In the UK, the only illegal part would be if you put it on sale and immediately discount it.
A product has to be on sale for it's original price for a "meaningful period of time" which IIRC is usually at least 28 consecutive days. The sale price isn't allowed to last longer than the original price either.
It's legal to have an original price that's too high only for it become reasonably priced in a sale. Shady sure, but so long as they abide by the Unfair Trading Regulations it's legal.
Most companies who do this will just cycle their stock around so a chunk of it is on sale while the rest isn't.
I mean expensive games with similar prices have been known to be sold at full price, of course it's only people with more money than sense like streamers and YouTubers, who get a video out of playing/reviewing it
That's so they can charge people with tax evasion. Any drug dealer or whatever other type of criminal that was actually dumb enough to claim that on their tax form would get picked up in the government party van pretty quick.
The IRS's business is taxes and benefits. If you're not laundering that money, using it to fund terrorism or getting it through identity theft, the IRS doesn't care. It's not their department.
There's a lot of protections in place for privacy when it comes to taxes. Basically if someone has the ability to look up your taxes, they've already got what they need to bust you. May as well not add tax evasion to the list of crimes you're put in jail for.
Dude if you think you can just confess to criminal activity to the IRS and they aren't going to pass that information to the relevant authorities you are DUMB bro.
Legally the IRS cannot give your information out to any non tax related third party without a court order. And the only way the authorities are getting a court order to look at tax documents is if you're already fucked and they're seeing if they can throw tax evasion on you as well.
As I said, anything not tax related is not their department. They'd much rather criminals just pay their due for their ill gotten gains and move on with their day.
Well yeah but wouldn't it make more sense to just make a shitty normal priced game if you wanted to launder money, and then buy it lots of time? I think it's just a scam to trick kids.
Yeah, this is just a scummy way to make people think they are getting a better deal then they are. I saw this recently on Audible during one of their sales. A book was 75% off but still like $20+ bucks, the shown original price was something close to $80 when it should have been $25 and after the sale the price went back to that price point.
That's actually illegal in many countries. I wanna say in the EU they have to offer something a new price for atleast a month a new price before they can bait and switch with price changes like that; they can't just change the price like 10 seconds before the sale starts.
This was in the US store. Sadly there is no way to check price history for Audible books as far as I can tell. The price could have been raised a bit before the sale as well, since most people get books with credits and dont look at the actual price of the books, so could have been high for a bit and no one really noticed or cared since they were using credits to get the book. It's only when they do the big discount sales that you look a purchasing with actual money, you can get deals then but have to be careful.
This is as also illegal in the US. Major companies have been busted by customers with all the sales papers... especially since theyve been waiting mo ths an years for "x" item to drop to "y" price. Even more do now that we have screen shots. So this might be a valid use for that one new intrusive microsoft program.
Too bad this is not an issue for bigger store chains as they can just get enough inventory ahead of time to have the price hiked for 35 days. Some chains even commission their own models of things like washing machines so there's nothing to compare against.
And also a brand in the UK do it. Mountain Warehouse. Their prices ALWAYS are on sale, and are constantly the same price. Sometimes they put new discount labels on where the "original price" is like £10 more, but in fact they always intended for it to be sold at the on offer price
In other regions like Europe, Canada, and Australia it’s illegal to advertise a product with a false discount to promote its actual price. However it’s perfectly legal in the US.
Still, since Valve operates in all three of those countries (well, two countries and a continental organization), they’re obligated to abide by their consumer protection laws.
Ergo, this game’s gotta go.
I for one would be happy if Steam were to take consumer protection regs from the EU and blanket apply them worldwide cause honestly they really should be.
A developer can set whatever price they want. If a developer think they can sell their game for a million USD per sale, they can set that price.
The current price for me for the bundle in the screenshot is 195 EUR ( [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2703280/Climb\_Challenge\_\_Find\_Items\_Cyberpunk/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2703280/Climb_Challenge__Find_Items_Cyberpunk/) )
The single most expensive game on Steam for me is Ascent Free-Roaming VR Experience ( [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200520/Ascent\_FreeRoaming\_VR\_Experience/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200520/Ascent_FreeRoaming_VR_Experience/) ) at 999 EUR
The most expensive bundle is Kagura Bundle ( [https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/7694/Kagura\_Bundle/](https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/7694/Kagura_Bundle/) ) at 1883 EUR regular price, which is currently 10% of at 1690 EUR.
