Remember bag-gate? That time, many moons ago, when Fallout 76’s launch sparked controversy because of the low quality of the bags included with its Power Armor Edition? Bethesda had promised swish, rugged, canvas things in the promo; when they arrived on players’ doorsteps, they were made of cheap, easily damaged nylon. This took an entire year to fix, somehow.
Whether you remember it or not, Pete Hines—former senior vice president of global marketing and communications at Bethesda—certainly does. In a chat with Dbltap, Hines recalled the whole episode, which he says he only learnt about when his own collector’s edition hit his doorstep, like an old army guy remembering a particularly harrowing battle.
“My first reaction was, ‘When the fuck did we add a canvas bag to this collector’s edition?’ Because the version I approved did not have one,” said Hines, who attributes the inclusion of the bags to Bethesda “trying to add more value” to the whizzbang expensive edition of the game.
Per Hines, adding more value to anything was a tough task. “We were always fighting with the finance people about margins, right? I would throw shit fits around, ‘We cannot charge $300 for this, it’s fucking insulting’.” In Hines’ telling, the nylon bags came about because of just this kind of back-and-forth between Bethesda and its money-guys.
But, in fairness, “their hearts were in the right place. There was literally a canvas shortage, and some folks decided we’re going to do this instead.” That’s pretty much what Bethesda told irate customers at the time, too: messages from support would blame “unavailability of materials” for people’s shockingly crappy bags. “The great canvas shortage of 2018” became something of a meme in the community.
Hines takes the fall for Bethesda dragging its heels on getting replacement bags out to people—like I mentioned, it took a whole dang year for the saga to conclude—and says, “My biggest failing there was not pushing immediately for making and sending one to everybody that wants one.” He was still miffed about the bag being included without telling him, he says. “It’s probably the dumbest thing I ever did at Bethesda.”
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