There is trouble with the 200€ Collector’s Edition of Fallout 76. An attempt to compensate players here with 5€ in game money has drawn even more ridicule. At the forefront of the protest is YouTuber Skill Up. His devastating review of Fallout 76 has now received one million views on YouTube.
This is what happened: The Collector’s Edition of Fallout 76 comes with a travel bag. According to the description, it was supposed to be made of canvas. In fact, it is made of nylon. The Collector’s Edition was sold for 200€.
When someone at Bethesda inquired, it turned out that a canvas bag was actually planned, but it was deemed “too expensive,” and they replaced it with a cheaper nylon alternative.
Later, Bethesda corrected itself, saying they did not use nylon for cost reasons but because canvas was not available. The whole drama about the canvas bag is explained here.
Much ridicule for 5€ apology
This is how Bethesda wanted to make amends: Bethesda then spread the message on Twitter that anyone who bought a Collector’s Edition could contact support. If they could prove the purchase, they would receive 500 Atoms as compensation.
500 Atoms correspond to about 5€.
This is how players react: This compensation has triggered a lot of ridicule. On reddit/games , there is mockery over Bethesda’s fuss about canvas, “the rarest material on Earth,” and the 5€ compensation. Overall, there is extremely negative sentiment towards Fallout 76 on the general gaming reddit. The topic has dominated the headlines there over the past week.
The strongest response on Twitter to Bethesda’s compensation is “You fail to learn anything” with over 2,200 likes.
YouTuber Skill Up is successfully criticizing Fallout 76
This is what YouTuber Skill Up says: YouTuber Skill Up has taken the lead in the protest against Fallout 76 and he is successful:
- He wrote under the tweet: “Even the PR department is buggy.”
- He tweeted that he tested whether the statement about the 5€ compensation came from a parody account 85 times.
- Skill Up also changed his Twitter name to “Skill Up thanks Todd for 500 Atoms.”
At the same time, Skill Up’s devastating review of “Fallout 76” has shot up to one million views. In the YouTube review, he states that Fallout 76 is “morally, technically, and creatively bankrupt.”
He accuses Bethesda of lying and cheating in the presentation of the game. Fallout 76 shows the laziness of the developers in many places.
The video currently has 48,301 upvotes – compared to 4,404 downvotes.
Skill Up says he couldn’t be happier that the video is doing so well. He hopes it protects people from spending money on this scam.
This is the impact on Skill Up: The YouTuber describes his channel in the description as “balanced, deep and mature gaming coverage of core games.”
His channel seems to be getting a strong boost from Fallout 76. In recent days, since the video went online, he has gained 2,000 subscribers daily, and the view count has also risen significantly thanks to the review.
Before that, he was a YouTuber for The Division until the game faded from the public eye.
Even the criticism of the Fallout 76 beta reached record numbers within a month. But the new video is almost as high after 5 days as the beta review was after a month.
Steep career after lean The-Division beginnings
This is how Skill Up’s career has gone so far: In the past, Skill Up has mainly made a name for himself with long and detailed reviews of games like Warframe (very positive) or Destiny 2 (rather negative).
However, Skill Up’s most successful video is not a detailed review but 10 beginner tips for Fortnite.
Before that, he was a YouTuber for The Division until the game faded from the public eye.
