Exactly. I understand that preorder culture can be bad, but look who's offering it. This is a company that provides full mod kit support, expansions instead of chintzy DLC, and literally hundreds of hours in their base games. Everyone is free to wait and buy afterwards anyway. I've a hard time understanding the skepticism here. This isn't Activision we're talking about.

Bethesda is not "lazy" or "greedy" and I think it is ignorant to claim they are.

Wanting to make a profit is not the same thing as "greed." And I don't even know how any intelligent person could possibly claim that Bethesda is "lazy." They are one of the least lazy developers I know of. They spend a massive amount of time and energy re-inventing each game they create. If they were truly "lazy" they would just mindlessly pump out one identical game after another every twelve months.

We may not agree with the direction Bethesda has taken over the years (I know I don't) but that does not mean they are "greedy" or "lazy."

I don't know about greedy, but yeah, they're extremely lazy. At home, they stay up half the night playing video games. They come to work tired, and doze until lunch time. Then they grab some chow and stuff themselves until they're drowsy. After that, they just snooze and snooze until it's time to go home. You know who does their work for them? Elves, that's who. Bethesda is usually careful to leave treats out for the elves, but sometimes they forget, or just eat all of the treats themselves, and the angry elves put some bugs into the game to get even. Shameful, that's what it is. Shameful.

Sign of the times. Everybody's got to become greedy just to survive. So Beth like all the others, but, they are certainly not lazy.

Lol, OP, the way things are going nowadays I'll be happy if there's still a freaking pc retail version of a video game instead of a stupid ass Steam key inside the box like Metal Gear Solid V and Mad Max. But seriously, and frankly, it is actually us, the gamers, who are more to blame than the companies for this issue. If there were more people complaining, or better yet, not buying games because of the lack of physical niceties inside a box, then companies would definitely pay more attention and would start bending more to the consumer's will. But since many people are increasingly opting for digital downloads for whatever reason, companies no longer have the incentive to produce the high cost of physical content - for pc at least. And companies are not stupid as to lower the price if people are still buying the freaking games without manuals, maps, etc., at $60 without a flinch.

The way I see things, for pc users, the physical retail version of games(with maps, manuals, stickers, tokens, etc) will be something of a bygone era. It is the people who often dictate the fashions, the tastes. Companies just deliver what people want.

Hmmm let me think. Daggerfall from the mid 90s was so buggy it was almost unplayable. Every Bethesda game from Morrowind up to now has been very playable and a lot more user friendly. As much as I loved Daggerfall, the quality of their games has only gotten better.

To me that does not sound lazy and greedy. Well if greedy is making awesome games that sell a bijillion copies, then yeah, maybe they are greedy.