PSA: Be Wary of "Pre-Steam Sale" Markups

Shinkicker444

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shintakie10 said:
STENDEC1 said:
Well here in Australia it IS illegal, and as such they should be held accountable. Not that I expect anything to come of it of course.

Publishers who pull this crap can go f*ck themselves, especially 2K since they inflate the price for Australians on Steam to start with. $75 USD for GTA V as a starting price? Get f*cked.
Its not illegal because they didn't actually mark up the price of the game. If you look, the game is still 59.99 (or whatever it is in Australian money). The only discounted thing is the bundle with the shark card.

Its still shady as fuck, but its the legal kind of shady, not the illegal kind of shady.
Yeah, but the other ones doing the mark up/sale reduction thing are doing something illegal. The GTA one is just shady and kinda deceptive and should probably be more like 'buy GTA V and get GTA:SA for free' (looking at Steam atm, GTA V base price is $74.99, the bundle with GTA:SA is $74:98, and is listed as -25% off).
 

WeepingAngels

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MonsterCrit said:
Meh.. it's a moot point. I never look at the percentage in these cases I look at the price. If the price is not something I feel like paying I couldn't care if it was a 95% discount. So again this is the sort of strategy that only catches impulse buyers with a crippling fear of reading the entire price tag.
If someone tried to steal your wallet but you caught them, would it be a "moot point" or would it matter to you?
 

Strazdas

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May 28, 2011
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And rockstar continues being as scummy as they possibly can. Oh how far you have fallen.....

Paragon Fury said:
They probably started doing this because developers and publishers HATE the Steam Summer Sales discounts, so they push their prices up so that when discounted by Steam it still doesn't cost them that much.
On the contrary, they love sales period.
 

srpilha

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Doubling a price to have it "discounted" by 50% seems like amateur hour when you look at Pool Nation - Pack of Pipes: over 550% increase yesterday so it can be 90% off today.

Classsssss.
 

BoredRolePlayer

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Yeah I saw that today and wondered if it was a fuck up or something. Because my reaction was if it was down on purpose then that is shady as hell.
 

ccggenius12

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wulfy42 said:
This is becoming way too common sadly. Even my local grocery stores have been doing it (safeway for one). They mark up their (say tri tip roasts) then have a sale with the marked up price. Everyone seems to be doing this.....probably because over all it works....too many people don't notice it and sales of the items go way up. It makes me very angry though.
Do said businesses remove the markup after the "sale" is gone? Because I know that the vendors at the grocery store I work at do that every now and again(give or take a small discount beyond that initial price point), but that's because the price is permanently going up. Ex. Last time the cost for a case of Pepsi went up, they put them on sale to coincide with the price hike, presumably to soften the blow for when the new price was implemented. I've got to believe that they just think that customers' memories are short and/or they're inattentive, and honestly I'd be inclined to agree. Every day I see people that grab items and assume that either the price for adjacent items applies to them, or other things that would indicate they're just grabbing whatever.
Tangent aside, I'm completely fine with a price hike prior to a sale, assuming that after the sale is over the regular price doesn't just revert. If a company has legitimately decided that the higher price point is going to be the standard going forward, then a "last chance" sale is a nice nudge to those customers who might be on the fence about buying.
 

Snotnarok

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Total Biscuit just came out with an apology as some of the devs on that/a reddit list actually did not mark up anything so be careful where you point your blame. It's apparently not super accurate.

https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/retraction-and-apology-for-earlier-price-raising-post
 

LaoJim

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MonsterCrit said:
Meh.. it's a moot point. I never look at the percentage in these cases I look at the price. If the price is not something I feel like paying I couldn't care if it was a 95% discount. So again this is the sort of strategy that only catches impulse buyers with a crippling fear of reading the entire price tag.
Exactly, games depreciate all the time, but digital marketplaces tend to be a bit funny about how and when the price goes down. If there's a game that I want to buy for say £10 pounds and its on sale today, it might be advertised as being 80% off because it was still being sold at its original £50 up until yesterday, or it might have come out at £50, dropped in stages to £15 pounds and then finally come down to £10 and advertised as 33% off. Makes no difference to the final price.

That said, raising prices only to drop them in a sale is scummy in the extreme, and should be called out.
 

fix-the-spade

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Paragon Fury said:
They probably started doing this because developers and publishers HATE the Steam Summer Sales discounts, so they push their prices up so that when discounted by Steam it still doesn't cost them that much.
Publishers have the option not to take part. Bait'n'switching with the price for the sake of some free advertising is extremely skeevy at best.

As for 'cost' it costs nothing, digital copies have no manufacturing or shipping cost involved. All it means is a smaller than usual profit, which is not a 'cost' since it's income that they probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

People love yelling 'if you don't like it don't buy it' when publishers do shitty things to us, now we should be yelling 'if you don't like it don't do it' if that's truly the best excuse anyone can give.
 

Adam Jensen_v1legacy

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Sep 8, 2011
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Strazdas said:
And rockstar continues being as scummy as they possibly can. Oh how far you have fallen.....

Paragon Fury said:
They probably started doing this because developers and publishers HATE the Steam Summer Sales discounts, so they push their prices up so that when discounted by Steam it still doesn't cost them that much.
On the contrary, they love sales period.
Yes, they love it. But they're also corporations and they will try as hard as they can to milk as much as they can. They see an opportunity in the sales to be even scummier than usual. It's a shitty tactics that shows absolute zero respect for the consumer. Fuckin' greedy sociopaths.
 

jklinders

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Aw shit,I was always assuming this crap was happening anyway. I always look at the end ticket price, not the discount % so i often barely notice.

