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[Klosshufvud]

I'm making this thread to ventilate a little. Steam has a supposed autumn sale now. I see what's on sale, the same several-years old games having price reductions from a ridiculous $60 tag to a more plausible $40 tag. And this is the price after the sale. All this sale culture has resulted in games basically never organically dropping in price. Instead they're all kept at their $60 price no matter how old and you're supposed to catch them at their actual worth when there is a sale. Of course, this is all psychological marketing. A purchase seems more worthwhile to us if we buy it on "sale" because it gives us the impression that we made a good deal. This trick has become the standard practice in video games. Basically don't even bother buying a game unless it's on "sale". Otherwise you're just getting scammed.

It seems like in general, game industry is moving away from traditional price drops. Neither PS5, SeX or Switch are having any price drops. Instead you're supposed to buy them on "sale" when there is a $50-100 price reduction. All to create a false sense of value that is being sold to you for less than its actual value. Older consoles dropped in price after just a year or two on the market. But now that's gone too. The sale culture has infected the hardware side aswell and we're gullible and buy into their schemes. Putting items on "sale" increases the likelihood of making an impulse purchase. That's what they want us to do. To make ill-informed purchases because our flawed brain is telling us there is a massive reward to be had on a limited deal. Am I alone in thinking this is insanity?

 

[BennyBlanco]

I very rarely buy games directly through steam anymore. The only time I really do it is if Im buying something day 1 Im unsure about, so that I can refund it if I feel like it.

And sale prices vary wildly between publishers. Activision and Nintendo games you might as well buy them day 1 for full price because youre gonna be a waiting a long time for a good deal. Namco and Ubisoft games drop like rocks.

 

[LectureMaster]

The sales are still decent. Check out the BF mega thread. Target even had PS5 for $350 on Fridays.

 

[DGrayson]

Yes most of the sales are bunk.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

I hate Squeenix because of this.

 

[ShadyAcshuns]

Truth be told they all see us as idiots to target and get rich off of, and we're more than willing to oblige.

 

[64bitmodels]

Yeah I can agree. Older games that go on sale should just stay at those sale prices. Games like black ops in the year 2023 have no right being 40 dollars.

Newer games have every right to be sold at full price, but we should also reduce the cost of "full price" since everybody knows that 70 dollars (60 arguably) is the bigger scam, here.

 

[JayK47]

It is the fault of going digital. In the past when a game actually took up physical space, it would drop in price to make room for the next game. With digital games, there is no motivation to lower the price. Some games still do lower the price, but I am noticing it less and less and seeing more and more games that are 4+ years old still clinging to the full retail price as if it just came out. So now the sales, at best, bring a game down to what it should be, as you have said.

 

[ADiTAR]

It's an expansive hobby, but lemme tell you, a lot of hobbies are expensive: Oil painting, tufting, glass blowing, etc.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

I hate Squeenix because of this.

There's many JP publishers doing this, and the most egregious I can think of is NIS America as the games they publish rarely go on sale (at least the physical ones).

Oh and Koei Tecmo.

 

[March Climber]

To add onto the OP, does anyone know of a website or app tracker that can help tell you if "this is currently the lowest price the game has been sold for since release" ...?

That way people can actually save their money and not end up buying a 49.99 game that was supposed to be 34.99 or below, but was instead marked up then slashed down to appear like a sale.

 

[Labadal]

For Steam, if you don't use Augmented Steam, and isthereanydeal.com, you're doing it wrong.

 

[Chastten]

Gaming is one of the cheapest hobbies on the planet and sales don't really matter to me. That being said, there's plenty of cheap stuff going around. I got tons of dirt cheap humble bundles from BandaiNamco, Sega, Capcom, Warner Bros, etc.

Also, living in Europe, gaming in the 90's was expensive as all hell so I won't complain about games being €60/70 in 2023. Counting for inflation, that's anywhere from 50 to 80% cheaper than back then.

