Rage had a single DLC, and Wolfenstein: the New Order didn't have any. If you define GOTY as the game plus DLC, then not much point for either of those. W:TNO did have a stand-alone expansion, so I could see the two games bundled together for another sales push ahead of any future Wolfenstein sequel. Brink has a Complete pack available on Steam. They couldn't really call it a GOTY since Brink didn't do particularly well, though.

dude, i was just in a town where thousands of people have virtually no internet. I have family there who play fo3 and nv. They would never be able to play dlc without disc versions. Most have only spotty cell coverage at best. There are towns like this all over the country.
I also know this because the company i worked for sells personal satellite dish style internet to these regions. This lack of cable and internet infrastructure is why dish tv got big enough to buy out blockbuster. There is a huge market for it- for those who can afford it. don't underestimate how many people don't live in cities, or that live in smaller cities that have no infrastructure.
A quick google search shows 2013 census data reflecting that about 20 to 30% of American households (depending on region) have no home (non cellular) internet. That's a pretty big piece of pie. I don't mean to sound rude, but if i were a publisher, i wouldn't want the logic of "eh, its only a small cross section" in regards to this coming from any marketers in my company, because we would lose money.

Sorry if it's inconvenient for the point you keep re iterating, but this is how it is.

This is the misconception you aren't seeing. You don't need to "get lots of Game of the Year awards thrown" to make a GotY edition or even a definitive edition. Look at Saints Row IV and Sleeping Dogs. I'd be surprised if either game received GotY awards (Saints Row may have), yet they still had definitive editions including a graphical upgrade as well as all the DLC released.

The point is it's a collaborative effort between the publisher and the developer. Look at BioWare as an example. They made a GotY edition with "Dragon Age Origins: Ultimate Edition." Yet, they never made a GotY edition for any of the Mass Effect games, which all won GotY awards. The closest thing we received was the Mass Effect Trilogy which didn't even include all the major DLCs. Every developer is different and the publisher approaches each studio differently.

That would be the Skyrim approach, but Fallout 3 was drastically different. It was several miniature DLCs that all came out frequently rather than longer periods of waiting as was the case with Skyrim. The fact that BGS is already expecting the first DLC to be out early 2016 suggests they may be going the Fallout 3 route.

I'm a PC gamer and largely only buy digitally now. Rarely do I purchase physical copies of anything, unless I'm buying a collector's edition. Again, I think it's important to note that Shadow of Mordor is a new franchise. I think it's more likely a new series could have a GotY edition. Whereas, most games don't offer such an edition now and either just have a season pass bundle or they might do a definitive edition improving the graphics and some gameplay aspects. 4A Games did this with Metro 2033 and Metro Last Light releasing a "Redux Edition" where they improved the visuals of 2033 to look like Last Light and added new game play mechanics to Last Light.

You're refusing to give proper context. You're claiming that the reason that Origins didn't get a Game of the Year edition is because it had a season pass. Unless you have official documentation to support this, you can't ignore other factors, such as the game's reception.

As for new franchises getting Game of the Year editions. Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Arkham City, Halo 4 (So to answer your question, 2012, the last time they released a main game in the series), Tomb Raider (the same one getting a "Definitive Edition"), Forza 5, Borderlands 2, Uncharted 3, Civilization 5, Gears of War 2, Bioshock Infinite... I think that's a good enough start on a list.

"Thousands of people" is not a lot when the entire population of the US is approximately 320 million to date. Corporations are going to invest in big cities and locations where there are millions of people that will need coverage. I was born and raised in Texas. I happened to live in Houston, which is the fourth largest city in the nation (soon it will be the third largest passing Chicago). I also travelled around Texas a lot and went through plenty of old country towns with a few thousand or a few hundred folks. While there may be plenty of small towns out there, their numbers still are dwarfed in comparison to the amount of Americans living near big cities or in suburbs outside those cities.

