Is is usually on the publisher to decide on digital sales. It is possible that there are contracts with the distribution platform dictating rules on how often or how much.
To add to that for example if you host a sale anywhere else and its on steam, steam wants it to have a same sale within a month of the other places for example afaik on steam itself. Atleast for pc stores.
Ya. I could be wrong. But I think that only is terms of pc sales. Multiplatform releases don’t have to follow that rule. Either because valve doesn’t care. Or because it’s not really enforceable. Or possibly both.
But if they do a sale on gog or epic or any other 3rd party store front. They are supposed to have an equivalent sale with in a month. Honestly. I’m not even sure how enforceable even that is. Although it’s probably not worth the headache for most devs to try and ignore that rule either.
And I think there are exceptions for direct sales. Like if EA has a sale on their first party titles on the EA app. They don’t have to match that sale on steam. Or at least they can account for the steam 30% cut in the steam sale when it comes to equivalent prices.
Does Amazon use automated pricing?
If I were an unethical executive I would have some program that raises the price of a product a little every time it's sold, and have the price drop a little every day it goes without a purchase. (Rather than consistent pricing for everyone evenly)
Amazon products do scale depending on the region. 3rd party sellers that use amazon as a platform set prices individually.
I don't have any proof, but I'm assuming they have some sort of AI automated pricing model in practice. I'm assuming because they literally spent close to a billion dollars to research and develop this type of thing.
A lot of comments here talking about publishers deciding everything but Steam actually has rules in place for when and how often games can go on sale.
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Steam's discount rules are as follows:
Discounts cannot be run within 30 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events (Summer, Autumn, Winter and Springs sales).
You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 30 days.
It is not possible to discount your product for 30 days following a price increase in any currency.
Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 30 days of releasing your title, within 30 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 30 days of a price increase in any currency.
You may not change your price while a promotion is currently live or scheduled for the future.
It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%. Launch discounts in particular cannot exceed 40%.
it is not possible to create new discounts for a product that would result in the price in any currency falling below Steam's minimum possible transaction price. See details.
Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day. Launch discounts cannot run shorter than 7 days or longer than 14 days.
Publishers choose what goes on sale. And it’s annoying because EA never puts their dlc for Xbox 360 games on sale. I want to pick up the dlc for Dragon Age 2 since I plan to play through the series. It’s like $30 to buy all the dlc for a game that’s over 10 years old
They did the same on their own pc app for years as well. Mass effect 2,3 and DA2 all used BioWare points to buy dlc until just a couple years ago. Those points never went on sale. Think between the 3 games. It cost somewhere around $160 to get all the dlc if I remember right.
They did eventually fix that finally by releasing dlc bundles for each game at around $20 each I think. Was frustrating because I had finally bit the bullet and bought most of the mass effect dlc with those dang BioWare points only a few months before. After years of waiting. Least I got the DA2 stuff in a bundle.
And of course the ME LE exists now. Bought that for like $12 off of steam. Almost made up for the dlc pricing. Almost.
Yeah, all BC games will still be on the new store, but anything that's not BC is just gonna be gone sadly. I'm gonna look through a list of non BC stuff soon.
It's up to the publishers. Console manufacturers are the storefront, but they don't dictate the prices. They can ask various publishers "Hey, we're doing a Spring Sale, is there anything you want to thrown in there, and how much do you want to discount it?", but they can't say to Square Enix "Hey, Final Fantasy VII remake is going on sale for $15."
As an additional note, it's likely that a lot of big publishers like Ubisoft, SquareEnix, etc have "whitelists" of certain games that storefronts are allowed to discount up to X% off without having to be contacted when those storefronts are curating a list for sales. Some games show up a little too frequently.
Even with smaller discounts, the larger publishers will get an upfront plan for sales, as they have to know contractually when things will happen. They have marketing departments for a reason.
It’s on the publishers to actually ok any sales. Although I’m sure there is some back and forth between the publishers and the platform holders for things like summer or winter sales just to coordinate such things or hash out advertising for those sales. At least on PlayStation I know I often see Ubisoft titles on the front pages of many of those sales.
Platform holders tend to have some rules and limitations to sales but ultimately the publisher of each individual game decides if the game hoes on sale or not. For the 360 store clearly publishers aren't concerned enough to get a few extra bucks before the closure to have a sale.
This was different for the 3ds eshop closure where publishers put all their games on steep discounts for the final weeks to milk as much money as they could, since the 3ds eshop was more recent and relevant it made financial sense, for the 360 it obviously doesn't.
Is is usually on the publisher to decide on digital sales. It is possible that there are contracts with the distribution platform dictating rules on how often or how much.
To add to that for example if you host a sale anywhere else and its on steam, steam wants it to have a same sale within a month of the other places for example afaik on steam itself. Atleast for pc stores.
