Skyrim - Price Inflated Prior to Sale

Trying to avoid the debate since everyone knows I am biased :)

But they did update the article so the clip on the front is no longer 100% accurate. Doesn't change the overall facts but still feel it should be mentioned.

Update: It’s been noted that the $65.00 price listing is the cost for buying everything individually before the new ‘bundle’ discount, so the total price under this new format would presumably be $43.71 outside of a sale (assuming you always get the bundle discount for buying in bulk). That’s worth making clear. But that would still represent a near 10% base mark-up over the prior Legendary Edition; even though the ‘double’ percentage reduction tries to make it look like an amazing deal. The real discount here is closer to 33%, but the price shenanigans means it can be shown as both 39 and 59%.

Thanks to reader DrearierSpider for initially bringing this to our attention.
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Couchpotato said:
Meh not surprised by anything Bethesda does anymore. They saw a way to make more money off gamers who wanted a way to cheaply upgrade to the Legendary edition.

What amazes me instead is how Skyrim still sells like hotcakes five years after it's initial release, and it even manages to make Steam's Bestseller list all year round.:thinking:
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So how should I feel, I own all the dlc and will get this free damn them! This is such a weird thing to be pissed at bethesda for.

It really shouldn't amaze you, you get a lot of game for the price of admission...
 
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The real interesting thing here is that people nowadays *expect* discounts on old games. I don't even complain when Blizzard still asks full price a few years after release. You buy the game, or not. Why should they offer any discounts in the first place? It's nice, but you decide whether you want to buy the game for the listed price, or not.
 
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Grifman said:
It was announced to be free to everyone that owned the game and all of the DLC. So nothing has changed in that respect.
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And Bethesda expectations is that this free to everyone that owned the complete product is paid by customers who complete their products to get the so called free update.

Hence the bundle scheme in price.

Nothing free here, only a transfer of wealth from customers to other customers.
 
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Todd needs more money to buy a new jacht and impress the prostitutes that he takes on it. Don't complain people, give Todd what he needs.
 
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Thaurin said:
The real interesting thing here is that people nowadays *expect* discounts on old games. I don't even complain when Blizzard still asks full price a few years after release. You buy the game, or not. Why should they offer any discounts in the first place? It's nice, but you decide whether you want to buy the game for the listed price, or not.
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That's not how economics works. The people who really want the game will usually purchase it early at the higher price. Those who hold out represent a lower demand, so the price goes down to compensate. If the price remains high, many of the holdouts will remain holdouts and Blizzard gets butkus. If the price has remained high, it's usually an indicator that the demand is still there.
 
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ChienAboyeur said:
And Bethesda expectations is that this free to everyone that owned the complete product is paid by customers who complete their products to get the so called free update.

Hence the bundle scheme in price.

Nothing free here, only a transfer of wealth from customers to other customers.
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I don't think you really know what you are talking about.
 
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I don't see the big deal. Bethesda is rewarding customers who supported them by buying the game+ all dlc, nothing wrong with that. Didn't buy it all? Then you'll pay a little, nothing wrong with that either.

As far as the price fluctuating and going up right before a sale, well, welcome to buying just about anything.

As for me , I enjoyed skyrim + mods To the tune of 400+ hours, but it would take some major gameplay changes ( which they're not doing as far as I know) to get me interested.
 
rune_74 said:
I don't think you really know what you are talking about.
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Imagine you're the Bethesda suit that makes the altruistic decision to give away the enhanced Skyrim for free for those with the game and it's DLCs. A nice gesture.

But in order to do the giveaway and yet still make some money from the effort of creating the enhanced edition, you gotta raise the current price of the game between the time you announce the Enhanced Edition and when it becomes available so that the entire effort isn't a zero sum gain or worse.

All sounds reasonable to me. But then again, it's us, the gaming community we're talking about. We'll see the black in every cloud and if a silver lining is spotted, it'll get erased before you know it.

Love games and gaming, been doing it a long time. But gamers back in the 70s/80s/90s were a happier lot playing games that look and played like pre-historic stick art by today's standards. And yet the modern gamer is such a grumpy dark clouds everywhere crowd. Very sad.
 