GotY editions made more sense when season passes didn't exist and specifically for new franchises that weren't established. With season pass bundles and many of these games being from iconic franchises, a GotY edition doesn't make a lot of sense these days.

It has already been established that BGS is one of the few that does GotY editions, so listing their games is silly. Even though New Vegas wasn't developed by BGS, Obsidian used their engine and game philosophy creating it. City came before season passes had really become a norm or were even around. Halo 4 is the start of a new trilogy and developed by a new studio that's not Bungie, so 343 making a GotY edition for what is really a new Halo franchise makes sense

Tomb Raider may as well be a new franchise as the Crystal Dynamics game revitalized what was otherwise a dead franchise. I don't believe Forza 5, Civilization 5, or Gears of War 2 had season passes, so they aren't relevant. I don't believe Uncharted 3 had a season pass either, and it's purely a Sony exclusive anyways. Really only Borderlands 2 and Bioshock Infinite seemed to offer a Season Pass as well as a GotY edition.

20 to 30% of US households, depending on the region have no home internet. Sorry, that's not a negligible percentage.

I think you're being too cut and dry about this. The Fallout 3 route was for Fallout 3, the Skyrim route was for Skyrim and Fallout 4 will undoubtedly have its own route. We're dealing with creative people and BSG strikes me as the kind of company that thrives trying new stuff, so I think they'll just make whatever they want whenever they want. It's already been mentioned somewhere (I forget where) that they will listen to their fans in regards to DLC development, so I'm confident it'll be good. They don't even know at this time how many DLC they'll release, so I think you probably have a stricter policy on BSG DLC than they do =)

It is negligible when those numbers are sporatically dispersed through remote areas and it's not cost efficient to build an infrastructure to bring those folks an adequate internet speed. The federal government is actually encouraging AT&T, Time Warner, and Comcast to expand their web of service to more deprived areas, but ultimately this is a business. If you happen to live in the middle of nowhere or in a area where there is not a lot of people, it's just not practical to believe you are going to get the same level of service someone might have in NYC or Los Angeles.

Why the infrastructure isn't there is moot. Ultimately, gamesas is a business and it isn't good business to effectively shut out roughly a quarter of your potential customer base. That's bad business, particularly when a disc bundle gets around that issue. Keep sticking to those guns, though.

They said they would listen to fans with regard to their updates and free additions of new features, not the DLC. BGS talked about this on Bethesda.net.

This is why announcing a season pass to me is troubling. They don't even know what they are going to develop. Why even say there is a season pass until you have a better grasp of what you'll develop? You can say all the content you make will encompass $40 of value and that the first DLC will come early 2016, but that is meaningless to me. Unless I have a sense of what you are actually making and how much, I'm paying for empty promises.

I have never bought a season pass without having some semblance of an idea of what I was investing in. All season passes give the buyer a general overview of what additional content they are buying. It's only fair that BGS follows suit and at least gives us that much.

Of course this assumes that all of these individuals who live in small towns or in the middle of nowhere are BGS fans, which in itself is rather comical. That's not to say BGS doesn't have fans in those areas (they obviously do), but again this is still a minority of the population we are talking about. Bad business is expanding your web too far and then realizing you aren't making enough money to justify the expansion. It happens in the comercial industry all the time and big corporations close down stores due to not making enough money. The same would happen to AT&T, Comcast, and Time Warner if they determined providing service to a few thousand people in the middle of nowhere wasn't providing the profit returns they anticipated.

Just to reiterate, im not talking about expanding the web. I am talking about the web being off the table for a quarter of the population (Which for some reason you seem to think couldn't possibly be BGS fans[ even potential fans]- one quarter of all people in the US for Pete's sake) and how Bethesda can profit despite that, by simpy (and it is simple) selling disc copies.

Based on this entire thread, here is how I would see this conversation going down in a marketing meeting.

