over half the size of the install is the texture BSAs

My Fallout New Vegas collector edition I had the box, coin, cards, etc mounted in a custom frame I have hanging on the wall in my Game Cave. Yes, I don't have a man cave, a game cave. Just a small, 8 foot by 5 foot former walk in closet with items from collector editions in custom frames. I had my Fallout 3 collector edition and Skyrim collector edition stuff mounted the same way. Maybe once I am dead my kids can sell all my custom mounted collector edition stuff for a good price. Unfortunately I didn't get the special edition for FO4. Ah well.

Took me 40 minutes to download. Long live fibre. Long live Todd Howard.

How would you frame the pipboy? did you frame the old one from the amazon survival edition?

Custom build display case.

Would like to see that! This time the pipboy seems to have come in a large solid case that feels nice, when opening the box there is the pipboy really feels like its from vault tec in some generic shipping container.