First off the lolz, they are doing it to give back lol
Second off...I agree with The Man on this one, sales have been coming all year for a shit load of titles but the usual suspects are here anyway, Sony, Ubisoft, EA etc. They generally put those titles on sale after release, but its hard to build a narrative on this pass or fail thing as we've seen Ubisoft put Watchdogs 3 on sale after and was like "FLOOOPZZZ" and then they put AC Valhalla on sale and......what are we to say to that? It broke a lot of records lol Red Dead Redemption 2 went on sale after release and it moved massive units, so going on sale is hard to really put on a pass or fail thing and I don't see a lot of evidence support it in many cases. I recall people trying to exaggerate Far Cry 5 going on sale shortly after release and its like the fastest selling Far Cry and best selling Far Cry in history, I don't really know if the whole "its on sale" angle really works on flop or not and we'd need the publisher to say so, but EA putting games on sale during the holidays is a given.
They should have known that would be the case cause when the fuck hasn't it been the case for this publisher? lol
BF5 is a great example too. No where near the top selling BF titles, so to see BF 2042 be one of the best launches moving massive units and also going on sale sorta shows it might not be based on any of that and simply them looking to boost those numbers regardless.
They were always going to want more, even if BF 2042 moved 7 million in a week, you'd likely still see a sale to get more during the holiday.
Sale doesn't mean price drop folks lol
AC Valhalla was the best launch of a AC title in history.....went on sale lol
Watchdogs 3
(to my understanding) did less then 2 at launch.....went on sale. lol Who knows folks.
(edit) ok I looked it up, Watchdogs 3 actually did better at launch then 2.... so this shows even more that sales might have little to do with how the game does as even the almighty GTA V went on sale the year it came out after launch.
In October, gamers around the world spent $ 10.6 billion on games, breaking last year's record. Watch Dogs Legion's initial sales reach 1.9 million copies.
www.hermitgamer.com
The Division 2 drives Ubisoft player base to an all-time high at 141 million.
gadgets.ndtv.com
So I don't really know, I think people just love the narrative that "ohhhh it did bad broz DATZ WHY DA SALEZ", but it sounds like its more so based on publisher. We've see sales for flops, we've seen sales for games that broke many a record, it simply sounds like it has to do with who published the game as we all know Ubisoft, EA, Sony love having those sales after release and from the best selling to the worst selling...we've still seen a sale, even from giants like Rockstar, even massive AAA IP like Call Of Duty, I don't know how big a IP needs to be to see like zero sales months or weeks after launch tbh.
Nintendo might be the only publisher in that area that does that, even with many publishers moving more units then them. So it sounds like its just based on publisher and what they are going for or something.