this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2025
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Patient Gamers
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A gaming community free from the hype and oversaturation of current releases, catering to gamers who wait at least 12 months after release to play a game. Whether it's price, waiting for bugs/issues to be patched, DLC to be released, don't meet the system requirements, or just haven't had the time to keep up with the latest releases.
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Can someone explain videogames sales to me? How can a game be 12$ and 8.99$ the day after?
Can you elaborate where your confusion lies? It's a digital good, there is no marginal cost. So they can pretty much price a game however they want. So pricing is mostly about maximising revenue, i.e. get as many sales as you can at the highest possible price.
A sale is a relatively straightforward strategy where you first sell the game at a high price to all the people who are fine with paying a lot, then you lower the price to sell more copies to the people who weren't willing to pay the higher price. The result is more total profit. There is a time limit too to create a sense of urgency ("I better buy now so I don't miss the opportunity").
Real goods have a limited lifespan, they usually go on sales when they are about to reach the end of their life or when you physically have to get rid of them. Software doesn't expire.
A price is usually set to cover the initial costs and to make a reasonable profit not to squeeze how much money you can from people.
There are exceptions, but usually that is absolutely not true. Making as much money as you can is 100% the goal for the vast majority of goods produced, physical or digital.
We are talking in a platform that has not such greedy goals