Beyond the Fallout
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Category: News ArchiveHits: 1007
In just a week, Bethesda shipped 4.7 million copies of the game in the US and UK representing a retail value of $300 million. It's a remarkable achievement when you consider there hadn't been a traditional Fallout game released for ten years.
In fact, including the game's spin-offs, Fallout 3 outsold the combined life-time sales of all the other Fallout titles in just seven days. And this during a release period that saw the likes of Gears of War 2, Call of Duty: World at War, Fable II, LittleBigPlanet and World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King hit retail shelves.
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(The key to Fallout 3's success started with Oblivion. The market already had belief in the ability of Bethesda to produce great games. There was a huge amount of goodwill extended to us and retail had the faith to support our aspirations. In the end, the code delivered, the faith paid off and we all have a lovely warm feeling.)
Despite the game's first week sales, the team at Bethesda had to contend with one of the most congested video game release schedules in history. To ensure the game didn't disappear into obscurity, the publisher spent much of its whopping £2.5 million UK marketing spend on a campaign that lasted right up to Christmas.