 

[Kilau]

 

[dcx4610]

I miss the days of 85% off on Steam but truth to be told, games are expensive to make and the money has to be split a lot of different ways. You also have to blame digital. Now that digital is the majority, there's no incentive to lower prices below a certain price. You either buy it or you don't. You have no alternative.

 

[analog_future]

Not directly related, but I will never understand those that refuse to buy a console on launch day because "they're waiting for a price drop"... Like, you're really willing to wait 3 years to play new games so that you can save $50 on a $500 console?


There's literally zero reason to wait to buy new hardware when it launches nowadays. Particularly now that backwards compatibility is a thing.

 

[ADiTAR]

To add onto the OP, does anyone know of a website or app tracker that can help tell you if "this is currently the lowest price the game has been sold for since release" ...?

That way people can actually save their money and not end up buying a 49.99 game that was supposed to be 34.99 or below, but was instead marked up then slashed down to appear like a sale.

dekudeals.com

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

There's many JP publishers doing this, and the most egregious I can think of is NIS America as the games they publish rarely go on sale (at least the physical ones).

Oh and Koei Tecmo.

You know the rule: post the waifu, name the waifu

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

You know the rule: post the waifu, name the waifu

Not joking but the name of the anime is 'Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks'. The one in the gif is Wise.

 

[Griffon]

The first Steam sales made PC pirates into loyal customers.
Before that, the PC market was junk and a lot of publishers were calling the PC a dead platform.


You could be of the opinion that if a game sells well at it's sale price, then why not have a lower price to begin with and keep it forever, right?
Sadly the answer is that consumers are dumb and will only buy shit when there's a -50% tag on it. Just look at the "deals" we get during black friday that are complete made-up bollocks.

 

[SlimeGooGoo]

Not joking but the name of the anime is 'Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks'. The one in the gif is Wise.

Now you know some very peculiar animes don't you.

 

[SmokedMeat]

To me the “real” price of a game is the standard sale price we see all of the time.

The true sale price is whatever I see that’s lower than the usual sale price.

If you’re following games you’re interested in, you’ll know a good deal when you see it.

For example Turbo Overkill is $13.99 for me because I own Prodeus in the bundle. That’s a great deal.

Likewise Wanted Dead is $19.99, which is the lowest I’ve seen. Previous sales it was $29.99 and maybe $23.99.

Like any product you have to know what the good deals are. Most of the time they’re on Greenmangaming or CDkeys.

 

[K' Dash]

Only game I want right now is Jedi Survivor and it’s $40, fuck that noise.

 

[SHA]

Just play older games, dealing with newer games constantly is messy and brings headache, don't rush through them, and even if you bought them early, there's higher chance you'll burn yourself out, it's not worth it.

 

[kiphalfton]

Well, that's the way she goes when you only have really only one avenue to buy a game (i.e. digitally).

And unlike on PC, you don't have 10 different store front (steam, Uplay, gog, etc.) to buy a game on, so there's even less competition and incentive to drop game prices THAT much on console.

Yeah you can still buy console game keys on cdkeys or whatever, but even then it's not that good of a deal most the time.

It's only going to get worse as physical games become more difficult to come by.

 

[semiconscious]

you're right, op: traditional price drops are, indeed, dead. 2 1/2 years later, ratchet & clank: rift apart is still day 1 full price on the playstation store. digital download & console game streaming services have both ended up greatly expediting this new normal (remember when only nintendo used to do this?)...

 

[violence]

I think I paid $80 For Shadows of the Empire back in 1996. Games are still cheaper than that.

 

[kruis]

I can pick up the physical PS5 versions of Forspoken and Callisto Protocol for bargain bin prices at the moment: 12 euro and 5 euro respectively.

If I want to buy the same games on the Playstation Store I'd have to pay 32 euro for Forspoken and 25 euro for CP. The same games are 30 and 20 euro on digital PC stores. Can't even get lower prices on key stores.

 

[DaGwaphics]

So true.

OP, I hear you, I typically don't buy games for more than $20 or $30, I often have to wait a long time now. On the PC side it works for me though because I ride the slow end of the technology curve there, by the time I'm ready the prices are generally down. LOL

 

[kiphalfton]

I can pick up the physical PS5 versions of Forspoken and Callisto Protocol for bargain bin prices at the moment: 12 euro and 5 euro respectively.

