Isn't the company that makes the game based in Bethesda?

What would be interesting is whether the "actual" game takes place in DC, or some fictional city...or a fictional city based off real cities like the GTA series. If it doesn't take place in DC then it would not only be a pretty false ad campaign but then you could also throw in the fear of nuclear holocaust complaint.

Meh. I like my postapocalyptic DC Logan's Run style, with lots of Jenny Agutter in a wet nightie and Peter Ustinov just making $h!t up and improvising.

And if Crystal City isn't the City of Domes, I don't know what is. Heck, Chinablock is full of "cubs" already. What more do you want?

oops forgot the 'K' in Rockville

I picked up my pre-ordered copy from the Columbia Heights Best Buy this morning on my way to work. My Vault Boy bobblehead is sitting at my desk right now. (Yes, I bought the Limited Edition. Yes, I am a really cool guy.)

While I was sitting on a bench at the Metro waiting for the train to arrive, I opened up the whole lunchbox container thing and started reading through the instruction manual. When the train arrived, I put all the stuff back into the bag--then noticed that the dude sitting right next to me was doing the exact same thing. We looked at each other's dorky Fallout 3 lunchbox, then at each other, and the dude was just like, "You too, huh?"

Greatly looking forward to making my way through a post-apocalyptic Washington D.C.--after the Caps game, of course.

is that supposed to be a future without height limits?

I'm still waiting for Will Smith and Jeff Goldblum to save us all from a hostile alien invasion. Oh wait ... was that a movie or a documentary?

Nothing can destroy the GW Masonic Temple Monument Phallus

It doesn't look like a post-attack DC as much as DC in 100 years if we all disappeared tomorrow.

i get it that it's an ad campaign. i get it that it's not real. but i also find the posters pretty disturbing, especially with the very real threats that are out there. it's not like we live in a city where nothing like that could possibly happen.

Hey, then take it as a reminder that we must be constantly vigilant for terrorists and their threats! Don't get lulled into a false sense of security just because we haven't been attacked in 7 years!

See it, say it.

Someday pop culture will get DC right. So far, Burn After Reading did the best job. I wanted to cheer when Brad Pitt refused to drink the tap water.

@majapa: i'm with onefemme. i think it just hits too close to home for me--literally, since my house is just outside of the edge of this particular poster. i'm not a screaming paranoid, and 9/11 didn't make me leave, even after losing people in the attack. but i think there's a certain amount of callousness inherent in this kind of campaign. i mean, the folks who did it might be in Rockville/Bethesda, but i'm not staring at their lovely buildings crumbling while waiting for the train. (not that i'm suggesting it--i work in one of those lovely buildings.)

i get it that it's an ad campaign. i get it that it's not real. but i also find the posters pretty disturbing, especially with the very real threats that are out there. it's not like we live in a city where nothing like that could possibly happen.

until you've watched a plane fly into a building not two miles from your bedroom, you can cry "it's just a poster for pete's sake" all you like, but there's no doubt whatsoever that they're disturbing, and possibly triggering for those who have a deeper connection of the physical destruction of their home-cities.

These ads don't remind me of that at all. Stop being so afraid.

If you are that disturbed by a video game ad, pack up your fragile sensibilities and move to a small town in Iowa. The real world is no place for you.

Klaatu barada nikto.

lame. those are the most awesomest posters i've ever seen. i love how people will sit there and not bat an eye at thousands of posters for defense contractors that are actually building weapons that are used to KILL PEOPLE and they get all up in arms about a damn VIDEO GAME. Reminds me of when all of the Melbournites got so freaked out when the adverts for Mad Max came out in the 70's. 'How can you depict this dystopian Australia? We don't need a daily reminder of how close Australia is to complete and utter post-apocolyptic ruin'. Oh wait, that never happened. Because it would be completely ridiculous if it did.

@forzee and registeringsucks: wow. i mean, just wow. you do know that many of the ads don't have anything but the crumbling city in them, right? who said they were afraid of the robots in a few of them? i mean, did i give you some impression that i'm running for the hills? the question was, do the ads go too far? so i think they do and you don't. awesome. glad we settled that.

jeez, calm down. you'd think i'd brought up bikes vs cars.

umm.. are these the same people that are unhappy with metro searching our bags randomly to keep possibly terrorists attacks out of metro stations?

With the London Tube attacks and other subway/train things planned in New York and other cities, why is this SO much different?

