QA testers get paid to play after all.

This definitely was a game no one wanted. It's poor content and gameplay has also had the added benefit of making people actually focus on the glitches, as well. Hopefully that will stop people from giving the next Elder Scrolls 9s and 10s, completely ignoring the buggy mess it is, when they wouldn't ignore those things in a non-Bethesda game.

BFV launched later and was $25 at some places for Black Friday.

I’d easily buy at $40, hell $60, game looks great. Want to finish RDR first though.

No one ignores it.  All the reviews I read for Fallout 4 mentioned bugs the writer ran into.  I'm pretty sure they did the same for Skyrim.  You mean "but they gave it a good score anyway" instead of ignored?  Get over it.  Most writers probably never ran into serious bugs.  If they gave it a good score then that means the fun they had playing exceeded the negatives.  

Get over it, huh?  Nah, I think I will continue to point out hypocrisy where I see it.  When someone allows "fun" to override an objective look at a game, I can no longer take them seriously as a reviewer.  Of course, I think it has a little more to do with it than just "fun."  Read $$$.

You can certainly get/earn a reputation and it might not impact short term, but the more you play to that reputation the worse it gets for you as a company and it *will* impact sales long term.

If Bethesda keep releasing games that are falling behind technically, design wise and buggy, then unfortunately they will lose sales and they will get less sales. Imagine the sales of the next Elder Scrolls if its using the same engine with the same issues, and a Spiderman or horizon or Red dead engine... there is no doubt it will impact the sales in millions.

Right, like "fun" isn't kind of important when it comes to videogames.  You're totally right, game reviews should just be based around technical merits.  "Fun" shouldn't matter.  

The funny thing is, when someone no longer credits how much "fun" a game is, I can no longer take them seriously as a reviewer.  That's kind of why I play games to start with so it's rather important to me.  I know people really like to whine about review scores but I don't think I've ever heard anyone try to claim that enjoyment isn't an important aspect. 

Hmm.  Was that what I said?  Nope.  I guess the quotations weren't enough to get the point across.  Oh well.

True, most people don't really care about the bugs while enjoying the gameplay but this product sadly lacked in that department as well and yes the next Elder Scrolls will most likely sell plenty .

Edit: I also want to support what you said about the fun factor of games and it should indeed be the main focus high above minor bugs,i wont say taking them in consideration is not important but it could be handled a bit more lightly.

this game is a strange one, loads of people either seem to be super fast to jump to its defence or jump on negative news about it and attack it.... neither party seem to come off like people who've actually played the game, just those who have an opinion of it.

I've not played it but based on what I've seen about it that's just because it doesnt appear to be my cup of tea, if there are people who wanna play this sort of "make your own fun" type of game then power to them, I've got my fix of that from Minecraft and when I want to visit the Fallout world it will either be in the forms of my GOTY copies of 3 and 4 for the X360 and Ps4. Shame this one wasn't along those lines but again... if there is a market for it, I don't hold it against bethesda for creating the game. Just hope they don't go fully down this path and that Fallout 5 is something that will come maybe next generation. Always worry that a spin off title will be as successful as something like WoW which 14 years ago killed the possibility of Warcraft 4 ever being a thing.