So not to put on my tinfoil hat or anything but I feel like in the last 6-8 months there has been a massive if not industry wide shift to the pricing and sales of videos games and when I say sales I mean deals/discount type sales not sales numbers or anything.
So while I believe the digital front has been shifting for a bit more then a year with Steam sales over the last few years losing their luster and their flash deal days of old have long since been gone. But I felt more so after this years Lunar sale, and it kinda seems to me that we are getting a close to normalized if not industry fixed priced for game sales now...
Best Buy losing GCU hit my game buying habits hard... when GCU as a Best Buy service was active it wasn't crazy to see games for $9.99-19.99, we were getting the 20% off of sale games and rewards and preorders. Amazon took 20% off for pre-orders and Amazon and GameStop regularly battled it out with sales since GS doesn't price match. But now I'll be dammed to find decent sales of games at $9.99-19.99 they seem to normalize at $29.99 or so now else you wait for that big price drop and minor sales but even during the holidays I felt like the deals were lacking.
We also had digital stores doing deep discounts of 85-90% off games... the under $5 and Under $10 tabs of steam during sales were treasure troves... now I'd be interested to see how many of those titles even hit that low anymore or just get discounted 50-66%.
I just feel that as it has been a somewhat gradual thing with digital stores. It seems like When GCU and Primes benefits ended there was something discussed on an industry wide level and just seems like the best deals we are offered now are what we would've considered decent a couple years prior.
So while I believe the digital front has been shifting for a bit more then a year with Steam sales over the last few years losing their luster and their flash deal days of old have long since been gone. But I felt more so after this years Lunar sale, and it kinda seems to me that we are getting a close to normalized if not industry fixed priced for game sales now...
Best Buy losing GCU hit my game buying habits hard... when GCU as a Best Buy service was active it wasn't crazy to see games for $9.99-19.99, we were getting the 20% off of sale games and rewards and preorders. Amazon took 20% off for pre-orders and Amazon and GameStop regularly battled it out with sales since GS doesn't price match. But now I'll be dammed to find decent sales of games at $9.99-19.99 they seem to normalize at $29.99 or so now else you wait for that big price drop and minor sales but even during the holidays I felt like the deals were lacking.
We also had digital stores doing deep discounts of 85-90% off games... the under $5 and Under $10 tabs of steam during sales were treasure troves... now I'd be interested to see how many of those titles even hit that low anymore or just get discounted 50-66%.
I just feel that as it has been a somewhat gradual thing with digital stores. It seems like When GCU and Primes benefits ended there was something discussed on an industry wide level and just seems like the best deals we are offered now are what we would've considered decent a couple years prior.