Why are $70 AAA games slashing prices so drastically?

I pirated the game and it included all the DLC. Then I played it for a few hours and was glad I didn't spend 5 dollars on it.

Lol, still too expensive for that garbage...

$70 price is for people who are really impatient and then sales are to capture price sensitive people over time. Not unusual. It's why I wasn't bothered by the $70 retail price, since I knew I'd never have to pay it. It's just a tax on the impatient.

Is there a new title coming? My car feed has been featuring a real build of the Most Wanted (2005) M3 GTR recently from BMW. I see franchise sales often when a new entry is coming out. I don't see any announcements though, so maybe it's just because it's rated so poorly

Instead of lowering their prices over time and so sales are less significant of a percentage, they keep the original price indefinitely and just have lots of sales. This makes the percentage off much higher than if they had depreciated the regular price as it should. Pretty common these days.

Exhibit A:

nfs games up to and including MW 2012

These are solid, enjoyable entries in the series. Peaked with Underground 2 and MW 2005, but the takeover/acquisition of Criterion pumped new life into HP 2010 and MW 2012.

Exhibit B:

nfs games released after MW 2012

These are dogshit. Heavy dlc, meh progression, horrible to play on a keyboard, stupid upgrade systems (cards? cards? are you retarded, EA?), always-online, shitty online servers, horrendous physics, so arcadey that they make actual arcade racing games look desirable.

You'll note that this game is in the second group.

I got it as a gift a couple weeks ago, they paid $10 for it, which I was holding out for >$5 to buy myself; it's actually better than the last iteration, but not by much. That game - heat - I thrashed on at launch and 6mo later, and when the premium or whatever edition dropped to like $1.25, I finally bought it (10h demo before) and honestly, I want my $1.25 back. Here, $5 for unbound is about right, near the upper limit.

If they hadn't killed Criterion (the reboot is in name only, the talent jumped ship with the forced merge), nfs might be awesome still. They have to do a metric fuck-load to save this series. I have almost every game, I'm a massive fan of the series... But for the past decade, it's fucking dogshit.

Bro, it's the Autumn Steam sale...it says so in giant letters on top of the steam store page.

Pirate triple a and buy indie.
Its what both of em deserve.

Because it's not just about money, that's why you hear about the number of copies sold more than gross revenue, it represents number of interested people that can buy another product at X dollars. Every now and then exec put up big sales, pump the numbers up before the big reports.

That's also why Nintendo games neeever go on sale.

It's funny I was going to buy it until I saw EA account required and Denuvo.

It happens all the time on Steam and physical retail. Especially when the game is critically panned or is old enough that it's not selling at the original price anymore.

Pretty funny to see the big budget "AAAA" games going from $70 to $5 in just a few months, while seeing an independent game like RimWorld never go on sale and have multiple DLCs that aren't much cheaper than the base game because the former loses interest hella fast, while the latter seems to keep gaining popularity.

Because it's two years old?

I don't know whether it's the case here (it's the biggest sale of the year regardless), but often game developers will have licenses for some of the content in the game (music, most often), and when those licenses are soon expiring they do a fire sale on it. The previous Forza Horizon game comes to mind.

The steam fall sale is going on right now.

Rope people in with the base game discount and flood them with DLC is the EA way.

The "sale" price you see here is effectively the "standard" price. Publishers know that most users will just wait for a sale to make their purchase, and that those too desperate to wait will be willing to pay any inflated "full" price they set.

Because they're desperate to recoup some of their money for development and the game hasn't sold very well. Case in point: Suicide Squad is 3.49 or 4.99 for the deluxe edition. The game sold like trash so they desperately want to make some more money and hope people will go like "well it's only 5 bucks. I may as well."

Because most people won't/can't pay these stupid prices just for an average/poor experience.

How is it insane? These games are made to take your money, so they quickly get cheaper until they no longer make meaningful sales. It's why you should never buy AAA games for the first 6-12 months (if ever honestly), they will very quickly be a lot cheaper after the publishers scam from the initial hype purchases.

Because NFS Unbound sucks. Never in my life have I tried to refund a game so quickly. Couldn't make it past the first hour of the game.

The characters just won't shut up, I'm trying to drive not hear people yap about how the illegal street racers that cause millions in public property damage and multiple fatalities each race are so oppressed by the government.

Poorly received games with tons of other venues of monetization outside the box price.

I used to see them all the time on Playstation. Kingdom Come Deliverance and Prey are $3 right now, Control and Shadow of War are $6, Serious Sam 4 is $6 (I might get that one). There are others too. But not as many as there used to be though.

It's about volume.

Selling a thing to a million people for $5 makes more money than selling it to a thousand people for $70.

They'll most likely return the price to $70 before long, so they can pick up a few whales who miss this sale and aren't patient enough to wait for the next one.

Black Friday sales are crazy sometimes

NFS Unbound wasn't taken too well by the community. I recently replayed NFS Heat (which was the release before unbound) and it is still a great modern NFS game!

Instead of gradually lowering the prices, publishers tend to keep the original price and give it higher discounts as time goes on. People read it and think "wow, it's 90% off! I can't miss this deal!" and buy the game.

Because it is ... Black Friday!

Is this game any good?

Also, some Steam sales are amazing. 90% off, is great, but not that rare.