PSA: Be Wary of "Pre-Steam Sale" Markups

[Jburton9]

Thanks for the heads up! Yes I do the same as others have mentioned, I look at final price to be paid and *then* make the decision if it is of value or not. Also that slipping in microtransactions to block game returns is flat out bad in every sense and should be policed by steam as it circumvents their more customer friendly return policy.

 

[TristanBelmont]

I always just wait until the price is within what I believe it's worth. GTA V might have been worth 60 USD two years ago when it first came out, but as soon as Rockstar put a two year old game on Steam for full price, I checked out of caring.

Then they did this markup shit and I decided I'm done with them entirely. Many of you might think that's a bit much but I don't think so. Already feel that way towards EA and Ubisoft, why not add another to the list.

 

[Atmos Duality]

And that's why you look at the end sale price; not just the little green tag.

 

[shintakie10]

Well here in Australia it IS illegal, and as such they should be held accountable. Not that I expect anything to come of it of course.

Publishers who pull this crap can go f*ck themselves, especially 2K since they inflate the price for Australians on Steam to start with. $75 USD for GTA V as a starting price? Get f*cked.

Its not illegal because they didn't actually mark up the price of the game. If you look, the game is still 59.99 (or whatever it is in Australian money). The only discounted thing is the bundle with the shark card.

Its still shady as fuck, but its the legal kind of shady, not the illegal kind of shady.

Marking up and then discounting IS illegal in Australia, the ACCC classifies it as misleading advertising, Steam has been in trouble with this before, I can't remember which game it was for.

https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/displaying-prices

Go down to two price comparison advertising for the relevant section.

Even if it wasn't illegal, it's still extremely dickish. The term 'caveat emptor' applies very strongly here.

Thats the thing. Rockstar didn't mark up anything. They made a bundle and discounted it.

As I said, its shady as fuck because it makes people think its on sale when its really not, but the thing they actually did wouldn't actually be illegal. The base game is still the same price its always been.

 

[MonsterCrit]

Meh.. it's a moot point. I never look at the percentage in these cases I look at the price. If the price is not something I feel like paying I couldn't care if it was a 95% discount. So again this is the sort of strategy that only catches impulse buyers with a crippling fear of reading the entire price tag.

If someone tried to steal your wallet but you caught them, would it be a "moot point" or would it matter to you?

How is this stealing? Are they posting a price and charging you another? This is basically akin to what supermarkets do when they list the wholesale unit price in big letters and the non-wholesale price in small er types.

So yeah kinda a moot. If you're looking at the actual price not the discount, that sort of shady practice really doesn't accomplish anything. And if you're the kind that doesmn't you probably stopped reading theis post after the first sentence so i can type : gurbleflurblewobblybits.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

They probably started doing this because developers and publishers HATE the Steam Summer Sales discounts, so they push their prices up so that when discounted by Steam it still doesn't cost them that much.

If they don't want to partake in the summer sale, why not just avoid it entirely instead of shooting their PR in the foot while also potentially opening the door for lawsuits?

Probably because gamers have long-since proven that a company could be openly funding terrorist groups, and we'd still give them billions upon billions of dollars as long as their game is fun enough. Seriously, name me one time, ONE TIME when a company (or even a game) actually suffered because of negative publicity. And no, some no-name company/game that only made headlines because of said publicity, and then faded back into the obscurity from whence they came doesn't count. I'm talking a game/company that already had some clout, and then suffered immediate consequences as the result of the backlash from this or that controversy. Because honestly, all I can think of are dozens of times when we swore we were sick of a company or were going to boycott this or that game, and then nothing happened except gamers emptying-out their wallets.

Why should any gaming company give a crap about negative PR when gamers have proven that they have zero willpower? They're still going to make bank on the games that are "on sale", and any lawsuits will be a drop in the bucket to settle out of court in comparison.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

What I don't understand is how they expected this to work. I don't know the price of a gallon of milk, or an American Eagle jacket off of the top of my head. If they marked it up before a sell, I probably wouldn't know. But games? There's a set price. We all know how much a game costs. Children know. So what were they thinking? It would be better not to take part.

There really isn't a set price anymore. Plenty of games are released below the $60 standard. Can you honestly tell me that you know the exact price of every single non-AAA title that's been released over the past few years? Because that price can range anywhere from $15 to $20 to $25, and even several that are priced in between. Even many AAA titles get their price lowered after a couple years or so. It'd be easy for a company to mark their game up from $15 to $20 and then put it on sale for 25% off, and only a handful of people would be likely to notice. The rest would just think "Woo! Discount!" and be none the wiser.

