It seems like German retailers are having a really hard time getting rid of their copies of the much-maligned online RPG Fallout 76.
Not that long ago, we wrote about the fact that GameStop Germany were desperately trying to flog the Bethesda game by giving it away for free with used controllers.
Bear in mind, Fallout 76 launched back in November. That’s only a couple of months ago, so to see it bundled in with a cheap (used) controller so soon after releasing as a full priced game is kind of insane.
Sadly, the Fallout 76 purge continues in Germany, with retailers now attempting to rid themselves of the game by throwing it in with… well, pretty much anything at this point.
Mordecay1986 on Reddit says they work at Saturn, which is an electronics store in Germany. They claim that Fallout 76 is currently being bundled with “every Xbox, PS4, PS4 hard drive from Seagate, DualShock controller, a few third party controllers and the original Xbox controllers.”
They humorously add that this is pretty much the deal, “even if you don’t want it”, and that the reaction of customers when forcing an unwanted copy of Fallout 76 on them can be pretty funny. If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, after all.
Mordecay1986 went on to explain a little bit about why they have so much stock they need to get rid of. Bethesda’s parent company ZeniMax Media often “oversells” to stores, hence the extra stock.
ZeniMax also apparently compensates retailers each time a copy of Fallout 76 is sold:
We get a specific amount of money back from ZeniMax for every sold attached copy. It’s the cheaper way for them [at the moment] instead of another refund or a permanent price cut.
Basically, this is the best solution for both publisher and retailer, even if Fallout 76 itself doesn’t come out looking so hot when it comes packaged with the kitchen sink.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.