Why are games not getting price drops like they use to?

Brick and mortar retail needs to move stock because shelves come with high costs of doing business. digital retail doesn't face the same pressure and let's them keep the prices higher.
It's almost as if physical games are a money sink for game companies.
 
PS4 used to have Steam level sales all the time.
They still do, almost weekly, just not on recent first party titles. Same with PS5 games.

The biggest fake myth that PC gamers have spread about console is that there are almost no sales, yet every time I turn on a console there is a new themed sale for the week.

Edit: As someone who purchases a lot during these deep sales for consoles, I can confidently say that these are the two types of games that rarely go on sale:

1) Japanese RPGs, especially if they are based on an anime license. This specifically is considered a 'wait until golden week for sales' type of category.

2) First party games. For these you just have to keep an eye out for the random deep sale, and even then at best you can get it for 29.99 or 39.99.
 
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Long development time means games come out less frequent.
Thus game sales are less frequent.

Also physical vs digital where they can keep the prices up.
 
Really? I recently bought both RE7 gold edition and RE8 gold edition bundle for $20-$24 CAD.
Yep, I did the same last week ($20 USD). And I already own them on Steam but I only have a Legion GO at the moment, so at that price I double dipped just to play Village for the first time on my ps5.
 
There are less physical copies in the wild to compete with the digital version and most people who are still buying games in physical format tend to collect them. It's a shitification situation.
 
spongebob squarepants interview GIF
 
They have to pay the store 30% as well and in the case of PC, often cannot have different prices on different stores even with sales. In other words they are at the mercy of the walled garden owners.
This is such a misconception, steam doesnt forbid you to sell the game cheaper elsewhere. It doesnt allow you to sell STEAM KEYS cheaper elsewhere you could sell it cheaper on epic than on steam. And even then it doesnt work like you would expect, you can still sell steam keys cheaper than on steam, but you have to do the same sale on steam in a certain time frame. You can get steam games cheaper thsn on steam all the fucking time.
 
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Keys come from the publishers themselves, and in the case of CDKeys specifically these are usually keys sold to more impoverished countries at a large discount - which are then resold to people in more wealthy countries for a huge profit. Even currency adjusted prices on Steam itself don't matter, these might have been sold in bulk to some site who promised they'd only get sold in Ukraine or something.

Do you see Sony doing that though? We're talking about Sony here.

I was under the impression that Valve had the ability to restrict keys to a specific region. Although I guess that perhaps doesn't apply to third party keys.
 
Xbox sales have definitely got a lot better. There are so many good deals almost every week that by the time a big seasonal sale drops, I have pretty much everything I want already.
 
It used to be that you discount the previous game in the franchise when you are about to launch the next sequel soon. Back when you could launch 3 games per console's lifetime, that leads to lots of discounts.

But if you get only one game per console generation, you are not going to discount it unless the sales truly drop off.
 

Why are games not getting price drops like they use to?


I am talking in both base price and sales. Yes it still happens, but it seems to me a much rarer thing than in the past. Especially on ps5.

I remember last gen and the gen when a game would come out and a year or two later it would be $19.99.
Others would get a GOTY or Complete edition and be a cheaper price.

Look at God of War it was $19.99 on ps4/5 and on sale now for $9.99 on psn.
If you look at it's sequel , Ragnorok, it still sells on psn for $69.99, a game that came out 3 years ago.
Returnal (close to launch game) released 2021, 4 years ago is still $69.99 on psn. ( a short game, a rougelite basically, it should of been $40 and 20 now).

These games would of been 19.99 after 2 years on ps4. If you want to adjust for inflation and price uptick at least make it $29.99 and then on sales make it $19.99 or $14.99

Due to this I haven't played Ragnorok. The only GOW game I have missed. I won't until I can get it cheap as I heard it has bad writing and woke themes.
Only reason I got the Last of Us 2 was it was $9.99 on sale on psn. I'll buy a game i am not entirely interested in if its on sale. My steam and switch account will vouche for that.

Steam and Switch have prices drops all the time (well for non first party). Every week i see price drops and deep discounts. PSN when they do drop the price its either temporary or not by much.

Then there is game pass and Xbox very rarely doing sales anymore.

What changed?

Has anyone else noticed this?


Is this the all Digital future you all signed up for?

There is a reason taking out the disk drive was a bad idea. Good for bean counters, bad for gamers and price conscious people. I buy a lot of games, even if I don't play them. I won't if they are expensive.
I only buy day 1 if its a series I love and know I will like. Games going on sale physically pushed down prices for everyone.

OR if its's at a reasonable price. Games like Expedition 33 and Oblivion remastered were insta buys due to the cheaper price tag.
More games at $50 would be ideal I'd take more euro jank AA rpgs and sci-fi fps games for a cheaper price.

I really hope that is the future, smaller teams, smaller budget, more passion, and less marketing for a lower entry point.
Expedition 33 is the example. If you make a $70 game it better be worth that and have the content. Baldur's Gate 3 is worth $70. Returnal and its insta death is not.
It's pretty simple really, when games used to have a larger portion of physical sales, stores had physical copies they needed to get rid of after a while, to make room on their shelves for new releases. Also used physical copies at GameStop would force digital stores to match those prices, no one would pay $60 for a digital copy when they can get a physical copy for $30.
Nowadays they are no (or at least much less) physical copies around to drive down the online price.
 
They do physically on console all the time. And still deep discounts. Digitally though, companies aren't budging like they used to unless the game is hella old.
 
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