That said though, it definitely goes to show that, even during a sale, caveat emptor. Before buying a game that claims to be discounted, check around. Even just checking that game's discussions (every game on Steam has a discussion section) and see if people are calling them out.

 

[Fox12]

What I don't understand is how they expected this to work. I don't know the price of a gallon of milk, or an American Eagle jacket off of the top of my head. If they marked it up before a sell, I probably wouldn't know. But games? There's a set price. We all know how much a game costs. Children know. So what were they thinking? It would be better not to take part.

There really isn't a set price anymore. Plenty of games are released below the $60 standard. Can you honestly tell me that you know the exact price of every single non-AAA title that's been released over the past few years? Because that price can range anywhere from $15 to $20 to $25, and even several that are priced in between. Even many AAA titles get their price lowered after a couple years or so. It'd be easy for a company to mark their game up from $15 to $20 and then put it on sale for 25% off, and only a handful of people would be likely to notice. The rest would just think "Woo! Discount!" and be none the wiser.

That said though, it definitely goes to show that, even during a sale, caveat emptor. Before buying a game that claims to be discounted, check around. Even just checking that game's discussions (every game on Steam has a discussion section) and see if people are calling them out.

I would agree, if we were talking about an indie game, or an older game. But We're not. We're talking about one of the best selling games of the generation, and it's a AAA title. How many non-collectors versions of games are priced over $60? An $80 game discounted to the normal sales price? I'm not even offended that they tried to trick us. I'm offended that they thought it would work.

 

[Vigormortis]

Plague?

Pre-sale markups are "plaguing" Steam? Come on, Steven. A handful of titles (at best) doesn't constitute a "plague".

Also, you may want to let people know that the price tracker linked in the article isn't necessarily the most accurate representation of price changes. For example, it currently shows that Counter-Strike: Source was supposedly marked up to $29.99 a week or so before the Summer sale. Thing is, that price is for the Source Multiplayer pack, not CS:S. The reason the $29.99 is listed is because, thanks to a prior sale, the pack was a lower price than CS:S was at its discount price.

So, just a heads up to those consulting the tracker: Take the listings with a grain of salt.

All that said, it's good that word is spreading about those few devs and publishers who are doing this. It's a scummy tactic that deserves all the negative criticism it receives.

Total Biscuit just came out with an apology as some of the devs on that/a reddit list actually did not mark up anything so be careful where you point your blame. It's apparently not super accurate.

https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/retraction-and-apology-for-earlier-price-raising-post

More people should be aware of this. The site even says, on it's main page no less, that prices may be inaccurate.

 

[Zontar]

Seriously, name me one time, ONE TIME when a company (or even a game) actually suffered because of negative publicity.

THQ, formerly one of the biggest publishers, got this after getting a few too many negatively received games in a row. Sure, it wasn't bad PR because they screwed up in customer relations, but it was due to making bad games which they couldn't deal damage control for.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

What I don't understand is how they expected this to work. I don't know the price of a gallon of milk, or an American Eagle jacket off of the top of my head. If they marked it up before a sell, I probably wouldn't know. But games? There's a set price. We all know how much a game costs. Children know. So what were they thinking? It would be better not to take part.

There really isn't a set price anymore. Plenty of games are released below the $60 standard. Can you honestly tell me that you know the exact price of every single non-AAA title that's been released over the past few years? Because that price can range anywhere from $15 to $20 to $25, and even several that are priced in between. Even many AAA titles get their price lowered after a couple years or so. It'd be easy for a company to mark their game up from $15 to $20 and then put it on sale for 25% off, and only a handful of people would be likely to notice. The rest would just think "Woo! Discount!" and be none the wiser.

That said though, it definitely goes to show that, even during a sale, caveat emptor. Before buying a game that claims to be discounted, check around. Even just checking that game's discussions (every game on Steam has a discussion section) and see if people are calling them out.

I would agree, if we were talking about an indie game, or an older game. But We're not. We're talking about one of the best selling games of the generation, and it's a AAA title. How many non-collectors versions of games are priced over $60? An $80 game discounted to the normal sales price? I'm not even offended that they tried to trick us. I'm offended that they thought it would work.

I'm talking in general, not just GTA. They aren't the only ones doing this, after-all.

Besides, GTA didn't just mark-up their game, they put it in a bundle with an item that costs extra, then discounted the price of the extra item. They even have the normal price right under the bundle price. It's hard to see it as being all that shady when anyone looking at the page can tell even from a cursory glance that the two prices are the same, but one of them has an extra item thrown-in. Heck, they even have a couple other bundles that are basically "Buy GTA V, and we'll give you this other game for free, and throw-in a cash card on top".

