Would hope they'd release the day 2,531 of Fallout 3 and maybe the day 1,810 of Fallout: New Vegas first.

I'd wish! But hey. These publishers can't get that DRM is 1) a nuisance to customers, and 2) a failure to its real task.

That, and as long as the millions of rocks on Steam praise it to no ends, even when it has a very terrible customer support as well as decisions that sound terrible by itself (paid mods!), when will AAA gaming ever advance beyond the point of 'renting' games at a discount to actually 'owning' games?

Also, the rise of independent studios is continuing. So stop worrying about big legacy publishers. They'll run to release DRM-free themselves, when competition will completely push them to the curb.

I'm personally not a really big fan of indie studios. However, I see your point... if only some of those indies didn't release their games on just Steam...

Most AAA games are terrible so who cares.

On the contrary, practically all games that I find interesting these days come from independent and self funded studios, while legacy publishers just keep trotting out mass market garbage (mostly).

There are also some modern day publishers who aren't stuck in retarded DRM mentality, such as Devolver Digitial.

So I see things moving on two fronts. More modern publishers will be releasing DRM-free and more independent studios will be making games in general. So legacy publishers will be a minority anyway.

Any additional distributor is always profitable for the publisher.

They won't, because you're never going to convince the suits at the top with sanity and reason, they just don't believe in giving up the tiniest bit of control, and I bet even those who agreed to put their old games on GOG only did so because they don't have much to lose with those, while still firmly believing in DRM as a working tool to prevent "lost sales".

No, only complete idiots believe that DRM can increase sales. They just want to keep DRM for other reasons (none of which are good of course). Which means they value those reasons more than profits.

Being at the top of a business and being a complete idiot in some regards is not necessarily mutually exclusive, but you're probably right (which makes some of them hypocrites as well).

As answer to the question and based on the experience from the last releases: Hopefully never. For now it would be the risk that more principles of this platform would be broken - compared for example to the DRM in the multiplayer-mode in Grand Ages: Medieval.

While the layers of upper management I'm used to are not in the game & entertainment industry, I regret to inform you that you have to much confidence in corporate leadership. while the top suits are usually not idiots, they use very little of their time and energy to have views on operational issues. they have dreams. they have personal goals. Issues are for the others, and the layer under them is usually not going to expose failed ideas, the would rather conceal the reasons of failure.

Sad but true.

I suppose it's possible that they'd release 4 before 3 or NV, but I would probably die of shock. From any perspective I can think of, releasing 3 or NV first would make more sense. It's not like the FO games have multiplayer code that would make it Steam only.
Indeed, I had a boss that had to have had some sort of mental retardation or other mental affliction making it impossible for her to comprehend even simple things. And it got worse the further up the chain you went.

Never underestimate the ability of idiots to get promoted because they don't threaten their bosses job. Eventually when you near the top, it's mostly idiots that choose other idiots from a pool of idiots and depend upon government interference to keep gravy train rolling.