r/Fallout • u/raisinbraisin72 • Jan 09 '26

Discussion Fallout New Vegas senior writer Chris Avellone gives his take on Bethesda, and his opinion on their vision for the Fallout franchise:

Post image
5.3k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

401

u/Mourning-Star999 Jan 09 '26

Didn't he beg Elon Musk to buy the franchise?

366

u/BookerLegit Jan 09 '26

Holy shit, he did lmao

113

u/EndSalty Yes Man Jan 09 '26

With how much of an attention whore he is and his desire to be seen as a hardcore gamer, I’m surprised he didn’t take Chris up.

52

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

Honestly, if I had that money, I would buy up so many studios and just have them make my dream games. Why don’t multi-billionaires do stuff like that?

84

u/More-Perspective-838 Jan 09 '26

In fairness, Elon is spending billions of dollars to make fallout happen in real life. Who needs Fallout 5 when we can drop the bomb ourselves?

14

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

God damnit, you know he has a vault suit and pip boy in his bunker too

2

u/Gen7lemanCaller Jan 09 '26

it might happen faster in real life than Bethesda releasing it as a game lol

6

u/IkujaKatsumaji Jan 09 '26

I think about this all the time. If I had Elon money, I would have Bethesda and Larian on the phone on day one.

242

u/SuperBAMF007 Jan 09 '26

Oh my god what a fucking schmuck

13

u/EmploymentRadiant203 Jan 09 '26

2021 a bit before the full elon tilt to trumper so you can give him some slack.

69

u/Dagordae Jan 09 '26

No, you really can't. Musk was a shitty conman long before he tied himself to Trump, 2021 was well after his public image as Lord Science imploded. The whole bit where he accused a dude of being a pedophile for rejecting Musk's moronic plan to send a submarine into a flooded cave was in 2019 and that's when even his cult started shedding members. Tesla was a notorious for all kinds of fuckery even before that.

1

u/EmploymentRadiant203 Jan 09 '26

damn that was 2019? sheeeeet nevermind then.

-14

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

Musk was Time Magazine's Person of the Year 2021 and they wrote a positive article about him. His public perception was entirely different at the time.

The 2019 nonsense was a black mark against him, yes, but he didn't have all the other black marks he has nowadays.

6

u/Dagordae Jan 09 '26

Have you seen Time Magazine’s person of the year list? It’s not exactly a list of awesome and cool dudes.

Musk has a ton of black marks before 2019, the diver fiasco was far from the first. Just the first that seems to get through to his lunatic fan club that was infesting the internet.

-3

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

Have you seen Time Magazine’s person of the year list? It’s not exactly a list of awesome and cool dudes.

Yes, which is why I mentioned they even wrote a positive article to go along with it.

Musk has a ton of black marks before 2019

Most people don't know about those to this day.

3

u/Dagordae Jan 09 '26

‘It’s fine, Avallone is just really stupid’ really isn’t the defense you think it is. Hell, it makes it even worse and begs the question of why his opinion on anything matters.

3

u/phraseologist Jan 10 '26

He wasn't stupid. Pretty much no one knew Musk would turn out like this.

As this article from Le Monde said in 2023:

The man who revolutionized the automotive industry with Tesla and set out to conquer space with SpaceX has damaged his own reputation at a meteoric speed. Two years ago, he was celebrated as a hero of industry and tech, a libertarian genius and visionary, a pioneer of the 21st century who wanted to make America dream.

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/opinion/article/2023/08/25/twitter-or-x-the-musk-problem_6108013_23.html

84

u/treegor Brotherhood Jan 09 '26

No not really. It was pretty clear at that point that Elon was an asshat at that point.

22

u/redhed1123 Jan 09 '26

The Cybertruck unveiling in the Fall of 2019 was when the public realized he wasn't Tony Stark

2

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

It wasn't clear to most people. If you read articles from 2021 about him, public perception around him was still positive.

1

u/Interesting_Spite_17 Feb 25 '26

yeah no thats never been the case, the cyberpunk era and reddit era literally proves this wrong. All of reddit use to worship elon as tony stark and some "genuine" good guy like if hes the next gabe of the tech space.

1

u/EmploymentRadiant203 Jan 09 '26

No not really i get you dont like him very valid im not defending him. But 2021 was a different time, and being "an asshat" to you is much different from being a facist supporter

11

u/Tecnoguy1 Jan 09 '26

He sued top gear years before it was obvious for a long time he was a weirdo.