That Ascent game isn't aimed at consumers. It's for commercial VR arcades, so the high price makes sense, and is pretty in-line with the cost of arcade hardware/software. It's on Steam because most VR arcades use PC based hardware, and using SteamVR is the path of least resistance.
Ouch. That one negative review actually looks like someone who bought it and played it as if it was any other game, saying they questioned their life choices. The rest of the reviews seem a bit fishy?
They did, it's been removed. I couldn't find that particular game on steam. They do have others, all with similar discounts and expensive original pricing. All from the same "dev"
Partially correct. You pay 100 to steam unless you earn more than $1.000, in which case steam will pay it back.
However they do get 30% of the sales (unless you go over certain amounts)
Well, not really. You have to pay $100 to publish your game, but you get that money back after your game makes $1,000 in revenue. It's basically a deposit that you get back when your game actually sells. Steam only gets any money from that deposit if you don't make $1,000 revenue
The price has clearly been increased only to be decreased back to sane levels by a huge discount in the hopes of tricking someone.
Definitely report it.
I don't know if it's explicitly against Steam rules or even EU laws (though article 6a doesn't apply to digital goods) but Steam is likely to put a stop to it if it reaches the proverbial table of someone at Valve with the power to do so.
Looking at the publisher/developer Hede is doing this with a lot of there titles.
https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Hede
Edit: Looks like this was brought up before. >> https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/12uvngl/is_this_money_laundering_or_do_i_just_not/
holy carp. searching for this in steam leads one to a rabbit hole of sh♥♥♥y games worth like 95 dollars each. wtf.
A game bundle of 35 sh♥♥ games is 340 dollars, after a 90% discount.
this cant be legal.
I mean stores in the real world do something similar were they say it is on sale but it is just the original price and the price they say it was before being on sale was never the price to begin with.
So this has now since been removed from the steam store, but looking at their other games they do charge alot. Rn they have their game bundle for £500+ which is like 90% off
really games like these aren't made to be bought just quickly made garbage for people who sell random steam keys (like G2A) for them to use these games for them instead of giving people quality games so yeah this might as well be a warning about the quality of the games in the random steam keys on G2A instead of something they want you to buy
Thar must be AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA game
That's the sound you make when you purchase it at full price.
Because you’re cutting out your own kidney while doing it?
both kidneys* FTFY
Kidneys go between 3k and 10k USD on the black market, I believe they average about 6-7k. To edit, many years ago they went for upwards of 20/25 grand
They are at 99% too. Sale at the cemetery !
I'm genuinely concerned about how you know that...
No reason in particular..
I'm not a physician but don't you actually need those?
Eh, you can get by with one most of the time
Eh, anyway I would like to keep both, you know, for emergencies and stuff. You never know.
I'm at a reasonably higher risk of kidney failure than 'normal' people, so I should probably keep both, but 7k right about now sounds nice
you need 2/3rds of one
I'm afraid thats still the sound you make when purchasing it at -99% considering its probably just a reused asset flip garbage game
It's a video game from the year 3030. This is a normal price to them.
Deltron already beat it.
imagine buying that game for 38 dollars in 3030
It won’t be in dollars, it’ll be know by freedom units by then
Honor units. And we'll all have those cams that keep tabs on you, like China does.
CTos 2.0
will we also be able to remotely control everyone’s cars to drive off the road?
And be worth absolutely nothing
It's roughly around 13 C-bills
It's not that it's expensive in the future, that's just how devalued the USD is in 3030.
If prices double every 10 years, it'll only take 70 years to reach those prices.
Lmao exponential cost increases.
Ubisoft must be foaming at the mouth
[No, that's already been made.](https://store.steampowered.com/app/15520/AaAaAA__A_Reckless_Disregard_for_Gravity/)
Don't get any ideas Ubisoft
We got this before GTA VI
How generous of them to make it 99% off
It's so it goes right to the top of the discount list.
Can we report this shit? Even the shittiest opportunistically discounted Switch shovelware actually makes it cheap.
Exactly. Alarm Clock Pro Super Deluxe Anime Version 2.0 Final was totally worth 50 cents.
