When do video games prices drop

One silver lining to the death of discs — physical copies of games tend to see deep discounts more quickly than digital downloads. Amazon accounts for about half of all the discounts we found for the games we tracked. Clearly, the online retailer is hard to beat when it comes to prices. At the same time, older games — particularly ones that have been given away at some point in the past — can be had for a fraction of their original prices, and are pretty much always on sale.

After countless delays, it launched with a myriad of bugs that made it unplayable on all but the most powerful gaming rigs. While this botched launch was a serious bummer, it left space for nice savings opportunities.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, deals on well-performing games are a bit harder to come by. Xbox has a more robust backwards compatibility program, so sales tend to feature all four generations of Xbox game. Conversely, the PlayStation Store is much less kind to older games.

While this is frustrating from a collection standpoint, it also means digital PlayStation games tend to receive deeper overall discounts, since you may not be able to play them on every PlayStation you own.

Lots of gamers are dedicated to playing on the latest consoles, but if you want games at rock-bottom prices, PC is the way to go. Sales on digital downloads are common and often dirt cheap. Pre-ordering and getting a newly released game right on launch day may make you feel like the coolest kid in school. But there is always some risk to investing in a game before it comes out, especially if the pre-order is months in advance. So it is important you look at your pre-order like an investment.

With any good investment, due diligence is key. Activision is a for profit company and they price their products to maximize their profits.

A lot of people complain about game prices, but buy the products anyway. When do video game prices drop? Video game prices can drop or go on sale within several weeks of release, or several years, depending upon their popularity and sales figures.

A game that does poorly upon release typically has its price lowered quickly in an attempt to recover losses and encourage more sales. Sales typically last anywhere between just a few hours to hours. Flash sales often happen during shopping holidays like Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but are also used throughout the entire year to increase sales.

Poor Sales Numbers Upon Release. Upset or Dissatisfied Customers. Physical and digital games usually release at the same price.

The only time physical games get cheaper than these sales this is when you buy them second hand. The Steam Summer Sale is back, running from June 24th — July 8th with hundreds—maybe thousands—of games on sale to add to your ever-expanding backlog. The following list only has one thing in common: Every game is on sale at the time of publication. The Steam Summer Sale is a popular two-week event that runs every year and usually sees significant discounts on a variety of games.

The Summer Sale usually involves some sort of theme that allows Steam users to unlock various cosmetic items or collectable trading cards they can use for their profile, as well.

For some games, it takes a bit longer—Grand Theft Auto 5 lasted nearly a year and a half. But if half price is your magic number for buying a new game, expect to wait about seven months for it to enter your sights. This removes tradeable copies of rare games from the market entirely. Not a chance. Or possibly forever. Whichever comes first. Or companies are just way greedier now. Debate in the comments section. And like so many previously-fun collector hobbies, we have scum-of-the-earth scalpers to thank for it.

And when you die, your family will sell all your precious collectables back into the market and maybe… just maybe… prices will come back down again. It supposedly makes them artificially rare and drives prices up. It seems like a ton of effort for minimal gain. By scalpers do you mean people cleaning out new retail? Or guys like me selling used games on ebay?

Because I also collect. And all my inventory for the lost part comes from e-waste and dumps. And I say time and time again to collectors. Will you sell me stuff from your collection way under what is considered market value? If no then shut up! Mostly I see lazy ass collectors getting up at 11am for garage sales and complaining that the scalpers and resellers got them.

Also I always see the collectors asking when prices well drop and if they should sell.