An honor better than any game award for the online RPG.

Fallout 76, Bethesda Game Studio’s online multiplayer chapter in the post-apocalyptic role playing game series, had a rocky start to say the least. Still, it sold well in Japan on its debut and has held on to a good chunk of players through the months of improvements.

One such player was a Twitter user under the handle of @orisaEX who posted a screenshot of someone’s in-game house. Presumably made by someone named Yamazaki, it was so nicely laid out that it deserved a little Twitter props.

▼ “This trash home has a really great sense of style.”

However, the Yamazaki homestead was apparently so nice that it attracted the attention of Chokugeki Live Goody! (Bull’s Eye Live Goody!) a weekday-afternoon variety program on national network Fuji TV.

Someone on the Goody! staff DM’ed @orisaEX requesting to use the photo in a segment they were doing on “trash houses” (homes belonging to hoarders) in Japan. The gamer graciously shared the whole exchange with the rest of the Twitter.

▼ “Some of you wanted to know what happened after [the DM] so I’ll post it here. (I’m just going to leave this tweet and not reply to it in the future)”

The brief but memorable DM exchange went as follows.

Goody!: “We’re very sorry to bother you. This is the official account of Chokugeki Live Goody! We’re gathering material for a program on trash houses and could you give us permission to use the image of a trash house you posted?”

@orisaEX: “That’s a video game screenshot though, so…”

Goody!: “Terribly sorry to bother you.”

In defense of Goody!, they did refer to it as an “image” which doesn’t mean they necessarily thought that it was a photo of a real house. They could have assumed it was an illustration drawn by @oriseEX, but either way it’s a feather in the cap of Bethesda’s art team and as far as Japanese netizens are concerned, egg on the face of Goody!

“That’s… That’s just terrible. Even if you don’t know the game, can’t you tell that’s CGI?”
“So we can assume Fuji TV staff aren’t fans of western games then.”
“The person running the account must be overworked. lol”
“You’d think the #Fallout76 tag would have tipped them off.”
“Either Bethesda’s technology is really amazing, or Fuji TV people are really dumb.”
“They should have negotiated a five hour interview, then at the end say, ‘OK, let’s go see the house,’ and boot up their PC.”

Again giving Goody! the benefit of the doubt, any number of things could have happened. Most likely the social media account person Twitter-searched “trash house” and copy-pasted permission requests on whatever they could find. Perhaps a misclick landed on @orisaEX’s tweet or the person simply wasn’t looking carefully enough.

There are a lot of possibilities, but for the time being the prevailing theory is that Fuji TV thought Fallout 76 was real life. Hopefully the faceless organization doesn’t mind being the brunt of the joke like this every once in a while, since it does seem to brighten everyone’s day.

Source: Twitter/@orisaEX, My Game News Flash
Top image: PR Times
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