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.

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.

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

The steam fall sale is going on right now.

They're showing their true value.

These are old games

The price regularly seen is just there to make them seem that they have more value than they actually do

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.

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

$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.

Because recent AAA games are so trash noadays and also the main thing is that the price of the game isn't their main source of income anymore.

Sell game cheap get em hooked on spending more money in game on used condom hats or whatever garbage they sell in their games

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."

There are people willing to pay $80 for your game, $60, $40, $20, $10, and $5. You might be able get someone willing to pay $10 to pay $15 with good marketing, but you will never get them to pay $60. So when you've gone through most people willing to pay $60 and $40, you might as well go through the rest of the market. It doesn't cost you that much more than you're already spending on servers, so why not make that extra money.

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

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.

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

Because it's badly reviewed and sales have dried up...?

Also because it is loaded with microtransactions, so they can make that back and more if they get you hooked.

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.

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.

Unbound was basically dead on arrival, its practically just heat with re-shade and barely any actual new content.

EA Game 🤮

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.

Because it's two years old?

It's called idiot tax. (hint: not the discounted price)

Black Friday sales are crazy sometimes

Lol, still too expensive for that garbage...

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

Because broke niggas like me can't afford 20$ for a legitimate skyrim copy even tho I got 1800 hrs in that game

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.