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.