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[MonkeyClaw36]

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

No they're not. You just got served. Eneba is a respectable site where i buy PSN KEYS all the time.

Maybe in the future do some research before engaging your keyboard. You just made an ass out of yourself.

 

[StueyDuck]

I

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?

It's been like this for many years now, so long that I can't even tell you what the catalyst was anymore.

I remember years and years ago picking up things in collections for like the equivalent of $2.

I will say though if you are a VR user the steam sale makes already cheap games even cheaper which is great for me

 

[NeoIkaruGAF]

Still waiting for Cave Story to drop below €10.
Nintendo games ain’t nothing on a fucking indie game from the early 2000s.

 

[64bitmodels]

Still waiting for Cave Story to drop below €10.
Nintendo games ain’t nothing on a fucking indie game from the early 2000s.

Lol what???
Cave story has been free since its original release. Unless you're buying that switch version (which is kind of a ripoff) the game is free on https://www.cavestory.org/

 

[cireza]

Can't say I have been impressed.

I recommend PSPrices to have alerts on good deals for digital games. Older games can get very good discounts. You simply mustn't be in a hurry and accept to buy games that can be 2/3 or more years old.

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

I hate everything about what you just said.

That doesn't make it untrue though lol.

 

[Gandih42]

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



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

I'd add to this the narrative surrounding game prices. Justifying higher prices with growing development costs and inflation only makes sense in a vacuum. You have giant publishers consistently boasting record profits, so clearly it is not that they cannot make money off games (and I would also argue that they could choose to make games with smaller budgets, if they so desired). I feel like egregious monetisation is justified in the same way, be it full blown microtransactions in full priced games, shit like "paid" early access, or ridiculous special editions.

I think this justification only makes sense in a world where the pay disparity between executives and the people actually making the videogames is not so egregious. I would much rather pay more for shittier games, if they were made by people who were working under good conditions.

In that sense, I think there is something admirable about Nintendos approach to pricing. I do not know how well their success actually benefits the employees, but at the very least the stable price of their games reflect a paradigm of; games costs something to make and that should be reflected in the initial asking price. Not through underhanded and manipulative monetization or reckless increases in scope and budget. I think your description of game "devaluation" is very well put.

(PS, I am aware that Nintendo are as guilty of bullshit as the rest, this is just one way I see value in games not rapidly being devaluated through sales etc.)

 

[kiphalfton]

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

Why would I do that, when I'm literally backing up what my original comment said.

Not my fault you can't read.

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.

 

[kruis]

Where? Trying to find some good eu shipping stores.

Forspoken Amazon.co.UK (11.51 euro is the Black Friday price, you can still select the discounted price in the price column to the right)

Callisto Protocol - 5 euro Mediamarkt.nl

 

[Nitty_Grimes]

WOW!!

 

[Klosshufvud]

I'd add to this the narrative surrounding game prices. Justifying higher prices with growing development costs and inflation only makes sense in a vacuum. You have giant publishers consistently boasting record profits, so clearly it is not that they cannot make money off games (and I would also argue that they could choose to make games with smaller budgets, if they so desired). I feel like egregious monetisation is justified in the same way, be it full blown microtransactions in full priced games, shit like "paid" early access, or ridiculous special editions.

I think this justification only makes sense in a world where the pay disparity between executives and the people actually making the videogames is not so egregious. I would much rather pay more for shittier games, if they were made by people who were working under good conditions.

In that sense, I think there is something admirable about Nintendos approach to pricing. I do not know how well their success actually benefits the employees, but at the very least the stable price of their games reflect a paradigm of; games costs something to make and that should be reflected in the initial asking price. Not through underhanded and manipulative monetization or reckless increases in scope and budget. I think your description of game "devaluation" is very well put.

(PS, I am aware that Nintendo are as guilty of bullshit as the rest, this is just one way I see value in games not rapidly being devaluated through sales etc.)

Big publishers used their mouth pieces on us to portray themselves as victims. The ones whining the most (Ubisoft, Activision, Take Two, EA) were the ones reaping record profits as they aggressively and consciously removed the smaller players from the field. We were made fools to take pity on them as they grew richer and more arrogant. Now the AAA space is more homogenous than ever before. They see no reasons to take risks when the same recycled shit is a guaranteed 10+ million seller with some shrewd marketing. I feel like we're still paying the price for the sins of 7th gen. I look at the pricing of recent games and even as a full time worker earning above average, I feel like I'm being scammed off my feet. Inflation is no justification for this shit when their employees are guaranteed just as lousy paid as ever.