It's obvious that what they wanted to do was have a sale of "Buy GTA and get free items with it", but they can only do-so by bundling the items and applying a discount. It's not really Rockstar being shady so-much as it's Steam only allowing publishers to post discounts in a single way.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Seriously, name me one time, ONE TIME when a company (or even a game) actually suffered because of negative publicity.

THQ, formerly one of the biggest publishers, got this after getting a few too many negatively received games in a row. Sure, it wasn't bad PR because they screwed up in customer relations, but it was due to making bad games which they couldn't deal damage control for.

Granted that "they make bad games" is certainly a form of negative PR, but we both know that it's not what I was talking when I said that publishers/games rarely suffer as a result of negative PR. I'm talking about things like the laundry list of things that EA and Activision have done, yet they both continue successfully because they publish games that people want; or games that were supposedly going to be boycotted because of this or that announcement (like the PC version of MW2 when it was announced that it would drop dedicated servers) yet went-on to be commercial successes. So yes, there are certainly plenty of cases of a developer/publisher going under because they're known for making/publishing terrible games, but I'm talking about cases of a game being good, but still selling bad because of gamers taking a stand against something the company did.

Gamers are the epitome of "all talk, no walk". If a game is good enough, the developers could announce that you need to take a kick in the sack as part of the payment process, and it would still sell millions. Sure gamers would raise a fit about it online, but all that the publisher is going to hear is "millions sold", and then continue selling more games with the same policy in place.

 

[lunavixen]

Well here in Australia it IS illegal, and as such they should be held accountable. Not that I expect anything to come of it of course.

Publishers who pull this crap can go f*ck themselves, especially 2K since they inflate the price for Australians on Steam to start with. $75 USD for GTA V as a starting price? Get f*cked.

Its not illegal because they didn't actually mark up the price of the game. If you look, the game is still 59.99 (or whatever it is in Australian money). The only discounted thing is the bundle with the shark card.

Its still shady as fuck, but its the legal kind of shady, not the illegal kind of shady.

Marking up and then discounting IS illegal in Australia, the ACCC classifies it as misleading advertising, Steam has been in trouble with this before, I can't remember which game it was for.

https://www.accc.gov.au/business/pricing/displaying-prices

Go down to two price comparison advertising for the relevant section.

Even if it wasn't illegal, it's still extremely dickish. The term 'caveat emptor' applies very strongly here.

Thats the thing. Rockstar didn't mark up anything. They made a bundle and discounted it.

As I said, its shady as fuck because it makes people think its on sale when its really not, but the thing they actually did wouldn't actually be illegal. The base game is still the same price its always been.

If I read it right then the bundle also prevents getting refunds on GTA V, which is also against Australian consumer law. I also went to the Steam page and several reviews have noted that the price was increased just before the sale (not to mention it's cheaper to get a physical copy here $73USD for that bundle vs $77AUD for a physical PS4 copy from EB (new), buying from ebay is cheaper again).

 

[Snotnarok]

Total Biscuit just came out with an apology as some of the devs on that/a reddit list actually did not mark up anything so be careful where you point your blame. It's apparently not super accurate.

https://soundcloud.com/totalbiscuit/retraction-and-apology-for-earlier-price-raising-post

More people should be aware of this. The site even says, on it's main page no less, that prices may be inaccurate.

But that ruins the click-bait if you go bringing in sources and details that may undo what the article stands for!

I'm not even sure what the upset is with GTA-V okay, it's a bundle that's discounted and not the game itself, but you click it, you see what's on offer and you go "oh, it's just extra in game money crap" and then the consumer uses what they call "a brain" to decide if they want to get it now or drop it.

The outrage is bonkers, it's not like people are clicking buy when seeing the full price then after downloading it going "hey, that wasn't on sale! I got ripped off 4 checkout stages and 4 carjackings ago!"

Yeah it's dumb but, outrage? I dunno I clicked on it myself and said "that's dumb" and moved on.

But, no idea if the OP actually is around to care about this anymore or is alright with posting unverified info as fact and moving on. (That's not a stab at the OP, I genuinely don't know the person so I'm hoping this can maybe get a bit more details since more have since come out.)

Also, another article pointing out some issues...yes it's Kotaku, whatever they have points that I agreed with http://steamed.kotaku.com/the-truth-behind-the-steam-summer-sale-controversy-1710941999?utm_campaign=Socialflow_Kotaku_Facebook&utm_source=Kotaku_Facebook&utm_medium=Socialflow

 

[Uhuru N'Uru]

They probably started doing this because developers and publishers HATE the Steam Summer Sales discounts, so they push their prices up so that when discounted by Steam it still doesn't cost them that much.

Rubbish, no one forces them to sell their game at a discount, if Steam discount it without the publishers agreement, the publisher still gets the same amount of money. Steam takes the entire cost of the discount in those cases or more likely, is that publishers games don't go in the sale at all.