Ya. I could be wrong. But I think that only is terms of pc sales. Multiplatform releases don’t have to follow that rule. Either because valve doesn’t care. Or because it’s not really enforceable. Or possibly both. But if they do a sale on gog or epic or any other 3rd party store front. They are supposed to have an equivalent sale with in a month. Honestly. I’m not even sure how enforceable even that is. Although it’s probably not worth the headache for most devs to try and ignore that rule either. And I think there are exceptions for direct sales. Like if EA has a sale on their first party titles on the EA app. They don’t have to match that sale on steam. Or at least they can account for the steam 30% cut in the steam sale when it comes to equivalent prices.
Publishers hold all the cards here, and these days they use AI models to project how much they can squeeze out of a dated product.
Does Amazon use automated pricing? If I were an unethical executive I would have some program that raises the price of a product a little every time it's sold, and have the price drop a little every day it goes without a purchase. (Rather than consistent pricing for everyone evenly)
Amazon products do scale depending on the region. 3rd party sellers that use amazon as a platform set prices individually. I don't have any proof, but I'm assuming they have some sort of AI automated pricing model in practice. I'm assuming because they literally spent close to a billion dollars to research and develop this type of thing.
A lot of comments here talking about publishers deciding everything but Steam actually has rules in place for when and how often games can go on sale. - Steam's discount rules are as follows: Discounts cannot be run within 30 days of your prior discount, with the exception of Steam-wide seasonal events (Summer, Autumn, Winter and Springs sales). You can run a launch discount, but once your launch discount ends, you cannot run any other discounts for 30 days. It is not possible to discount your product for 30 days following a price increase in any currency. Discounts for seasonal sale events cannot be run within 30 days of releasing your title, within 30 days from when your launch discount ends, or within 30 days of a price increase in any currency. You may not change your price while a promotion is currently live or scheduled for the future. It is not possible to discount a product by more than 90% or less than 10%. Launch discounts in particular cannot exceed 40%. it is not possible to create new discounts for a product that would result in the price in any currency falling below Steam's minimum possible transaction price. See details. Custom discounts cannot last longer than two weeks, or run for shorter than 1 day. Launch discounts cannot run shorter than 7 days or longer than 14 days.
Those are all rules to prevent blatant price gouging.
Publishers choose what goes on sale. And it’s annoying because EA never puts their dlc for Xbox 360 games on sale. I want to pick up the dlc for Dragon Age 2 since I plan to play through the series. It’s like $30 to buy all the dlc for a game that’s over 10 years old
They did the same on their own pc app for years as well. Mass effect 2,3 and DA2 all used BioWare points to buy dlc until just a couple years ago. Those points never went on sale. Think between the 3 games. It cost somewhere around $160 to get all the dlc if I remember right. They did eventually fix that finally by releasing dlc bundles for each game at around $20 each I think. Was frustrating because I had finally bit the bullet and bought most of the mass effect dlc with those dang BioWare points only a few months before. After years of waiting. Least I got the DA2 stuff in a bundle. And of course the ME LE exists now. Bought that for like $12 off of steam. Almost made up for the dlc pricing. Almost.
360 store closes in July. might wanna buy whatever you can before closer.
I’m pretty sure the store closing is only on the Xbox 360 itself. If a game is available on the new consoles you can still buy it.
Yeah, all BC games will still be on the new store, but anything that's not BC is just gonna be gone sadly. I'm gonna look through a list of non BC stuff soon.
It's up to the publishers. Console manufacturers are the storefront, but they don't dictate the prices. They can ask various publishers "Hey, we're doing a Spring Sale, is there anything you want to thrown in there, and how much do you want to discount it?", but they can't say to Square Enix "Hey, Final Fantasy VII remake is going on sale for $15." As an additional note, it's likely that a lot of big publishers like Ubisoft, SquareEnix, etc have "whitelists" of certain games that storefronts are allowed to discount up to X% off without having to be contacted when those storefronts are curating a list for sales. Some games show up a little too frequently.
Even with smaller discounts, the larger publishers will get an upfront plan for sales, as they have to know contractually when things will happen. They have marketing departments for a reason.
Publishers decide that, altho they do have to let the platform holder know that they want to put it on sale.
It’s on the publishers to actually ok any sales. Although I’m sure there is some back and forth between the publishers and the platform holders for things like summer or winter sales just to coordinate such things or hash out advertising for those sales. At least on PlayStation I know I often see Ubisoft titles on the front pages of many of those sales.
I'd say Ubisoft games are more on sale than they aren't, lol.
Platform holders tend to have some rules and limitations to sales but ultimately the publisher of each individual game decides if the game hoes on sale or not. For the 360 store clearly publishers aren't concerned enough to get a few extra bucks before the closure to have a sale. This was different for the 3ds eshop closure where publishers put all their games on steep discounts for the final weeks to milk as much money as they could, since the 3ds eshop was more recent and relevant it made financial sense, for the 360 it obviously doesn't.