» Thu Dec 15, 2011 12:25 am
This isn't the first thread about this today, but something just struck me...
Skyrim has sold phenomenally well. According to what I found on a five second search, Bethesda shipped 7 million units and, something that by now most everyone around here is aware of, they sold 3.4 million in the first two days. Sales figures are what determine things like Gold and Platinum editions.
Skyrim has also got phenomenally good reviews and is well and truly in the running for Game of the Year.
It isn't unusual these days to see some DLC as little as a few weeks after release (in fact, I can think of one title that had DLC within a few days of release).
Games always drop in price before a new edition is released.
It is not beyond the realms of possibility that Bethesda has planned for the accolades and sales figures and will release a Game of the Year/Platinum Edition that includes the first DLC just in time for Christmas.
I'm not saying that this is going to happen, just that it could happen. Given that best-sellers almost always stay at, or near, release price for a long time (and when I say long time I mean it... The Sims 3 is still $90 several years after release and Diablo II is still $40 more than a decade after release) something is going on. At the very least, they can easily ship copies with new box art now that they have got 10/10 from just about every reviewer.
The idea that people are returning the game in droves is ludicrous. There has never been a game released that was perfect out of the box and didn't need patching, let alone something of this scale released simultaneously on three platforms. The whining on these forums is a minority.