That said, I'm sure Bethesda has recognized that the Fallout series contains its own formula for success, that the series has a very rabid fan-base which are very resistant to change and that they are going to have to address a great number of skeptics (not just the fans).
Bethesda hears ya', but Beth don't give a fuck, as you see, they might just end up relying on their own fans, who probably outnumber the 'hardcore' Fallout fans anyway. If you want max profits, you're going to want to appeal to the biggest audience.
Stop assuming that they went out and bought the Fallout license with the intention of running the franchise into the ground.
I doubt anyone ever assumed that. No, of course not, Bethesda isn't going to run the franchise into the ground (in terms of its 'popularity'), it's going to transvestite it for maximum profit from their dumbass audience... it'll gain a whole new following, even if it'll lose 90% of the old one in the process... but it doesn't matter, at the end of the day the new audience will largely outnumber the old one == max profits! Weee!
stop with the "Oh, woe is me; an award-winning game developer is finally making the game I've waited almost a decade for but I know in my heart-of-hearts that it will be terrible" charade.
Hey, you know what, he can shove a stick up his ass and twirl. Apparently he doesn't understand that Bethesda is "REVOLUTIONARY" and have their own goals, mainly making their games as fucking mainstream as possible, so that they can rake in as much cash as they can. They don't give a fuck about what anyone thought was good in the first games (in terms of what really made the games special -- not hookers and drugs
), probably because gamers with the attention span of gold fish wouldn't be interested by any of it... they want a fast action, hand-holding game... and that's probably what they'll get.
But hey, I'm being pessimistic today. I'm not outruling the possibility of a decent sequel, I'm just saying it's doubtful... So if it does turn out to be decent, I think that Beth would win a little bit of respect from me.