My point has very little to do with actual piracy. You said the price will equalize if people don't pay it, I am saying that publishers will blame it on piracy and not adjust prices. This has been a trend when sales for a PC version are poor, it is never their fault, always the "pirates".But yeah, this is hardly the first PC game that came out at $60. And most of them have been among the best-sellers... Assassin's Creed 2, Battlefield 3, BLOPS, Crysis 2, Dead Space 2, Diablo 3, Dragon Age 2, Starcraft 2, Splinter Cell Conviction, Reckoning, just to name a few.
And, really, perhaps the whole "pirates wouldn't buy the game anyways" mantra is something being listened to. Pirates will do so regardless of price (pretty obvious at this point with Android piracy rates and even things like the Humble Bundles getting pirated) and legitimate customers will continue to buy legit.
In that case, price sensitivity is still pretty low with legit Day 1 buyers, so an extra $10 is pretty meaningless to them in terms of impacting their purchase decision. And then, a year later, they hit Steam sales for $3.50 and everyone's happy.
Don't get the big deal. The market will determine the price. Always has.
I game primarily on a PC and I pre-order a lot of games because I want to play them right away. As $60 becomes a norm that means every 5 games I buy I could have gotten 6 at the old price. I will be more selective of what I actually pre-order which means instead of getting a $50 sale it will be a sub $20 sale.
Except it IS an open platform, you do not have to pay any fees to a platform holder. Do you think brick and mortar retailers don't take a cut of the sales? Steam's percentage is much lower than traditional retail so this point doesn't make a lot of sense.If you want it day 1, you gotta pay a premium, just like everything else. And it's not really an open platform if they gotta give 30% right off the top to Gabe and any other distributors, not too mention rising costs of development.