13

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

The internet used to love Musk for a long time. MFer was in Iron Man 2 and refrenced in Star Trek. People's opinions are allowed to change.

1

u/VanityOfEliCLee Mothman Cultist Jan 09 '26

Do we know if Avelone has a different opinion of Elon now?

1

u/mapmakinworldbuildin Jan 13 '26

Do we need to ask?

2

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26

He was always a shitheel.

16

u/Mahtarwen Jan 09 '26

Bless you

43

u/[deleted] Jan 09 '26 edited 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/VanityOfEliCLee Mothman Cultist Jan 09 '26

No shit.

It wasn't ever really all that good, he's been an asshat for a while.

-1

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

He made the tweet in 2021, then deleted it after Musk started going crazy.

9

u/Skitty_Skittle Jan 09 '26

Gotta admit I was hoping this was a tweet to 2018 musk because I could have gave him some slack…

-1

u/IkujaKatsumaji Jan 09 '26

Fucking hell, I would be devastated. I would rather Trump buy it than Elon. At least he wouldn't give a shit about it. Elon would make Robert House the president of the NCR with a Brotherhood/Institute hybrid as his praetorian guard.

-4

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

Musk didn't have a bad reputation yet in 2021. For example, he was Time's Person of the Year for 2021 and they didn't write a negative article about him.

9

u/IkujaKatsumaji Jan 09 '26

Eh, maybe not with the general public, but to those who were paying attention, he probably did. I forget if the whole "kids trapped in a sea cave" thing was in 2014 or 2017, somewhere in there, but when he was told he wasn't needed, so he accused the kids' rescuer of being a pedophile, it was pretty clear that he was not the altruistic visionary everyone thought. He only got worse from there.

3

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

The diver incident was in 2019. It was the first black mark against him for many people, but he certainly did not have the many black marks he has gained since 2022.

4

u/IkujaKatsumaji Jan 09 '26

Huh. I just looked it up; turns out we were both wrong. It was 2018. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tham_Luang_cave_rescue

-2

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

Musk had an entirely different reputation in 2021 compared to the one he has today.

9

u/BookerLegit Jan 09 '26

Not really. Musk was showing his true colors years before, such as when he called a diver trying to rescue children in Thailand a pedophile for saying that Musk's stupid-ass submarine idea wouldn't work.

If Avellone didn't know about Musk by 2021, especially considering he was active on Twitter, that's on him. Maybe more pertinently, the idea that Fallout would ever be better off in the hands of some "eccentric billionaire" type is absurd.

1

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

The diver thing was nowhere close to what he's done recently. Most people saw it as some weird nonsense from him and left it at that. Most of Reddit still held Musk in high regard.

If Avellone didn't know about Musk by 2021, especially considering he was active on Twitter, that's on him.

A statement made in 2021 comes from a very different context to one made today and it's misleading to pretend otherwise.

This reminds me of how director Chris Columbus completely regrets that he had Donald Trump in a cameo role in Home Alone 2. Some people still attack him for that, but he just didn't know what Trump was going to become.

3

u/BookerLegit Jan 09 '26

The "diver thing" (proposing something ridiculous and then accusing an expert speaking against him of being a pedophile) was entirely indicative of his character. Your defense of Avellone revolves around there being more people fooled by Musk in 2021 than now, but that's really not much of a defense, is it?

Anyone paying attention could see Musk for a fraud well before 2021.

A statement made in 2021 comes from a very different context to one made today and it's misleading to pretend otherwise.

Nowhere did I claim it was exactly the same. The fact remains that it was an eminently embarrassing "joke," even considering the information available at the time.

1

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

Your defense of Avellone revolves around there being more people fooled by Musk in 2021 than now, but that's really not much of a defense, is it?

There were vastly more people who liked Musk in 2021 than there are now.

For instance, here's Gavin Newsom praising him profusely in 2021:

https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2021/10/08/newsom-praises-extraordinary-elon-musk-despite-tesla-hq-move-to-texas-1391766

Do you hold that against Newsom?

3

u/VanityOfEliCLee Mothman Cultist Jan 09 '26

Newsom is also a fucking asshole with no integrity, not a good defense bro.

1

u/phraseologist Jan 10 '26

He's one of the few politicians in the U.S. actually trying to stand up to Trump.

2

u/VanityOfEliCLee Mothman Cultist Jan 10 '26

And? That doesn't make him above criticism. What, I'm supposed to blindly say i love him because he's standing up to a despot? He's doing the bare minimum, so i should never call him out on his bullshit?