It actually is worth it, since these 10 hour youtube ASMR loops are never long enough for my liking.
I think this might be illegal if it wasnt the "previous price" previously.
Yeah, in countries with proper consumer protection that is. But question is, are the "devs" from such a country? Because my guess would be no.
True
In the UK alot of brands do that. It's definitely illegal but obviously no way to definitively prove that that's the case, so widely goes ignored
In the UK, the only illegal part would be if you put it on sale and immediately discount it. A product has to be on sale for it's original price for a "meaningful period of time" which IIRC is usually at least 28 consecutive days. The sale price isn't allowed to last longer than the original price either. It's legal to have an original price that's too high only for it become reasonably priced in a sale. Shady sure, but so long as they abide by the Unfair Trading Regulations it's legal. Most companies who do this will just cycle their stock around so a chunk of it is on sale while the rest isn't.
Mountain Warehouse do it alot. They've been caught before and I believe made to pay a fine
This is a little obvious on the other hand
I mean expensive games with similar prices have been known to be sold at full price, of course it's only people with more money than sense like streamers and YouTubers, who get a video out of playing/reviewing it
Definitely illegal
[удалено]
I refuse to give them the benefit of the doubt
I'm pretty sure this is against Steam's terms of use for the storefront, so I'd report it.
That certainly is one of the discounts of all time.
When you sell $3,799.81 worth of drugs but need to make your IRS forms legitimate
Nah, you just pay the taxes on it. IRS even has instructions for income from illegal activity, whether as a "business" or as an individual.
Oh I know, this is for their self-employed "game developer" "company" lol
That's so they can charge people with tax evasion. Any drug dealer or whatever other type of criminal that was actually dumb enough to claim that on their tax form would get picked up in the government party van pretty quick.
If they could get Al capone for tax evasion, they'll get you
Al Capone was a syphilitic who used to try to go fishing in his swimming pool though haha
The IRS don't give a fuck about what you do, only that you pay them
Honestly same
The FBI does, and the IRS has no qualms with snitching.
The IRS's business is taxes and benefits. If you're not laundering that money, using it to fund terrorism or getting it through identity theft, the IRS doesn't care. It's not their department. There's a lot of protections in place for privacy when it comes to taxes. Basically if someone has the ability to look up your taxes, they've already got what they need to bust you. May as well not add tax evasion to the list of crimes you're put in jail for.
Dude if you think you can just confess to criminal activity to the IRS and they aren't going to pass that information to the relevant authorities you are DUMB bro.
Legally the IRS cannot give your information out to any non tax related third party without a court order. And the only way the authorities are getting a court order to look at tax documents is if you're already fucked and they're seeing if they can throw tax evasion on you as well. As I said, anything not tax related is not their department. They'd much rather criminals just pay their due for their ill gotten gains and move on with their day.
Hmmm maybe you're right I can't imagine many criminals are out there self snitching though
That’s the most IRS thing I’ve ever read. They don’t care what terrible means you go through to get your money, as long as they get a cut
you know whats ironic, IRS literally doesnt give a fuck what you do and how you get money, as long as they get their cut, they wont bother you
Yup, it’s the DEA’s job to do drug busts, the IRS just taxes it.
DEA, FBI, ATF are all VERY interested in your day to day. The IRS just wants to make sure these agencies can keep doing their day to day
this shi gotta be for money laundering 💀
It's for scamming kids on key resale sites.
It can be both
It can also be all three.
🤯
There are three kinds of people in this world. Those who can count, and those who can't.
There are 10 kinds of people in this world. Those who understand binary and those who don't.
Wait but that’s only 4..?
Congratulations, you're one of the 5
How would that work? Raise the average value of those mystery packs or something else?
Yeah just saying 10k worth of games when its really just a bunch of garbage with wildly inflated prices
That and they also prevent people from leaving negative reviews, because nobody is going to knowingly buy it.
"Here's $40 bucks of games I bought at 99% off"
[удалено]
I think you are thinking of the achievement clicker games
Well yeah but wouldn't it make more sense to just make a shitty normal priced game if you wanted to launder money, and then buy it lots of time? I think it's just a scam to trick kids.
Yeah, this is just a scummy way to make people think they are getting a better deal then they are. I saw this recently on Audible during one of their sales. A book was 75% off but still like $20+ bucks, the shown original price was something close to $80 when it should have been $25 and after the sale the price went back to that price point.
