this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
222 points (88.5% liked)
Games
32938 readers
932 users here now
Welcome to the largest gaming community on Lemmy! Discussion for all kinds of games. Video games, tabletop games, card games etc.
Weekly Threads:
Rules:
-
Submissions have to be related to games
-
No bigotry or harassment, be civil
-
No excessive self-promotion
-
Stay on-topic; no memes, funny videos, giveaways, reposts, or low-effort posts
-
Mark Spoilers and NSFW
-
No linking to piracy
More information about the community rules can be found here.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's about volume.
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
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.
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.