Odds are the leak will impact Beth's sales of FO3.
I'm actually old enough to remember going to Egghead Software as a kid, back when once upon a time they existed offline, and having maybe a dozen and a half games to choose from. Few were a uniform size, and many were tricked out quality packages to draw the eye. Of which I could maybe whine my way into a parent's purchasing one of to occupy me for a couple months.
You had to be extremely selective of what you bought back then and you expected it to last you for a long time.
And they often COULD. Many lived up. Graphics sucked, were even nonexistant for such a long time it was a surprise to have any, and in the absence people actually had to have such a thing as a plot. Many plots involved possibly months of gameplay. I had a friend play Might and Magic I (or maybe II) off and on over the course of 10 years and I don't he finished it. Think he lost a piece of the 10 year old computer he played it on, which used to be mine, when he went to college. Wasn't that he was even bad at it, it was just that big a game and he'd even map most of it on graph paper - cause that's what you did back then or you got hideously lost.
It's no surprise that games from that time are often the beginning of chains we still see sequels or successors from today and of which people are awfully protective of.
Games twenty years ago practically were an art form and had a level of quality you just don't expect to see often these days cause few of them could really expect easy patches to be distributed if they made a mistake somewhere.
Now days games are prepackaged uniformly and fat kids wander out with 3-4 of them in thier grubby little hands which they are unlikely to finish before they see some other bit of sparkly flash they can buy next week. How many even finish most of the games bought anymore anyway to even see if it has a good ending?
Rarely do companies bother to polish or finish a game because people are at the point they'll pay money for anything new based on the hype and flash and big businesses thrive off of low consumer expectations because they can. It's not really profitable to insist on a quality release because thiers so little expectation let alone actual demand for one. If no one insists on a polished product anymore theirs very little reason to provide one.
So companies milk anything that they can churn a dime from and much like Hollywood has run out of ideas and keeps remaking old movies and television series from back when we had higher standards or from something they see internationally game compaines like to rip and run on old franchises.
Fallout 3 is basically the bastard child of FO: POS which has the same motivation as that Interplay travesty in porting to console for fast cash and foisting blood and bikini's on console kids who's expectations for what's good is based on limited experience with limited quality titles.
Writing and cohesive story elements used in a compelling fashion are white elephants these days, you practically give up on seeing them which makes them all the more precious when found - but outside of Bioware and Obsidian I just don't expect it, and given that Obsidian is the survivors of Black Isle and Troika it seems regrettable that bothering to actually tell a story doesn't actually seem to be a strong business plan anymore when writing doesn't even rate a back seat anymore to graphics. Writing might get to ride in a plastic travel pet shelter in baggage while Graphics rides in First Class getting blitzed on cocktails and pinching stewerdess ass.
The thing is even given all that, the whole reason to call it Fallout THREE and even play lipservice to the idea of appealing to the fanbase. Taking it 'seriously' and giving the franchise the treatment it 'deserves' is all hype geared towards actual fallout fans shelling out thier money to buy the game in the 'hope' the mere 'hope' that however unlikely the game will turn out better than they think it will be. The continual shine on by Bethesda is all geared towards maintaining that hope through careful reveals of what they want to show us until we hand over our money and buy our ticket to the freakshow. Once inside whether they keep the lighting low enough to hide the glue and stiches on the freak is immaterial since they have the money anyway.
If you have clicked on any spoiler threads though and read about the abyssmal storyline, however, maintaining any hope at all is nigh impossible.
The freak is in the light, thank you pirates.
Whether you reallly want to preorder or even pick up a game that will in all liklihood be in the bargain bin within 3 months is now a far easier decision process.
I so want to cancel my pre-order. I don't want to support Bethesda and this crap at all. It's painful, it's insulting, and a recycled Oblivion ending which was crap the first time around simply adds to the injury.
But I want a lunch box.