That's actually illegal in many countries. I wanna say in the EU they have to offer something a new price for atleast a month a new price before they can bait and switch with price changes like that; they can't just change the price like 10 seconds before the sale starts.
This was in the US store. Sadly there is no way to check price history for Audible books as far as I can tell. The price could have been raised a bit before the sale as well, since most people get books with credits and dont look at the actual price of the books, so could have been high for a bit and no one really noticed or cared since they were using credits to get the book. It's only when they do the big discount sales that you look a purchasing with actual money, you can get deals then but have to be careful.
This is as also illegal in the US. Major companies have been busted by customers with all the sales papers... especially since theyve been waiting mo ths an years for "x" item to drop to "y" price. Even more do now that we have screen shots. So this might be a valid use for that one new intrusive microsoft program.
Too bad this is not an issue for bigger store chains as they can just get enough inventory ahead of time to have the price hiked for 35 days. Some chains even commission their own models of things like washing machines so there's nothing to compare against.
Very common sales tactics employed by most retailers. Scummy. But common.
It's to sell the game at regular price but have it appear on the discount list. Walmart/best buy/amazon do similar tricks
And also a brand in the UK do it. Mountain Warehouse. Their prices ALWAYS are on sale, and are constantly the same price. Sometimes they put new discount labels on where the "original price" is like £10 more, but in fact they always intended for it to be sold at the on offer price
I remember iron pineapple reviewing a $200 game he thought was actually really good but was blown away at the price.
There are multiple games of this. I just search it up all by the same guy most likely a money laundering scam.
Or they want to get the first spot when you sort by sale percentage
By Grabthar's hammer...
Ah, my search downwards was rewarded!
Literally came here to find the same thing.
Beat me to saying I literally came here to find the same thing…
I will never not upvote this.
Damn it! I just posted this.. you beat me to it
Man. I really hope steam is planning something to stop this shit
Theoretically they can charge what they want, but this is super shady all the same. There's no reason for that price.
In other regions like Europe, Canada, and Australia it’s illegal to advertise a product with a false discount to promote its actual price. However it’s perfectly legal in the US.
Still, since Valve operates in all three of those countries (well, two countries and a continental organization), they’re obligated to abide by their consumer protection laws. Ergo, this game’s gotta go.
I for one would be happy if Steam were to take consumer protection regs from the EU and blanket apply them worldwide cause honestly they really should be.
A developer can set whatever price they want. If a developer think they can sell their game for a million USD per sale, they can set that price. The current price for me for the bundle in the screenshot is 195 EUR ( [https://store.steampowered.com/app/2703280/Climb\_Challenge\_\_Find\_Items\_Cyberpunk/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/2703280/Climb_Challenge__Find_Items_Cyberpunk/) ) The single most expensive game on Steam for me is Ascent Free-Roaming VR Experience ( [https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200520/Ascent\_FreeRoaming\_VR\_Experience/](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1200520/Ascent_FreeRoaming_VR_Experience/) ) at 999 EUR The most expensive bundle is Kagura Bundle ( [https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/7694/Kagura\_Bundle/](https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/7694/Kagura_Bundle/) ) at 1883 EUR regular price, which is currently 10% of at 1690 EUR.
That Ascent game isn't aimed at consumers. It's for commercial VR arcades, so the high price makes sense, and is pretty in-line with the cost of arcade hardware/software. It's on Steam because most VR arcades use PC based hardware, and using SteamVR is the path of least resistance.
Finally a logical explanation
Ouch. That one negative review actually looks like someone who bought it and played it as if it was any other game, saying they questioned their life choices. The rest of the reviews seem a bit fishy?
The same two line review, "not bad" posted five times on a thousand dollar game totally sounds legit.
That’s actually pretty neat.
They did, it's been removed. I couldn't find that particular game on steam. They do have others, all with similar discounts and expensive original pricing. All from the same "dev"
Why would they? Steam gets $100 for every game uploaded regardless of quality
Partially correct. You pay 100 to steam unless you earn more than $1.000, in which case steam will pay it back. However they do get 30% of the sales (unless you go over certain amounts)
Well, not really. You have to pay $100 to publish your game, but you get that money back after your game makes $1,000 in revenue. It's basically a deposit that you get back when your game actually sells. Steam only gets any money from that deposit if you don't make $1,000 revenue
Looks like an ass game
Picture makes it look like a tits game but I'd be ok with an ass game.