This reminds me of the time people started freaking out over that commercial that depicted Christopher Reeves getting out of his wheelchair and walking. People completely lost their $h!t over that one. But I guess when people's realities are so submerged in commercial product placements, it gets kinda hard to make distinctions between what's real and what's someone trying to sell you something. "Crap! That picture looks like DC's blown up! And I didn't get to check out that new small plate restaurant in Shaw! I hope the Sexy Safeway is okay. I could use a zuccini muffin. But I'll only eat the top because I'm on a diet. Does this outfit make me look fat? Be honest."

any chance one of the awesome flicker users out there can snap a comparison shot? for those of us not accustomed to hovering 300 ft in the air a few blocks northeast of the capitol building it might be pretty cool.

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/vault/diaries_diary6-10.14.08.html

good write up by developers on why they chose DC

These ads don't remind me of that at all. Stop being so afraid.

Stop it. You're scaring us. Please don't hurt me!

If anything, these ads don't go far enough. Where are the marauding maniacs with chainsaw guns?

Oh, snap. Wrong game.

This reminds me of the time people started freaking out over that commercial that depicted Christopher Reeves getting out of his wheelchair and walking

I didn't mind him getting up and walking, it was he started dancing with the vacuum cleaner that bugged me.

I'm still playing 'Oblivion: The Elders Scrolls V
Game of the Year Edition. The game never ends. The fun never ends. I don't have a girlfriend.

I actually did need a reminder of what post apocalyptic DC will look like.

Thanks!

forzee: amen, a couple of times over there.

@ megatron:

journalistic & memorial coverage are totally different to advertising a videogame. although, i am bothered when they insist upon showing footage of the attacks. its necessary.

& correct me if i'm wrong, but mars attacks and independence day came out long before 2001, so your argument doesn't hold water on that account.

onefemme: But the movies still show DC getting destroyed, so we shouldn't allow them to be shown anymore, right? Because delicate flowers such as yourself may be offended and/or scared.

People have to deal with things that remind them of traumatic events every day, from driving by the pentagon on their way to work in the morning to seeing the suit they wore to their mother's funeral hanging in the closet. That's no reason to call for something to be taken down from public display.

Reid: it's the idea of advertising military weapons systems that I find to be stupid. If a poster on Metro can affect a multi-million-dollar defense procurement process, our tax dollars are being wasted. If it can't, and instead the defense firms are spending their advertising budgets for no good reason... our tax dollars are being wasted. It's nice that Metro's getting a tiny piece of the defense pie, I suppose, but it hardly seems like an efficient way of disbursing funds.

In short, it's a waste of money or it ought to be a waste of money. Either way, I'd rather that the ads weren't there.

Also, regarding the cost/benefit of advertising -- I wouldn't put too much stock by those arguments even when it comes to selling widgets. When it comes to tracking contract wins? It's not as if they can look at their balance sheet and say "first-quarter missile guidance system sales are up 0.03% -- those ads in Gallery Place are really working!"

There's just no way to measure the marginal impact of an defense ad on Metro. They've got money and they're throwing it around -- and hey, bully for them. Just because it's happening doesn't prove that it's a wise decision, though.

"And Anzalone is certainly right to point out that defenses of the campaign on First Amendment grounds — like this one — are a bit silly."

Silly? what's silly is that all these "dcists" are willing to stand up for these buildings, but not what the buildings are based on:

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

All of you complainers are pathetic.

Samtallic: the courts have consistently differentiated between the access rights enjoyed by different types of speech, with commercial speech receiving less protection. From Ohralik v. Ohio State Bar Ass'n (thanks, Wikipedia!):

We have not discarded the "common-sense" distinction between speech proposing a commercial transaction, which occurs in an area traditionally subject to government regulation, and other varieties of speech. To require a parity of constitutional protection for commercial and noncommercial speech alike could invite dilution, simply by a leveling process, of the force of the Amendment's guarantee with respect to the latter kind of speech. Rather than subject the First Amendment to such a devitalization, we instead have afforded commercial speech a limited measure of protection, commensurate with its subordinate position in the scale of First Amendment values, while allowing modes of regulation that might be impermissible in the realm of noncommercial expression.

Your ability to advertise on Metro is not constitutionally guaranteed. I haven't been able to find the specific requirements on WMATA's website, but their online advertising policy, at least, requires that ads be "noncontroversial".

superquail
[golf clap]

I'm still thinking advertisements- any advertisements- plastered all over metro is tackier than grandma's rose pattern wall-paper.

