Re: Epic Games Store Mega Sale

On 18/05/2025 16:16, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:

As to the digital sales themselves, it's a LITTLE better today than it
was five or six years ago, when Valve put their foot down and stopped
publishers from blatantly manipulating prices to make their sales look
better. (E.g., game normally sells for $50, a week prior to sale jack
up 'list price' to $70, then during sale give a 25% discount but still
sell the game for $53 😉

I don't know what the legal position is on digital goods but here in the UK physical goods do come with strings attached (how long available at a certain price and how long after you can then claim it's a sale). Not that it stops retailers trying to pull a fast one with my favourite example of putting Xmas goods out sometime in July, with inflated prices, which means come December time they can be offered for sale.
What did really dampen it down was the amount of publicity surrounding the big chains effectively trying to dupe customers which isn't a good look. It also pretty much put a stop to increasing the price for a month and the putting them in a 2-for-1 offer with an exaggerated discount.
The main place I tend to see it now is on lunch time meal deals with the speciality of making a bottle of soft drink very expensive to make the whole deal look much better than it is.