Skyrim - Price Inflated Prior to Sale

sakichop said:

As for the transfer vs free thing. If you look at it that way then nothing is free. Even if Bethesda gave it away for "fee" to everyone they would still pay the cost of making it so it's just a transfer of cost from the consumer to Bethesda. Silly way to look at it imo though.

Click to expand...

Indeed as it is a transfer from some consumers (and not the consumer) to Bethesda and some other consumers.

That nothing is free, no free meal thing is devoid of any practicability. Basically just some smoke.

This does not mean that there are not different deals.

In ancient times, games were offered for free. It means that the offering side took charge of the cost. The organization of the games appeared as a minus for the offering side.

In a case of Bethesda's deal, the offering side gets paid to make the free offer. And it is paid by one part of the people who are on the receiving side.

This kind of deals are something relatively new. Usually, people used to understand free as being paid by the giver, a gift. This limited the occurrence of such operations.

These days, as providing something for free at the expense of some customers in favour of the offering side and some other customers have been turned into work, it is no longer the same thing.
This operation free stuff is going to appear as a plus on Bethesda's account.