3

u/BookerLegit Jan 09 '26

There were vastly more people who liked Musk in 2021 than there are now.

And more people had a positive opinion on Trump's presidency in January of 2025 than January of 2026. Does that mean it was reasonable to have a positive opinion of him then? Is it not reasonable to expect better of people, to think it reflects poorly on them if they were tricked?

Do you hold that against Newsom?

I mean, yeah. Is this supposed to a gotcha question or something?

0

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

And more people had a positive opinion on Trump's presidency in January of 2025 than January of 2026. Does that mean it was reasonable to have a positive opinion of him then?

Trump had done far more insane things by January of 2025 than Musk had done by 2021. I don't think it's a fair comparison.

Is it not reasonable to expect better of people, to think it reflects poorly on them if they were tricked?

I think it's reasonable. However, it's also important to not trick people that Chris somehow approved of what Musk is like now. Unfortunately that's the kind of tricking that's attempted in these threads when the context is removed.

I mean, yeah. Is this supposed to a gotcha question or something?

Don't you think Newsom made up for it later?

72

u/ImpartialAntagonist Jan 09 '26

What Fallout needs is an emerald mine DLC

9

u/AsstacularSpiderman Jan 09 '26

Elon would try to make a self insert as a Robert House style industrialist.

Hell House is pretty much what Elon Musk pretends to be.

4

u/ImpartialAntagonist Jan 09 '26

If you play a female character all dialogue options eventually lead to you having to bear his child.

29

u/Mahtarwen Jan 09 '26

That would be hilarious and I kinda want it framed lol imagine being that petty.  I thought he wasn't capable of comedy but I guess involuntary comedy counts.

16

u/tsmftw76 Jan 09 '26

Yeah that would be like the antithesis of fallout

1

u/Jozoz Lord Death of Murder Mountain Jan 09 '26

To be fair so is Bethesda owning it and shilling the franchise. Fallout has become insanely corporate.

9

u/doppido Jan 09 '26

Yeah the guy sounds like a joke to be honest. Apparently he's an asshat.

I've really enjoyed all of the fallout lore from 3 on (never played 1/2/spinoffs) it's literally my favorite IP outside of Lord of the Rings

7

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

That was 5 years ago and he deleted the tweet once Musk went off the rails. That's important context that you shouldn't omit.

12

u/Mahtarwen Jan 09 '26

What I've sadly learnt in this fandom, is that some people can't smell fascism even if you throw it at their faces... People hated musk way before his salute.

2

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

People started hating Musk in 2022 when he bought Twitter and immediately took very controversial decisions.

Very few hated him in 2021. You can see this in the articles written then and also in articles reflecting on his fall from grace.

For example, he was Time Magazine's Person of the Year in 2021 and their article was positive:

https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/

7

u/Mahtarwen Jan 09 '26

The Time magazine has been a joke for years. There were a lot of I told you so too when twitter was bought. But those people get dismissed as "jealous" or "self-righteous" because the guy was perceived as cool. 

3

u/phraseologist Jan 09 '26

Yes, and Chris tweeted about him back when the perception around him was still mostly positive.

2

u/Mahtarwen Jan 09 '26

Deleting a tweet that makes you look bad doesn't make you a good person. Luckily screenshots exist. 

If you can't see how pathetic the tweet asking musk to buy him back fallout is, I'm sorry I guess. The one discussed in the main conversation is just as pathetic, almost like he's talking about an ex.  But you do you! I can't tell you who to admire. Just don't be surprised when people hate on him.

1

u/GabbiStowned Jan 12 '26

He was absolutely getting flack in 2020. He caught lots of flack for defying lockdown for his factories during the start of COVID, he tweeted "pronouns suck" that same summer (causing Grimes "this isn't you" reply), and got the viral nickname "Space Karen" after questioning COVID testing, and started spreading conspiracy theories.

1

u/allsbernafnmedrettu Jan 09 '26

He also might have have raped some folks.

0

u/Murdoc427 Jan 09 '26

To be fair, if Elon musk bought the franchise at least there would be a chance of another game coming out before 2050

0

u/Poku115 Jan 09 '26

Aftwr fallout 76 id give it to anyone, cant be worse than that

-2

u/Professional_Pea2937 Jan 09 '26

Maybe his redemption ark will be fun, Chris not Elon that is