It should be illegal. Hell a grocery chain hereabouts does BOGO sales every now and again. It's a minefield though. They'll jack the price 100% then BOGO it. What if I don't want to buy 2 of that item? I guess I'll just give my business to someone else so i don't clutter up my limited storage or buy a fuckton of spoilage.
 

ASnogarD

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I am not sure what is worse, this type of business ploy, or the fact businesses think we are actually stupid enough not to notice it.

I glanced at that sales, noted the price of GTA V was still more than most AAA launch day prices and disregarded the franchise.

I hope it bites Steam and Valve in the butt and causes massive lack of interest in this 'summer sale', then Valve may start to add a few rules about putting marked up titles in a 'sale', after all its attempting to be dishonest to Steams market and its Steam that will be branded... not so much R*.
Like how Steam is supposedly at fault for all the cheap rip off titles on its platform, rather than all the devs and publishers that actually put that shit on there in the first place.
 

Fox12

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Jun 6, 2013
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fix-the-spade said:
Paragon Fury said:
They probably started doing this because developers and publishers HATE the Steam Summer Sales discounts, so they push their prices up so that when discounted by Steam it still doesn't cost them that much.
Publishers have the option not to take part. Bait'n'switching with the price for the sake of some free advertising is extremely skeevy at best.

As for 'cost' it costs nothing, digital copies have no manufacturing or shipping cost involved. All it means is a smaller than usual profit, which is not a 'cost' since it's income that they probably wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

People love yelling 'if you don't like it don't buy it' when publishers do shitty things to us, now we should be yelling 'if you don't like it don't do it' if that's truly the best excuse anyone can give.
What I don't understand is how they expected this to work. I don't know the price of a gallon of milk, or an American Eagle jacket off of the top of my head. If they marked it up before a sell, I probably wouldn't know. But games? There's a set price. We all know how much a game costs. Children know. So what were they thinking? It would be better not to take part.
 

veloper

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Jan 20, 2009
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The only thing that matters is the price you pay. If it's not worth it to you, then don't buy. Simple as that.

If people are dumb enough to pay more than they really want to, just because there's also a "discount", then that's their problem.
 

w23eer

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I would have thought this already happened. Are we really sure this is new? I find it hard to believe that developers/publishers haven't been doing it since day 1. Although, as the article says, it is illegal in some places (I didn't know that) so I guess that may have given some companies pause.
 

Buizel91

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Aug 25, 2008
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wulfy42 said:
This is becoming way too common sadly. Even my local grocery stores have been doing it (safeway for one). They mark up their (say tri tip roasts) then have a sale with the marked up price. Everyone seems to be doing this.....probably because over all it works....too many people don't notice it and sales of the items go way up. It makes me very angry though.
Safeway? You still living in the 90's or something?! Christ not seen one of them in years!

OT: Well that is a new low for Rockstar and the others who have done this.

At least it doesn't effect all games though.
 

Lightspeaker

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Dec 31, 2011
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What they're doing is far more insidious that merely marking the game up and then discounting it. Doing that is outright illegal in my country and in many others. Here you MUST have the product at a set price for a specific amount of time before discounting it.

No what they're doing is they're changing the "default" version of the game to be a bundle with microtransaction stuff you don't necessarily want or need and then discounting THAT to make it the same price as the normal version of the game. Which avoids being illegal so long as they've offered that specific bundle before.

Its an incredibly scummy business move honestly in an attempt to dupe customers who don't constantly monitor prices into thinking they're getting a good deal. I'm both gratified that people are calling this dodgy practice out and highly amused that they thought they could get away with it.
 

Jadak

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Nov 4, 2008
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Meh, dirty tactic for sure.

But value is value, if something isn't worth $20 to you, it's your own stupid fault for being more interested when it's still $20, but is "on sale" from $40.

If the perception of increased value from a "deal" overpowers your choice to only buy things at prices that seem worth the content, you deserve to be swindled.
 

lunavixen

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shintakie10 said:
STENDEC1 said:
Well here in Australia it IS illegal, and as such they should be held accountable. Not that I expect anything to come of it of course.

Publishers who pull this crap can go f*ck themselves, especially 2K since they inflate the price for Australians on Steam to start with. $75 USD for GTA V as a starting price? Get f*cked.
Its not illegal because they didn't actually mark up the price of the game. If you look, the game is still 59.99 (or whatever it is in Australian money). The only discounted thing is the bundle with the shark card.

Its still shady as fuck, but its the legal kind of shady, not the illegal kind of shady.
Marking up and then discounting IS illegal in Australia, the ACCC classifies it as misleading advertising, Steam has been in trouble with this before, I can't remember which game it was for.

https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/displaying-prices

Go down to two price comparison advertising for the relevant section.

Even if it wasn't illegal, it's still extremely dickish. The term 'caveat emptor' applies very strongly here.
 

DrOswald

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Apr 22, 2011
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Paragon Fury said:
They probably started doing this because developers and publishers HATE the Steam Summer Sales discounts, so they push their prices up so that when discounted by Steam it still doesn't cost them that much.
Publishers decide when and by how much their game goes on sale. The reason why publishers discount at the major steam sales is because it is impulse buying season for gamers. To a savvy publisher, steam sale time is when you get another chance to make a bunch of money off of an outdated, old product.

There are only a few select developers/publishers that dislike steam sales, based on some really tenuous crap about how they screw over players. And even these people only dislike them in theory because steam never forces a developer to put their game on sale

Ot: This is a really dick move, I think Valve should put some guards in place to prevent this kind of abuse. My proposal: A "price over time" function, accessed by clicking on the price tag, that just shows a price over time graph for the game, noting sales prices and actual prices differently (they could just link to steam price tracker, but it can be very inaccurate sometimes.) In addition, if a game has been increased in base cost within the last month it cannot be discounted.