A likely pricing error on the Xbox Store today meant that both Fallout 4 and its season pass were both selling for the princely sum of $US0.00 ($0).
Suspecting it was just a listing error, I bought both of them expecting to eventually run into a price barrier, but nope, turns out they really were free, because they’re now both in my Xbox One library without me paying a cent.
The error was first spotted by retail overseer Wario64. It also, as you can see from this listing on the Xbox Store’s website, applied to the Automatron DLC.
Comments
31 responses to “Fallout 4 Accidentally (?) Goes Free On Xbox Store”
Still free, now mine.
Grabbed the deluxe edition for free so all the dlc and base game for the great old price of $0!!!
Just got to hope they don’t remove it from our accounts later.
Snagged it!
Well that’s my day made.
Thanks man. I can confirm as of 9:35 am AEST it is still free.
Got it. Unbelievable this is wicked
Oh, looks like it’s been taken down already. Better update the article Kotaku…
I don’t even have an Xbone but figured it was worth it. Fucking Microsoft wants me to add a card for a free product. By the time I get it entered it’s been taken down.
Damn missed out, would of liked having a copy on Xbox 🙁
*would have liked
Sue me. Righting on a fone. C wat I did dare?
Hehe, someone’s gonna get in troouubblle.
It’s back to full price but the ‘buy it now’ button is gone which says to me this was a bug not a feature!
Accident, or deliberate to drive up sales in other games?
It’s an old trick; offer something free and customers sometimes spend that same money on something else at the same time.
Hahaha. Just no.
Hahaha. Just no.
If it is anything like the Assassin Creed glitch – basically the same thing.
It will work for around a week or two – maybe even a month or more if you are lucky
Then it comes up asking for the disc 🙁
I finished Unity before that happened, but i dare say, you wont get to ‘keep’ it.
I write this with the utmost bitterness in my heart to all you scumbags!
Only because i had to pay for it, so you can all go to hell.
Ya know, I find it kinda funny that this sort of thing is generally accepted around Kotaku comment sections, yet piracy is massively frowned upon.
Grabbing a game whilst it’s accidentally free is no different to ‘stealing’ a game ala piracy it seems to me. You’re taking the game without their explicit permission.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that piracy is actual stealing, but there is an element of dishonesty to capitalising on someone’s mistake and getting a game for free that’s not meant to be free, so it puts it in the realm of piracy for me.
This is coming from someone who pirates sometimes, so I’m not judging, just pointing out the obvious double standard.
As someone who works in sales, if you accidentally mark something at a wrong price and a customer sees it, unless there is an explicit sign saying otherwise, we’re legally obligated to sell it to them at that price. No different to online stores – it’s their mistake, but we’re still “paying” the amount that the game was listed for on the store.
While true I would still consider myself obligated to alert you to the mistake rather than taking advantage of it. I mean the rules aren’t the beginning and end of a person’s responsibilities.
As someone who also works in sales, thats not exactly true. Legally there is no law that states that this is the case under consumer rights. Its a sales policy used by big chain supermarkets and now every Tom, Dick and harry thinks that this is the case for every wrong priced item. Look up the Aussie consumer law and you will find that there are no obligations to give the wrong price to the customer. https://www.lawanswers.com.au/blog/australian-consumer-law-rights-incorrect-pricing/
This is very much the case, for example how do we know it was a pricing error from a staff member, or as ive observed quite often as someone who works in retail, customers switching tickets/price tags to attempt to get the product cheaper.
I wouldn’t consider them pirates, but you’re right that this is seen more like an intentional short term sale price than taking advantage of a vendor. That’s understandable but still a little weird when you stop and think about it.
Not only that but it’s seen as sticking it to Microsoft rather than short changing Bethesda. I guess if it’s Microsoft’s fault they’ll have to compensate Bethesda for the ‘losses’ caused by it, and I’d find that pretty funny.
I don’t consider them pirates either. But I do think the line is pretty blurry around there, and I’d like to think the people who have a massive problem with piracy for ethical reasons wouldn’t partake in something like this as that would make them fairly hypocritical.
Don’t be so stupid lol.
The listed price, whether $0.00 or otherwise, is a legal contract at the point of sale. Its illegal to charge the customer further after the transaction has been completed. If MS revokes peoples licenses they are also breaking the law, its akin to stores knocking on your door and telling you to give back your copy of a game you got cheap because THEY listed the wrong price.
It isn’t the customers responsibility to police a stores price tags. Period.
I’m not arguing the legality of it.
The debate surrounding game piracy has more to do with morals than the law – the issue for most Kotaku commenters seems to be supporting the developers, so it’s less to do with it being the law and more about doing the ‘right thing’ by paying for it and thus keeping the industry alive.
So it’s legal yes, unlike piracy. But you’re still taking advantage of someone’s mistake and you’re most certainly not ‘supporting the industry’ by taking a game for free, so therefore in essence it’s not much different to piracy to me.
Despite the fact that the Xbox store has terms and conditions the user agreed to, which would specifically invalidate pricing errors. And the court has upheld a company retracting a pricing error before when it was apparent the end user would KNOW it was an error.
You can’t buy a car for $14 because the site says so. You know it’s wrong.
For example “Where all units of the same item have been priced incorrectly or are scanning incorrectly at the register, the seller does not have an obligation to honour that price.”
From: https://www.lawanswers.com.au/blog/australian-consumer-law-rights-incorrect-pricing/
Damn it – i missed out haha
Sad that I missed this, would love to have a digital copy of Fallout 4 on the xbone. Will have to wait until the game of the year addition and then wait for it to go on sale for me to buy it. I bought a pipboy edition at launch, but I just much prefer having digital copies of games these days, unless there is something special in a physical copy that I really want.
So Microsoft has revoked access and credited me $10 for the purchase. Are they allowed to do that?
I got the same message. Interesting conundrum in a legal sense, I would have flat-out said ‘Yes, they can’ before the ACCC v Valve case, which now dictates that these purchases are products rather than services, so now I’m not so sure. For all intents and purposes, both sides have fulfilled the elements of a sales contract, Microsoft’s failure to provide the product would likely be in breach. This is all without reading the T&C’s, of course, but then again, I thought Valve and Steam had theirs locked up pretty tight as well.
There are some common law provisions for ‘mistakes’ but I can’t remember them off the top of my head and I can’t be bothered looking for them, but I get the feeling that – if taken to Court – they would order them to pay something akin to to a token amount per purchaser … the lawyers obviously just got in first with a token amount.