If I want to buy the same games on the Playstation Store I'd have to pay 32 euro for Forspoken and 25 euro for CP. The same games are 30 and 20 euro on digital PC stores. Can't even get lower prices on key stores.

Why did you mention the two most critically panned games this generation to make your point?

 

[Arsic]

Not joking but the name of the anime is 'Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks'. The one in the gif is Wise.

I hate everything about what you just said.

 

[Shifty1897]

Games are cheaper than they have ever been. Unsustainably so.

 

[Flutta]

Everytime i see those ”sales” i’m like who are you trying to fool here.

90% of the time i end up not buying anything because i feel i’m getting scammed, when that happens my guard goes up

 

[NickFire]

Not directly related, but I will never understand those that refuse to buy a console on launch day because "they're waiting for a price drop"... Like, you're really willing to wait 3 years to play new games so that you can save $50 on a $500 console?


There's literally zero reason to wait to buy new hardware when it launches nowadays. Particularly now that backwards compatibility is a thing.

I completely agree with you for myself. But I can understand people not as into games waiting. after a couple years you can save a few bucks on console and there should be a bunch of games to get fairly cheap with it. can definitely save over a hundred if not hundreds if you buy console and a handful of games on Black Friday year 3 compared to launch day for everything.

 

[ReBurn]

Games are cheaper than they have ever been. Unsustainably so.

Games also tend to sell more copies now than they did in the past. Higher volume can make lower prices sustainable.

 

[adamsapple]

Minus the deal on the Xbox Expansion, nothing good this year for me at all.

 

[Portugeezer]

Yeah, most games on sale are just the price they should be after being.

Bought Talos Principle 2 new game at regular price instead.

 

[K' Dash]

Well, that's the way she goes when you only have really only one avenue to buy a game (i.e. digitally).

And unlike on PC, you don't have 10 different store front (steam, Uplay, gog, etc.) to buy a game on, so there's even less competition and incentive to drop game prices THAT much on console.

Yeah you can still buy console game keys on cdkeys or whatever, but even then it's not that good of a deal most the time.

It's only going to get worse as physical games become more difficult to come by.

You can’t even buy game Keys for PS5.

It cracks me up that people are foaming at the mouth for MS to retire from gaming so we have even less options to buy from.

 

[kiphalfton]

You can’t even buy game Keys for PS5.

It cracks me up that people are foaming at the mouth for MS to retire from gaming so we have even less options to buy from.

Lol at you being so sure of yourself.

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[Yerd]

To add onto the OP, does anyone know of a website or app tracker that can help tell you if "this is currently the lowest price the game has been sold for since release" ...?

That way people can actually save their money and not end up buying a 49.99 game that was supposed to be 34.99 or below, but was instead marked up then slashed down to appear like a sale.

www.isthereanydeal.com

This is another handy site:
www.cheapshark.com

 

[Fbh]

There's no real reason why games need to get increasingly cheaper over a short period of time. The only "devaluation" in a digital product is the existence of new games becoming available for the same price and potential buyers might think "if I'm going to spend $70 on a game I'd rather get a brand new one vs a 2 years old one". If, say, Elden Ring was worth $60 when it came out there's no real reason it's no longer worth $60 right now other than the fact that you can buy newer (though not necessarily better) games for the same price.

The whole idea that a 6 month old game isn't worth $60-70 just comes from the way most games used to be sold and valued. But if you look at companies like Nintendo they have long since left the sale mentality behind and many of their games remain at full price for years, and they are still very successful and often continue to sell for many months/years after launch. Even some third party multiplatform games like Factorio have historically never gone on sale.