You: "Initial launch and season pass sales are doing great, looks like we are done here!"
Pete Hines, "Yes, we are doing well, but 25% of the population can't access any DLC, and sales are a bit lower in some areas anyway, since marketing can't reach many of those people, due to the lack of internet"
You: "Ya, ATT and Comcast, those guys need to catch up! What are we onto next?"
Pete Hines, "Well, we need to implement a way for that 25% of the population to get our DLC, it grows the brand, and we sell some copies of the game in the process, bolstering our sales figures and profit margin."
You: "But it's only a quarter of the population."
Pete Hines: "I think we are going to move you to a different position in the company. It pays 25% less. But, no big deal, right?"

There is no reason to just declare that a quarter of the population should just be left with no way to play anything other than the base game, when it is stupid easy to ensure they can by selling GotY bundles.

You are a comical guy. This is somewhat off topic, but even physical distribution has its days numbered. Everything will eventually be digital. That's more or less the case with the PC platform. Consoles are slowly following. Microsoft tried to push it with X1 and got burned. Still, you can see X1 and PS4 pushing gamers to buy digitally more and less physical discs. At some point, physical copies won't exist and you'll need internet for everything. Publishers would also save A LOT of money not having to distribute to various retailers if all they have to do is give out keys to various digital distributers online. In fact, publishers actually make more money digitally than they do with physical copies.

In other words, Pete Hines would commend me for being forward-thinking and realizing where the industry is going and likely offer me a promotion. The guy who still thinks renting video games at Blockbuster or Hollywood Video is still a great idea would likely be "let go" due to money restraints with a "struggling economy." Again, even if 30% of households don't have quality internet, that does not mean BGS is missing out on almost a third of their sales. I seriously doubt most people living in remote or rural areas are BGS fans, let alone play a lot of video games.

First off sir, I can't name games or there companies if I never played them & only heard about goty announcements. Fyi if I use I don't think like that its my quick way of saying I don't know. if I remember correctly Arkham city had a season pass & then did a goty later. everything will disappear Dlc's & season passes on Psn, Xbox live etc. to make way for new stuff, Yeah this takes along time but it will happen.

In the future, we will all be flying in cars, and having lunch on the moon and.......
That's well and good, but we are not in the future yet.
So, no. Pete Hines wouldn't congratulate you on anything, because this is still in the hands of R&D branches of communications companies, (who may or may not be) trying to figure out how to make broadband internet access available to everyone at an affordable rate, in the most cost effective way.

-The product I was referencing earlier, ViaSat Exceed, is an early attempt at doing this, because let's face it. It costs communications companies a LOT to add physical infrastructure. ViaSat had at the time of launch, the highest capability commercial satellite in space, allowing for more commercial bandwidth than all other functioning satellites at the time combined. But even it has it's problem. It's hard for people who remote log for work do do a whole lot, and it can be pretty pricey. It's pretty top of the line. But it's a looooong way off from being internetopia. I've worked in Satcom most of my life, but don't take my word for it.


We are in the present, where 25% of the population can't get on the internet from their home.
Factoring for 25% of 123.2 million households in the US, Even if only 5% of that 25% of the total population bites, that's just over 1.5 million copies sold.
Multiply that by what, $20?

No, lets not make a few extra million -now- after printing and distribution is factored in by simply having a few planners set it up through the normal physical copy distribution channels; like we have done before, because in 20 years , everyone will be able to buy digitally. That's the logic you're saying you'd be commended for by the head of marketing, whose job it is to bring in as much money as possible.

And people in rural areas don't play a lot of video games? Because there is so much else to do, right?
You city folk....

You would be wrong then. Arkham City never had a season pass. Very few games in 2011 offered a season pass, if any. I don't know about consoles, but season passes don't disappear on PC.

Either way, Season Passes have become the norm and if Fallout 4 gets a bundle, I'm not expecting a GotY edition, especially since the bundle would get discounted anyways.

The internet in the US needs a lot of improvement before we hit that point, though.

