Game of the Year – Preserving Games in the Seventh Generation of Consoles

With the seventh generation of games, we saw the software life cycle of video games greatly extended. Products were no longer just released; they also had their own expanded lifespan of updates, patches, and downloadable content (DLC). With all of this data being spread out, it became evident that some or all of this content could disappear one day. For example, if a digital storefront stopped functioning or otherwise granting access to content, then a game could be left unfinished with regards to DLC. Worse, it could be left in a broken state without access to needed patches. However, some companies decided to create updated versions of their games to include all DLC and even a patched version of the game on disc. The phrase “Game of the Year (GOTY) Edition” has become synonymous with this phenomenon. Many of these updated versions can play out of the box or with minimal patch updates. These versions of these games help to preserve their content much better since they contain the complete experience of the games. In this article, I will use GOTY to denote these versions of games.

The GOTY editions help to preserve games the most if they contain all of the data on the disc itself. This is most applicable to the PlayStation 3 (PS3) for the seventh generation. While the Xbox 360 (X360) and the PS3 had similar playing environments, one key difference set them apart: the types of discs they used. For the X360, DVDs were used to store data, whereas the PS3 used Blu-Ray discs. The PS3 had the distinct advantage here because Blu-Ray discs could store much more data than a DVD, by many folds, up to over five times more data (Sony – https://www.sony.com/electronics/support/articles/00029645) depending on the type of DVD. This gave Sony a chance to store more game data on a disc than Microsoft could. As such, PS3 GOTY discs usually come with the extra data on them. In the X360’s defense, very few games had a large file size, as the average file size in this era was around 3-7 GB. Lost Odyssey is an obvious exception at 21.7 GB in total, which had to be split across 4 discs. Games released on Sony’s platform could enjoy up to 50 GB of space with a dual-layer Blu-Ray disc (Sony). Games on the platform were often very large, with AAA publishers that worked almost exclusively with the system.

Let’s take a look at some notable examples between the two consoles. Resident Evil 5 Gold Edition had different content on the disc between the X360 and PS3 versions. The X360 version only contained the base game, along with a card to download the DLC, whereas the PS3 version had both the game and all of its DLC on the disc itself, which made it more convenient for players. A resold version of the PS3 version of the game was a complete version, but a resold version of the X360 version was only the base version of Resident Evil 5, as a redeemed code card could only be used once, rendering that version incomplete. However, this was not the case for every game. Both the X360 and PS3 versions of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Legendary Edition came with all of the DLC in a physical format. The PS3 version came with everything on the disc, while the X360 version came with separate discs for the base game and the DLC. This meant that the DLC was accessible as long as the disc was intact. This was also good for players where the internet was spotty or downloads from the respective game storefronts could take a long time.

While the execution of GOTY editions was not universal, they were created in response to the seventh generation’s unique problems, particularly the internet becoming much more integrated with the gaming experience. As well as this, it also addressed a need with DLC and allowed players to have access to all of a game’s content from the moment they purchase the game. This created a good solution to long-term preservation concerns for this generation and beyond, as this cycle of games saw the creation of new issues related to preservation. As such, the bundling of games with their DLC and patches is not only a pro-consumer move but also a good solution for keeping games accessible in their entirety for a long time.