14th&You: I'm sorry that you feel my responses are callous.

I feel strongly that people should be able to distinguish between fact and fiction, and think it's hypocritical to call for the removal of these posters when there is plenty of already media out in the world that depicts the destruction of DC, or a pandemic of massive proportions that wipes out most of the world's population, or a giant snake stalking and eating bad actors in the Amazonian rain forest.

Sure those things are scary, but we see a poster or watch a movie or read a book and know that they're fictional events. There's an infinitesimal chance that they could transpire, but no one really thinks they will.

I don't see why this particular fictional event is bunching so many more panties than any of the other stories we see advertised every day.

Cool! I love apocalyptic artwork. Famed space artist Chesley Bonestell made nice ones of Manhattan being destroyed (one by asteroid, another by several nuclear bombs).

One of my favorite DC-related ones was a poster showing a view in Virginia looking north on I-95 toward downtown with a nuclear mushroom cloud in the distance. It was a fine-art print that I saw in a shop in Georgetown some 30+ years ago. It as titled something about "corporate wars." I just tried to find it online, with no immediate success. It was on the front page of the Wash Post Style section way back when, and I cut it out and had it on my wall for years.

Time to check the Fallout website to see if those images are available for download. Desktop wallpaper!

IMGoph- I hear you. Any word on how much revenue is generated by ads? Any word on whether MD or VA will (can?) pay their share of this?:
www.news8.net/news/stories/1008/558230.html

I'm with RJ and mrfochs. What disturbs me about these ads is their complete lack of geographic integrity. It appears sometime prior to the apocalypse, Rosslyn moved downriver, maybe even into SW DC.

I lived here through 9/11. I know people who were killed in terrorist attacks around the world. I lived in London when it was actually being attacked by terrorists, but these ads don't bother me at all. Almost any place is a potential target for terrorists, hostile space aliens, and others. Why would a picture of any other city, real or imaginary, be any different? And if simply being reminded of an attack is cause for concern, we should eliminate all the monuments and memorials to them.

In any case, I am not willing to throw the First Amendment under the bus (train?) to eliminate these ads. While commercial speech does get less protection than some other types of speech, Metro cannot pick and choose which ads they like and which they don't. They can regulate time, place, and manner of speech, but once they open up the stations to advertisements, they have little control over specific ads. Personally, the ads for The Body exhibit a year or so ago made me squeamish, but that doesn't mean they should have been censored.

And if the graphics are as cool in the game as they are in the Metro, I just might buy it. My $50 won't fully offset their Metro ad campaign expenses, but it's effective advertising.

Video Game Nerd Alert:
Fallout 3 takes place in an alternate reality based on Washington DC, but not exactly the same, so I suppose the landmark arguments can be dismissed based on this premise.

As far as the ads on the metro go, I welcome the change. As stated before, the plethora of Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, and Boeing add, though possibly marginally effective, are not pertinent to those of use who are not considering a new joint tactical helicopter to fly to work in. In fact, I think the effectiveness of the Fallout 3 ads are much greater. As someone who does play video games, I had not considered the game until teased with the possibility of seeing if my home made it through the apocalypse. (Other aspects of the game have merit too)

Metro Center is a depressing enough stop (dark, dirty, run down, noisy) without these depressing ads all over the damn place. I feel like Winston Smith just waiting for my Victory gin and gritty chocolate and two minute hate when I'm at Metro Center as it is, and these ads ain't helping things.

Why not put up ads for Parappa the Rapper or Nintendogs or Hello Kitty Island of Adventure? Or at least the Halo 2 Solid Gold Elite Dancers. Something cheery like that shit.

Anything to make Metro Center more depressing. That place is way too upbeat! I remember well the charm of reading the headlines of an economic meltdown a few weeks ago, looking up and seeing the rumpled denizens standing beneath giant murals of their city destroyed while staring at their shoes. As the waves of black coats rides down the escalator, it is nice to see apocalypse depicted above. In a metro that already looks like the concrete and dim fluorescent ejaculation of some communist sci-fi writer, It was a cheery time. Ah, Dolce vida!

Like Capri in June.

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,23775429-2,00.html

Wrong link, my bad

If you look closely, you can see the traffic backed up on the Wilson Bridge.