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Personally, I buy all my Day 1/AAA PC games on disc. It's definitely how I'll be getting Fallout 4.

yeah, i'm not surprised I'm wrong lol, I couldn't remember it for sure because around then season passes started showing up more & more & now almost everyone does them. Yeah on console they'll take stuff off Psn & xbox live for newer stuff. they'll be on there for maybe 3 years then taken off.

Rage, Brink nor Wolfenstein weren't awarded "Game of the Year". And the sells of all three together were more than likely less than Fallout:3 or Skyrim alone.

There are over half a mil. in my state alone without adequate. Last I checked, 30% in the US did not have broadband internet. That is a rather large number to just shrug your shoulders to.

And, as mentioned elsewhere, there's only 4 DLC total across those three games (3 of them for Brink, which was the worst-received of those games). Not a lot of reason for a collected edition.

I agree. If one didn't buy the game originally, then being able to get $100+ of content for $40 (then $30, then $20) makes it more enticing. I probably never would have played Fallout 3 had I not picked up the GOTY edition for $20. Now it's my favorite franchise, I have bought it twice (repurchased on Steam just to avoid having to hunt the case to reinstall), I then bought New Vegas Ultimate Edition, and I will purchase Fallout 4 AND the season pass before it's released, at full price. By offering a GOTY edition, which costs Bethesda little extra, they pick up those outside the core genre, and tens of thousands of those sales will turn out like me. This is especially true for Bethesda because of their support of (and by) a very vibrant modding community, so the game you get with the GOTY edition is actually a much better game than the original, since few players will find a game's many necessary compromises to their own exact preferences. Only thing that might change is a move to digital only, to avoid packaging, shipping and stocking costs, depending on how many sales result through B&M channels.

As far as the pricing, I want Fallout 4 to be wildly profitable for Bethesda, not only because it maximizes the chance I will live to play Fallout 5 but also because when someone does something I really, really like, I want them well compensated in return. If it helps, think of the season pass as tipping with a return.

Not to derail the thread but it's actually around 13-15% as of 2015. The number is constantly shrinking, and with Google Fiber expansions and their proposed free wi-fi "project loon" plan, internet will be accessible for free by many people.

....isn't Google Fiber a city thing? I.e, places that already have access to broadband (just not cheap)? The biggest problem this country has with broadband rollout is all the widespread areas that aren't densely populated. Where the cable companies just say "not worth it to run wire all the way out there".

edit: Oh, and it's http://arstechnica.com/business/2015/01/google-fiber-confirmed-for-four-new-metro-areas-18-cities/ at the moment. Yes, it's a step towards improvement. But there's still a long way to go.

(There's also a difference between "has access to broadband" and decent access. A 3 download speed, with data caps and/or a high price, might count as "broadband" for some access polls, but it won't really work for the "all digital all the time!" concept that the HD/4K video streaming, cloud-everything, physical media is outdated, world that the content companies are trying to push.)

Personally I don't like it. Feels really greedy to me and I thought BGS was above that (at least as far as TES and FO games were concerned)(and no, I haven't forgotten Horse Armor, I just never bought it).

It tells me that BGS thinks FO4 will be too boring to keep me interested long enough to want to buy the expansions when they come out.

That some kind of DLC will be made, good or bad, just because they have an order to fill. But will they be worth $30? Will they be something I even want added to the game?

That it forces them to stop making DLC as soon as they feel like they put out $30 worth. If another great idea for an expansion comes up, they just drop the idea and move on to something else that they can charge for.

Bethesda is following the fad that is season passes. Looking at there dlcs for Skyrim compared to Fallout 3 Bethesda puts more effort into fallout then TES from what I've seen so you may not have to worry about dropped dlc ideas just because of a season pass. from the way I heard it they may go the killer instinct route & have a first, second & third group of dlc releases but instead of releasing characters they release expansions. ....or at least that's what I got out of there announcement.