It’s beyond insane to me that a $70 “AAAA” game (kidding, it’s AAA) dips down to the absurd price of $5. I’ve never seen anything like it. Wish the entire Sims 4 “collection” if you can call it that was $5 total, would be incredible, or Starfield.

  • @irotsoma
    link
    English
    232 hours ago

    Instead of lowering their prices over time and so sales are less significant of a percentage, they keep the original price indefinitely and just have lots of sales. This makes the percentage off much higher than if they had depreciated the regular price as it should. Pretty common these days.

    • @SkunkWorkz
      link
      English
      52 hours ago

      This also pleases the Steam Store algorithm god. A big spike will bump the game up in the charts, then the algo will serve it to more people in the store and more people will buy it. The more sales momentum a game has the more the algo will show it in the recommended sections.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    13
    edit-2
    3 hours ago

    Bro, it’s the Autumn Steam sale…it says so in giant letters on top of the steam store page.

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    33 hours ago

    I don’t know whether it’s the case here (it’s the biggest sale of the year regardless), but often game developers will have licenses for some of the content in the game (music, most often), and when those licenses are soon expiring they do a fire sale on it. The previous Forza Horizon game comes to mind.

  • @RedditWanderer
    link
    English
    174 hours ago

    Because it’s not just about money, that’s why you hear about the number of copies sold more than gross revenue, it represents number of interested people that can buy another product at X dollars. Every now and then exec put up big sales, pump the numbers up before the big reports.

    That’s also why Nintendo games neeever go on sale.

  • @daggermoon
    link
    English
    104 hours ago

    It’s funny I was going to buy it until I saw EA account required and Denuvo.

  • @jordanlund
    link
    English
    84 hours ago

    Because it’s two years old?

  • @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    54 hours ago

    The “sale” price you see here is effectively the “standard” price. Publishers know that most users will just wait for a sale to make their purchase, and that those too desperate to wait will be willing to pay any inflated “full” price they set.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️
    link
    fedilink
    English
    74
    edit-2
    6 hours ago

    It happens all the time on Steam and physical retail. Especially when the game is critically panned or is old enough that it’s not selling at the original price anymore.

    Pretty funny to see the big budget “AAAA” games going from $70 to $5 in just a few months, while seeing an independent game like RimWorld never go on sale and have multiple DLCs that aren’t much cheaper than the base game because the former loses interest hella fast, while the latter seems to keep gaining popularity.

    • @grue
      link
      English
      64 hours ago

      Factorio has only ever gone up in price, and the new expansion costs more than the base game did.

    • @Mannimarco
      link
      English
      266 hours ago

      Just fyi, Ludeon Studios changed their stance on sales some time ago, in fact it’s on sale right now! Never more than a 20% discount though. Factorio however has still never been on sale. But your point still stands

      • @Dultas
        link
        English
        95 hours ago

        Both are pennies on the hour investments though. Factorio Space Age has drawn me back in like the OG did years ago.

        • @papalonian
          link
          English
          75 hours ago

          No. Don’t. Don’t tell me this, don’t do it to me, I’m trying to complete Satisfactory playthrough

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            25 hours ago

            But he right tho… the basics have been cleaned up a bit so the early game isn’t as slow, and every planet actually made me feel like new again

            • @Contramuffin
              link
              English
              14 hours ago

              On the contrary, IME they significantly slowed down the early game, but they removed the early-mid-game dip right after you unlock fluids and oil processing

              • @Dultas
                link
                English
                12 hours ago

                Yeah the green to blue transition seemed like a smaller hurdle than I remembered.

        • @Lost_My_Mind
          link
          English
          24 hours ago

          I hate you not being able to tell me the future too. I need those damn lotto numbers!!!

    • @TropicalDingdong
      link
      English
      76 hours ago

      I think part of this has to be related to the idea that you cant do good, creative, interesting things on e the number of cooks in the kitchen gets above a certain size, which might actually be quite small. I mean look at terraria and stardew valley. Microscopic dev teams with impact the size of asteroids in terms of total effect and the long term impact on gaming.

      I think “good” in media is an extension of having a singular vision for what you are trying to do. Focus too much on crowd pleasing and you lose the plot.

      • I completely agree with that. Even the games that made the big companies big back in the day started off being like 3-5 people, tops. Now they have hundreds of people, tons of ideas, along with limited time and tons of bureaucracy. Even if there’s just one person making the decisions, it can’t be easy frequently hearing good suggestions from other people working on the thing under you and not wanting to try and incorporate them.

    • GingaNinga
      link
      English
      36 hours ago

      or any nintendo game, I swear they’re never on sale.

    • @yesman
      link
      English
      16 hours ago

      “The Callisto protocol” went from release @$60 to free on Epic, in less than two years. That’s the fastest I’ve ever seen a game depreciate.

  • Green Wizard
    link
    fedilink
    English
    65 hours ago

    Because most people won’t/can’t pay these stupid prices just for an average/poor experience.

  • Omega
    link
    English
    13 hours ago

    I used to see them all the time on Playstation. Kingdom Come Deliverance and Prey are $3 right now, Control and Shadow of War are $6, Serious Sam 4 is $6 (I might get that one). There are others too. But not as many as there used to be though.

  • Capt. Wolf
    link
    English
    507 hours ago

    The steam fall sale is going on right now.

  • slazer2au
    link
    English
    437 hours ago

    Rope people in with the base game discount and flood them with DLC is the EA way.

    • @TropicalDingdong
      link
      English
      96 hours ago

      I bought Witcher 3 AND ALL dlc for like 8 dollars last year during this sale.

    • @DuckWrangler9000OP
      link
      English
      77 hours ago

      I was really tempted by the sale for BFV and BF2042 and a friend told me not to saying it’s EA owned and that’s bad 🥲

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        -106 hours ago

        Who gives a shit. If it’s fun and you like it, buy it and play it. Every game studio/publisher is greedy.

        • @[email protected]
          link
          fedilink
          English
          7
          edit-2
          6 hours ago

          This is why they get away with greediness - many people don’t care or can’t restrain themselves. Every company is certainly not the same. Don’t encourage and reward bad behavior.

  • @LovingHippieCat
    link
    English
    196 hours ago

    Because they’re desperate to recoup some of their money for development and the game hasn’t sold very well. Case in point: Suicide Squad is 3.49 or 4.99 for the deluxe edition. The game sold like trash so they desperately want to make some more money and hope people will go like “well it’s only 5 bucks. I may as well.”

    • @BroBot9000
      link
      English
      16 hours ago

      Absolutely this.

      Last ditch attempts to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

  • warm
    link
    fedilink
    116 hours ago

    How is it insane? These games are made to take your money, so they quickly get cheaper until they no longer make meaningful sales. It’s why you should never buy AAA games for the first 6-12 months (if ever honestly), they will very quickly be a lot cheaper after the publishers scam from the initial hype purchases.

    • FiveMacs
      link
      fedilink
      English
      45 hours ago

      You said it better with just don’t buy AAAAAAAA games ever…

      Most are absolute garbage.

      • warm
        link
        fedilink
        15 hours ago

        I completely agree, I never buy them.