Fallout TV Series Benefited from Not Launching with a New Game, Says Phil Spencer

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Fallout TV series creator Jonathan Nolan and Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer appeared earlier this week at the Paley International Council Summit during a panel titled Source Code: How Hollywood and Videogames Are Leveling Up Together.

At some point during the conversation (transcribed by Inverse), Phil Spencer said the outstandingly successful Fallout TV show might have actually benefited from not having another game launch in the same franchise at a similar time. The executive pointed out that the strategy is much more in-depth and long-term than merely using the adaptation to incentivize fans to buy a new game.

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We didn't have a new game lined up for the launch. I actually think that gave us some creative liberty that we wouldn't have had if we tried to coordinate the production of two very different creative processes to land at the same time.

The play is much more long term than trying to drive some gift buying.

Fortunately, the days of tie-ins, when games were often rushed out of the door simply to be released alongside big-budget movies, are behind us. This has led not only to greater creative freedom but also to much better overall quality, as the creative process cannot be rushed. Plus, Fallout games did get a massive boost in sales anyway when the TV show dropped on Amazon Prime Video, even if they weren't newly released.

During the panel, Jonathan Nolan briefly discussed the show's second season, saying it will rely even more on flashbacks than season one.

For the most part, in games, it’s a little harder grammatically to flashback, right? Some games can do it very well. There are a couple of memorable flashbacks in Call of Duty and other franchises. But for the most part, you kind of lock the user into that first-person point of view across both space and time. In a show, you can flashback and you can