 

[Pseudonym]

Well, thanks for the heads-up. I never liked this practice when I saw it in stores. I already saw some weird things with the price of GTA V apparently on a discount. Anyway, I'm mostly using the current steam sale to buy things I've wanted for a while now and of which I was trackingthe prices for a while anyway.

 

[barbzilla]

Typical scumbags. They pull this crap all the time here in Tennessee, during the all-too-popular "Liquidation Sales!!!"
(add as many more exclamations as you feel are appropriate)

Ah, classy tactics. I recall the name of Finance raising book in the Masquerade. "Always Be Closing", was it?

Exactly. That bullshit is illegal in many states, but one always sees them cropping up here on a consistent basis. And since a precedent has been established, I bet you can imagine how hellacious our Black Fridays are in regards to base price adjustments.

Always be closing is the ABC's of Sales, its been an established protocol to keep your numbers up. However, when you start manipulating numbers it goes beyond that. Always be closing simply means from the moment you open your mouth as a sales person (or begin the presentation, start the ad, ect) you are working towards the close of said sale (I.E. don't get side tracked and have a plan). The tactics shown in the story here are just dirty business maneuvers to trick people who don't pay attention to price baselines and values into buying a game they otherwise wouldn't have. Its dirty and cheap, but it works (unfortunately). Still though, my point being, don't lump sales in with marketing. While they may be similar in many facets, a sales person still has to deal with people at an interpersonal level, while most marketing groups indirectly interact with their target groups (generally making it easier to see the person/group/whatever as an open wallet instead of a person).

 

[Knight Captain Kerr]

This is really scummy. Also I live in Ireland which is one of the countries where this practice is illegal. I wonder if these companies will face any legal action. Ah, who am I kidding? Of course they won't.

 

[vallorn]

But GUYYYYYYYYYYS! Don't you know? They're a business! It's a business' jobs to make money

-Twats.

Seriously, fuck off Rockstar. Instead of pulling stunts like this, maybe you could be making GTA Online less tedious?

Actually I have to respond to this, it IS a business's job to make money for it's stake holders...

HOWEVER! That does not precede good customer service, in the long term such endeavors lose a business money by sacrificing customer goodwill and consumer trust in products. For example, thanks to EA being arseholes I, personally, now buy absolutely nothing with their name attached.

In the end, if you treat your consumers like shit and patronize them like this, you lose money in the long term, see the reactions of people to Bethesda due to their involvement with fiasco that was Paid Mods.

Ergo, the former is true, but it does not justify poor behavior and, in fact, actually condemns poor treatment of customers by companies when viewed in the long term scale.

 

[Politrukk]

PSA: Be Wary of "Pre-Steam Sale" Markups

One of the most popular tactics of physical retailers (marking up a product and then putting it on sale for the original price), is starting to plague Steam.

Steam's frequent, massive sales, like the current reddit [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/141121-Valves-2015-Steam-Summer-Sale-Has-Begun] have noticed that quite a few publishers are taking advantage of the sale, utilizing an old retail trick known as the "pre-sale markup".

Essentially, what retailers (especially fashion retailers) would do, is take a product that normally sells for, say, $20. They would mark it up 100% to $40, and then immediately have a "50% off sale", during which the product is "on sale" for its regular price. It looks like Steam is no stranger to this, as Gaijin Entertainment [http://steamcommunity.com/app/236390/discussions/0/], among others, have raised the price of their games only to discount them during the sale.

There's also some shady stuff going on with Rockstar and GTA V [http://store.steampowered.com/app/271590/], in which the game appears to be on sale, but is only actually discounted when purchased together in a bundle that contains some in-game cash (essentially making the game "full price but with some free in-game cash").

The legality of this kind of tactic varies from country to county, but I think we can all agree that even if it is not illegal, it is still a dick move.

If you're interested in seeing which titles have changed price recently (in advance of the sale, specifically), be sure to check out the Steam Prices tracker [https://www.steamprices.com/us/tracker].

Source: Reddit [http://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/39ckjx/some_companies_are_raising_prices_on_their_steam/]



Permalink

After their actual sale on Europa Universalis IV earlier this week Paradox are pulling a Masterscam, they've got the game marked off 50% and it is now at the price it said it was marked off from earlier this week.

Earlier this week I would have been able to purchase Europa Universalis Pack+ 1 Of the DLC's for about 20 euros, now Europa Universalis itself sells at 20 euros and that's supposedly marked off 50%.

I was actually waiting for my money to come in from a Steam Refund to snag the original deal but now I'm just put-off by this stunt they're pulling.