Games on Sale

So, I've been a busy guy for the last couple of days, with the nice weather we have been having in the city and all. I spent most of the day Sunday wandering around Manhattan's Best Buy stores, hoping to spike (acquire) some of the $10 Xbox 360 games that are on sale this week. I found most of what I got, but Soul Calibur was an early morning affair, I am told. I still managed to snag a copy of Pure and Unreal Tournament III, as well as a copy of Operation Darkness, which by all accounts is pretty sub-par but intrigued me enough to waste $10 on it.

All of this has gotten me thinking: Is it just me, or are games going on sale an awful lot lately? Ever since Steam started really upping the number of games it has on sale at any one time, and has started publishing numbers on the dramatic week on week sales increases this causes, everyone seems to be following suit. It makes perfect sense--many games only sell very well during their first few months--and gamers tend to be cheap, for whatever reason. (I myself am definitely in that category, no denigration intended).

In fact, for about the past year, but moreso in the past month or two, almost all of the non must-have games for me have been purchased because they were on sale: Prince of Persia, Braid, Armored Core 4 (I loved the original), Band of Brothers Hell's Highway, FarCry 2, and Burnout Paradise are all firmly in that category.

Is this something we are going to see more of? I daresay it seems to have been working so far. There was an article a few weeks ago about how Steam's free weekend of Unreal Tournament III single-handedly rejuvinated the multiplayer interest in that game.

As for my take on things, it's certainly not something that you want to do if your game is highly successful. I would never reccomend that Blizzard does something like that (actually I would love it if they did). Its just not needed in my opinion. However, if done well, like through the free weekend program, or the 1 year after launch sale that is well advertised, I think it can be fairly profitable. Games are always a low variable cost proposition, and especially with the trend towards online multiplayer, active player count is always essential to keeping interest in the game up.

Have you been buying games on sale? Have you found anything that you wouldn't have found otherwise? What games would you seriously consider buying if they were on sale, that you wouldn't otherwise consider?

-Jon