Valve invented the 'Game of the Year Edition' marketing strategy, former exec reveals

Almost regardless of accolades, it's extremely common for games to ship Game of the Year editions these days. It turns out, according to a former executive, Valve originally pioneered the strategy - leveraging Half Life's critical success to boost lagging unit sales.

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Credit: Ubisoft

As reported by PCGamer, Monica Harrington, one of the founding members of Valve, and former Chief Marketing Officer, gave a talk at GDC diving into the brand's history. Looking back at the late 1990s, the company was facing challenges with moving copies of Half-Life. During a period where critical reception was strong but sales started to slow, the team needed a fresh angle to push the game further.

According to Harrington, adding a "Game of the Year" sticker and updating the box art had a huge impact on the game's sellability. The original release featured a plain orange cover with just the Half-Life title and logo. But with the awards Half-Life had earned by then, the "Game of the Year" label was a legitimate claim. Pairing that with new artwork featuring protagonist Gordon Freeman helped turn the game into a major commercial success, ultimately selling over 9 million copies over the next decade.

When interviewed, Harrington provided more insights into the challenges of standing out - particularly in the highly saturated game market in 2025.

"[Now] there's tens of thousands of games released each year, there may well be more than that, but it's really hard to get people to pay attention." she told PCGamer.

While game markets, and distribution have changed over the last two decades, it doesn't look like the Game of the Year label is going away any time soon.

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