If Destiny isn't for you, that's ok. We understand.

Let's be honest, GOTY awards are never a consensus vote but rather a good choice that offends no one. It would be hard to argue that the changes Bungie has made to Destiny are praiseworthy considering these "quality of life" things should have been there from the beginning. It is a completely fair statement that Activision and Bungie seem to care little about what the average player will pay to enjoy a game marketed as having an epic story and social elements, especially considering how little story is presented to the player in the game.

This makes the following subjective statement stand on nothing more than emotions and unsubstantial evidence; Destiny is my game of the year!

Destiny is not a game for a lot of people! I was shocked when I heard members on message boards and game journalists slam Bungie for putting out those live action trailers a while ago that seemed to not be epic and grandiose. The "does anyone speak space turtle" line was pointed out as "not being in character with what Bungie has marketed this story as". But I was not into Destiny at all until that ad. To have a game for my PS4 that I could potentially be in fireteams and chat with friends about random things and "OMG! HIVE! SHOOT IT DEAD!!!...by the way Cyndi and I are going to Sacramento for the weekend," was exactly what I wanted. The Alpha was further proof that this game was how I will choose to spend my time. I felt that the Cosmodrome and the Moon were the only areas in the game and that nothing else was finished...and I was ok with that. Did Activision market the game as the second coming of game stories, yes they did. Did I care about the story, not at all.

Since when did a community of players care about story in a first person shooter? I know people who play MMOs and skip the story quests entirely, yet people expect an FPS to have an epic story? I remember little of Halo's story and even then it took Bungie until Halo Reach to actually tell an okay story. What were people expecting?

If anything, Destiny is a lesson in how mismanaged expectations corrupted the idea of what the game was in the minds of many people. Destiny is Social Shooter and nothing else.

Social Shooter, what does that mean? It means that Destiny is a game for people who use their consoles as a means to talk to their friends and chat about their day and not really do anything serious. With that being said, what should a person expect from a social shooter? Light story telling that's not intrusive, weapon progression system that allows players to invest time and or money into the experience, and diverse gameplay mechanics that are also not complex. If that's what you are into, then go for it! If not, then I perfectly understand.

Destiny to me, is what Minecraft is to some people. I'll never understand the need to build things and not have an objective or not having zombies to invade my buildings or other players destroying all I hold dear. Destiny to me is like World of Warcraft to some people, I understand the need to get loot, level up, chat with friends, and go on group activities with strangers.

Destiny to me is...just Destiny.

In 2015 when we've had The Witcher 3 and Metal Gear Solid V, both absolutely stand out games in their genres and in all of video gaming, you think GOTY should go to what you effectively call a distraction built on top of a VOIP client?

When Bungie where selling us Destiny they where selling us a story driven online loot shooter. We got an online shooter with no story and no proper loot system. They didn't sell us just a social shooter

People have cared about story in FPS since before it, but if anything Half Life showed that shooters could be more than just "dumb fun" and people have absolutely cared about story in their FPS since then.

destiny was able to get away with it last year because of the lower amount of stand out games

it aint go no chance this year

I mean, Brad's top 10 will probably have Destiny and Dota 2 in the top 2 slots again, at least.

I think anyone who listened to that podcast knows the reason Destiny snuck onto the list last year but let's not tread that ground again!

By the sounds of it the Taken King is actually pretty cool so I wouldn't worry, Destiny will likely get some sort of award come GOTY time.

No the GB GOTY voting basically comes down to giving in to Brad (and maybe Austin this year) as he refuse to given in about some bullshit either Destiny, DOTA or some indie crap and then Jeff giving in due to time.

LOL I enjoyed this.

It wasn't a GoTY in 2014.

It will not be in 2015.

The game is not entirely without redeeming qualities, but overall it is an undeniable disappointment. TTK is closer to what the game should have been at launch, but it still isn't where it needs to be.

Isn't it enough that Destiny pushed Wolfenstein off last years list? It had its chance and it blew it, let's move on.

stop...stop.communication ends... stop.

It offended me that Brad strong-armed Destiny into #10 GOTY, particularly in the same year that Binding of Isaac: Rebirth came out.

Edit: after reading some of the other posts above, it seems I'm not alone. Yo Brad, maybe this GOTY-cast you let all your sacred cows get sacrificed.

Man I love the everliving crap out of Destiny. I like it a lot. More than I should. But GOTY material last year? Nope. This year? Nope. It's super fun and I love playing it, but it dropped the ball last year and it's time has passed. Maybe it can be up for something else, a DLC or expansion category, but not GOTY proper. And I am what I would call a Destiny super fan (I'm getting my Collector's Edition with Strange Coin today, woo hoo!) so it's not like I am just hating on the game for no good reason. I just think that it should have come out as a better package and this package can't "reset" that debate, at least imo.

I am pulling for Until Dawn. It's my dark horse candidate of the year so far. Plus we have to see what happens when all the other awesome games come out this year. I may even stop playing Destiny completely when Fallout 4 drops.

I love Brad's fillabustering skills, even if it doesn't always go in my favor (I still am bewildered he managed to get Skyrim over Saints Row). I would love to him try and make a case for Destiny again, it wouldn't actually happen, but I'd like to see it.

