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.
NFS Unbound wasn’t taken too well by the community. I recently replayed NFS Heat (which was the release before unbound) and it is still a great modern NFS game!
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.
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.
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
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
I just bought Biotech and Anamoly for regular price like 2 weeks ago. I hate not being able to predict the future. This way of perceiving time sucks ass.
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.”
Because NFS Unbound sucks. Never in my life have I tried to refund a game so quickly. Couldn’t make it past the first hour of the game.
The characters just won’t shut up, I’m trying to drive not hear people yap about how the illegal street racers that cause millions in public property damage and multiple fatalities each race are so oppressed by the government.
Ah, is that the one where you had to endure teenagers trying to do the cool talk for like 15 min before you can even see a car? Uninstalled and refunded straight away.
Instead of gradually lowering the prices, publishers tend to keep the original price and give it higher discounts as time goes on. People read it and think “wow, it’s 90% off! I can’t miss this deal!” and buy the game.
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, they will very quickly be a lot cheaper after the publishers scam from the initial hype purchases.
Selling a thing to a million people for $5 makes more money than selling it to a thousand people for $70.
They’ll most likely return the price to $70 before long, so they can pick up a few whales who miss this sale and aren’t patient enough to wait for the next one.
Then… Why not just price it correctly to begin with? Huh… I’d buy some of these newer games if they cost a reasonable amount. Starfield out here charging $70 for a 5.5/10 game
Then… Why not just price it correctly to begin with?
I can’t speak for the people pricing these things, but suspect the answer has to do with whales, perceived value, shareholders, regional economics, and various other things.
I agree that lots of games are overpriced, though.
You charge the highest price you can for the people who don’t want to wait, then drop the price once you’ve run out of those customers. The temporary price of a sale creates a sense of urgency that it won’t be this cheap again for a while, and positive word of mouth from the sale customers drives more sales for a little while once it returns to full price.
Starfield wasn’t worth $70 to me, but I bought it on sale for $45 a few months later.
Price tier strategy. Get impatient people to pay $70 because they need to play ASAP. And then sales to get people who won’t pay $70. Pricing low permanently misses out on getting as much money from people who are willing to pay more throughout the year.
It’s okay, I’d highly recommend playing it on console though. No EA account required on console unless I’m mistaken. EA games on PC are notoriously ass.
that one depends on ones opinion tho.
personally? all the ones i did try where dogshit.
But one womans trash is another man or womans treasure as they say.
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.
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