Not to mention if you account for inflation games are cheaper than they have ever been right now, even with the $10 increase this gen

So I don't think the full $60-70 price is a "scam" and neither are the sales.
The Steam sale isn't THAT bad: 40% off Hogwarts, 20% off Starfield and Lies of P, 40% off Jedi Survivor, 34% off RE4R, etc. It's not the half price stuff we did get some years ago but these are still real and valid discounts on some of the biggest games released in the last year. If you refuse to buy a game unless it's 85% off from an already reduced MSRP then maybe you aren't that interested in it anyway, and I can't blame companies for not focusing on customers like you very much.


That said physical media on console still offers the best deals as stuff like storage space and handling push retails towards more aggressive sales tactics, on top of there being way more vendors to choose from. Which is a big reason why I dislike the push towards digital only

Lol at you being so sure of yourself.

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Aren't those just keys from bundles and stuff like that.
I guess they still count but the selection of games being sold way is going to be VERY limited

 

[poppabk]

It is the fault of going digital. In the past when a game actually took up physical space, it would drop in price to make room for the next game. With digital games, there is no motivation to lower the price. Some games still do lower the price, but I am noticing it less and less and seeing more and more games that are 4+ years old still clinging to the full retail price as if it just came out. So now the sales, at best, bring a game down to what it should be, as you have said.

Except Nintendo are the least digital of anyone and Nintendo games are the last to go on sale.

 

[Happosai]

Yes most of the sales are bunk.

I agree to a point. Then again, I can't remember paying less than $50 on any new game in the past 25-years. I guess I got used to getting ripped and sales are usually rendered in 5-years anyway. At least we aren't see 'greatest hits' collections anymore...I hope.

 

[Loomy]

1. Welcome to the real world! Happy to have you
2. This isn't unique to games. Also, everything is expensive right now. Some things are expensive to produce, but sell for less that they should because the current cost is what the market will bear right now.

 

[K' Dash]

Lol at you being so sure of yourself.

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Show me the keys on a reputable site, those are bundle keys on a shady as fuck random page.

 

[kruis]

www.isthereanydeal.com

This is another handy site:
www.cheapshark.com

Game deals - Find PC games on sale - GG.deals

Compare prices of video games from over 40 stores, find the best game deals online. CD Keys for all PC games on the market at the best price!

gg.deals

 

[drotahorror]

To add onto the OP, does anyone know of a website or app tracker that can help tell you if "this is currently the lowest price the game has been sold for since release" ...?

PC

Game deals - Find video games on sale - GG.deals

Compare prices of video games from almost 60 stores, find the best game deals online. CD keys for all PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch and PC games on the market at the best price!

gg.deals

Best site for it imo. It tracks historical lows for key sites and legit sellers as well. You can add your steam wishlist or make your own wishlist on their site. You can remove keysites or legit stores via filter if you don't like buying from certain stores, example I have epic game store, and almost every 3rd party key seller except cdkeys blocked.

You can also set up an email alert system (that actually works). Say you don't want to buy a game until it hits $20, you can setup a custom alert for that and it will email you when/if that game ever goes to $20 or below.

PS4/PS5

Track game discounts

Free notifications about the prices of games. We automatically monitor 6 platforms in 58 🌎 countries.

psprices.com

XB

Xbox Games Price Tracker — XB Deals in the official USA Microsoft Store

Subscribe and receive instant notifications when game in your watchlist becomes cheaper. Best price guaranteed! Try today - it's FREE!

xbdeals.net

Both of those sites are similar to gg.deals but honestly they suck in comparison.

 

[RickSanchez]

For us plebs in poorer countries which have either very little consideration for regional pricing (or none at all now like Argentina and Turkey), games at full price cost two full days of salary. And i'm talking about the salary of an educated white-collar corporate worker making a livable amount of money. So yea, for us atleast, games are ridiculously overpriced at launch, and sales only serve to bring the prices down to where they should be in the first place.

 

[Kindela]

I can pick up the physical PS5 versions of Forspoken and Callisto Protocol for bargain bin prices at the moment: 12 euro and 5 euro respectively.

Where? Trying to find some good eu shipping stores.

 

[Sleepwalker]

I only buy games on steam because I can pay in my country of birth currency while living in Canada. I check canada prices from time to time and they are mostly awful plus have horrible tax on top lol