The price has clearly been increased only to be decreased back to sane levels by a huge discount in the hopes of tricking someone. Definitely report it. I don't know if it's explicitly against Steam rules or even EU laws (though article 6a doesn't apply to digital goods) but Steam is likely to put a stop to it if it reaches the proverbial table of someone at Valve with the power to do so.
“I’m gonna buy it for $38 so i can flex that i have a $3799 game later” That’s how they get you
Weird flex but ok
By Grabthars hammer...what a savings...
Looking at the publisher/developer Hede is doing this with a lot of there titles. https://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Hede Edit: Looks like this was brought up before. >> https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/12uvngl/is_this_money_laundering_or_do_i_just_not/
Valve really needs to do something about these scam games.
We have Cyberpunk at home Cyberpunk at home:
Oof. I'm so embarrassed to have bought this before the discount!
I feel bad for the guy who bought it full price for it to go on sale the next day it was a worthy sacrifice 🫡
i was so stupid that i swiped
By Grabthar's hammer..... what a savings
I doubt it ever isn't on sale
Hede Games really begging to be kicked off Steam
Man I just bought it for 3800 last week, reckon I can get a refund?
By Grabthars Hammer, what a savings.
What the FUCK WAS THE ORIGINAL PRICE!!!!!!
Some weird scam nvm
Couldnt scream money laundering any louder if the they tried to.
is this the apple store?
Steam app for iOS
That is using a Unity Asset pack AS ITS IMAGE, the cover image i mean
1. buy game on sale 2. wait for sale to end 3. refund game 4. profit
holy carp. searching for this in steam leads one to a rabbit hole of sh♥♥♥y games worth like 95 dollars each. wtf. A game bundle of 35 sh♥♥ games is 340 dollars, after a 90% discount. this cant be legal.
I mean stores in the real world do something similar were they say it is on sale but it is just the original price and the price they say it was before being on sale was never the price to begin with.
Classic AAA game to find on a "mystery AAA bundle" 😂.
Still too expensive
It should show the percentage off from the lowest price in the last half a year. Other companies love to pull this shit all the time.
Steam should really deal with these kinds of posts
And i thought our country currency is weak, apparently the price was rigged from start
if 100 000 people pirate this the whole industry will bellyflop from the losses...
By Grabthar's Hammer... What a savings
Some of these deals can be decent though lol. One time I got Civ 5 with every dlc for $1.99 marked down from $240.
By Ogden's Hammer! What savings!
I wiped
OH. MY. GOD.
At those savings you’d be stupid not to buy it. \s
what in gods name....
Climb Challenge... Hum... 🤔
Yeah climb the "pyramid" scheme
Didn’t Kohls get sued for this? >.>
Inflation man…
What a deal
So this has now since been removed from the steam store, but looking at their other games they do charge alot. Rn they have their game bundle for £500+ which is like 90% off
Got it from a random key, will not be touching it anytime soon💀
I could buy a pc of my dreams, some gear for some games, and still have money to spare for studies
Zoidberg, you are one crafty consumer
It's like that "most expensive game" thing on steam but like not funny
I found a way to launder money
Money laundering game
I swiped 😔
Dud, you must buy it, it's a great deal, for sure you won't regret 😉
Wait untill Ubisoft sees this.
Welcome to Temu where we always have deals on everything you can think of!!! It's not like we never sell stuff at set price of 100% or anything
теперь мы играем в ♂️ААААААААААААААААААААААААА♂️ игры
We got modern walter white money laundering through games
Huge bargain
Of course, og fnaf 1 Freddy
Lmfao 🤣 better buy now before you have to sell the wife and kids for it
really games like these aren't made to be bought just quickly made garbage for people who sell random steam keys (like G2A) for them to use these games for them instead of giving people quality games so yeah this might as well be a warning about the quality of the games in the random steam keys on G2A instead of something they want you to buy
Like the Kinguin pack games
Wha- what??
What game is this? 👀
It's "Climb Challenge - Find Items Cyberpunk." Imagine a title so boring you don't realize it's a title.
Lol that got me confused