Boom

Lets look at this as objectively as i can. Destiny is a businessplan and not a game so it cant be GOTY.

Loved destiny when it came out

But NOPE!

I think it's clear he would choose MGSV over it.

Fallout 4 is going to come along in a couple months (!!!) too.

I'm afraid of Destiny. It is the video game embodiment of the 1%.

Unless Fallout 4 just fucking kills it, then giantbomb's top three for GOTY will be MGS 5, Witcher 3 and mario maker. But i support your enthusiasm for Destiny.

I think Taken King is great (so far) and I love Destiny. When it comes to GOTY, it isn't even close to Witcher or Phantom Pain. Don't forget about Fallout, too!

Destiny stands no chance, first off it wasn't released this year, instant exclusion. When I compare this against The Witcher 3, Fallout 4 (hopefully), MGS 5, Infinifactory, Rocket League, and a slew of other amazing games I can only think that the people playing Destiny only love it so much because they aren't playing anything else but Destiny. They're living in the same MMO bubble I was back when I played WoW where it was always my favorite game simply because the expansion fixed things that needed to be fixed.

I remember when Brad was a hero, championing Minerva's Den against unspeakable odds. Now he's turned to the dark side and is working against the sane people who were once so proud of him.

I own just the base game, if it wasn't for the Gamestop trade in deal I would have no choice but to spend $80 dollars to play this "2015" GOTY version when I bought the game within the last year.

The game is a pale ghost of what it should have been and the price to stay current on what is a rather shallow experience is just to high.

Destiny is a really, really satisfying shooter and a not-so-great everything else. Don't get me wrong, I've been playing it this week inbetween trying to wrap up Metal Gear, but I don't think that "Excellent venue for me to catch up on podcasts" is a point in its favor.

My thoughts exactly. I spent $70 on release for Destiny for about 6 hours of actual content and then another 30 repeating that content over and over again. Now they want us to spend another $80 on it to make the game what it should have been when we made the initial investment. In contrast we have games like The Witcher 3, MGSV, and soon Fallout 4. All games I've spent or will spend over 100 hours with and all I needed to pay was the base price. GOTY indeed.

GOTY? No.

Most Improved Console Exclusive MMO?

Tough call, but sure, i'll grant you that.

If they're going to pick a game from last year then I'd really hope it would be Talos Principle, that probably ended up being one of my favorite games and I didn't even start playing it until May of this year. I'll fully admit I haven't played the new Destiny expansion but it doesn't entirely feel like they made good on it by coming out with a piece of content that costs 2/3 of a full retail product.

Edit: Misread a bit, thought you meant the award that's basically 'best game from last year that got passed over'

Well then maybe they should've released Destiny this year and include all the released expansions in the base game rather than purposefully water down the content over a pre-planned 10 year lifespan in order to milk more money.

That was the exact same thing, everybody else disagreed with him but because he refuses to give in, they have to give it to him and move on.

Hey hey hey - nobody wants to recall how that GOTY sausage was made! The backroom politicking and threats that occur during those GB negotiations over GOTY need not be discussed.

It happened, now we just have to live with it. May God show mercy on Brad's soul.

I just hope more rabid Destiny fans like you see it that way. Cynical me thinks that The Taken King will be lauded as the seemingly inevitable success that fans knew they were playing the entire time... and critics just refused to see the potential that is finally being realized.

It worries me especially in the context of last year's cavalcade of games coming out unfinished/broken with pledges from publishers that the games would get better eventually so just buy it immediately on faith, and other sketchy history re-writing practices like Marvel Heroes changing its name to Marvel Heroes 2015, allowing them to eschew all of the bad press that game got on its original release.

I'm glad you and folks like you have had all the endless hours of fun you've had with Destiny, but others blindly rewarding the result of a game churning through carte blanche iteration limbo thanks to millions paying for piecemeal DLC sets a pretty dangerous precedent for AAA game development and the quality on release of games we're expected to buy.

No, that incident was Brad beaming as a shining warrior of justice.

I don't mind that Brad is willing to fight for the games he believes in, I just wish the fervor was around more important games and not the tenth game on the list.

For all its worth I have the feeling that Austin will be THE guy during the GOTY debates who is both persistent in defending games that he truly thinks deserve the title AND unwilling to give into emotional blackmail from other duders. I actually think he's proven time and time again that he can defend a position on a very rational and even academic level, which should be a nice contrast to the usual GOTY antics of Jeff nonchalantly dismissing games and Brad stubbornly defending them.

In your eyes maybe..

isn't there usually a category of this "games we played this year of last year game of the year" i couldn't remember the name, but you probably better off trying to sell it in that category than this years category.

@marz: 2015's 2014 Game of the Year.

Mario Maker and Metal Gear are running the show this year. Witcher 3 ain't no slouch either.

That said, I'm glad they seem to be fixing Destiny...but I'm still not going back to it.

No.

This, although it was my GOTY last year as well.

Also people need to let go of Destiny making top ten last year. Get over it. Hell if anything it was too low. Last year was super fucking weak. Mordor won GOTY. Let that sink in. In a year like this it would have been an afterthought.

Destiny is a highly addicting game but it's not GOTY.

@joshwent: Oh freak.