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rune_74 said:
I don't think you really know what you are talking about.
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He knows exactly what he's talking about, it's just worded in a ridiculously cryptic fashion like his posts always are. Bethesda obviously doesn't do anything for free, they have a certain amount of money they intend to make from the work they will do to release this new "Remastered" version on the PC. His point is that they are giving it to people who already owned the game and all DLC for free, and then making up their entire costs, and profit, on the backs of the people who never bought the game before, or at least never bought all of the DLC (which is where the "transfer" he mentioned comes in). Whereas a perhaps more equitable model might be to release the "Remastered Edition" as a DLC and charge everyone an equal amount to upgrade to that level, and, as a result, not have to hike the price of the base product and existing DLC.

TL;DR version: the price hike made it clear that this new version isn't "free", it's just being paid for by someone other than you (if you already own base game + all DLC).
 
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TheMadGamer said:
But gamers back in the 70s/80s/90s were a happier lot playing games that look and played like pre-historic stick art by today's standards. And yet the modern gamer is such a grumpy dark clouds everywhere crowd. Very sad.
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Ah, those days. When gamers used to stick to their gamers'interests and did not feel the urge of putting the devs/studio shoes on to assess any deal made to them, just as it turned out to be today.

Those were the days.
 
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Stingray said:
TL;DR version: the price hike made it clear that this new version isn't "free", it's just being paid for by someone other than you (if you already own base game + all DLC).
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Or looking at it the other way, we already have been over charged for the DLC (and Legenday edition) to allow Bethesda to work on this (new gen console targeted) remaster.
 
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Stingray said:
He knows exactly what he's talking about, it's just worded in a ridiculously cryptic fashion like his posts always are. Bethesda obviously doesn't do anything for free, they have a certain amount of money they intend to make from the work they will do to release this new "Remastered" version on the PC. His point is that they are giving it to people who already owned the game and all DLC for free, and then making up their entire costs, and profit, on the backs of the people who never bought the game before, or at least never bought all of the DLC (which is where the "transfer" he mentioned comes in). Whereas a perhaps more equitable model might be to release the "Remastered Edition" as a DLC and charge everyone an equal amount to upgrade to that level, and, as a result, not have to hike the price of the base product and existing DLC.

TL;DR version: the price hike made it clear that this new version isn't "free", it's just being paid for by someone other than you (if you already own base game + all DLC).
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Except that wouldn't be an "equitable" solution at all. What's equal about charging a customer who supported you on release day with a $60 purchase and then purchased your 3 DLC,s at $15 a pop for a total of $105 the same price as a customer who waited 5 years and probably would wait longer or not buy it at all.

So I suppose if they wanted to be equitable and fair they need to never lower the price of the game and charge $105 for the remastered edition so everyone pays the same amount.

So I think they're doing the fair thing by giving it free to customers that supported them with a purchase and charging those that are still waiting for it to it $5 in the bargain bin.

Besides if someone hasn't bought it by now I'm guess they can wait longer until the remastered edition is $5 in a sale.

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.
 
sakichop said:
Except that wouldn't be an "equitable" solution at all. What's equal about charging a customer who supported you on release day with a $60 purchase and then purchased your 3 DLC,s at $15 a pop for a total of $105 the same price as a customer who waited 5 years and probably would wait longer or not buy it at all.
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Well, that's the way it always works with games. So deviating from it here is still changing the norm, in order to make the additional revenue that they require to make the remaster worthwhile.

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.
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Yep that's why the famous saying goes, "there's no such thing as a free lunch".
 
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Did you guys notice that Bethesda and many other publishers have increased the prices for their back catalog titles compared to past Steam sales, and even more than once?
 
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Stingray said:
Well, that's the way it always works with games. So deviating from it here is still changing the norm, in order to make the additional revenue that they require to make the remaster worthwhile.


Yep that's why the famous saying goes, "there's no such thing as a free lunch".
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You can get the complete game for something like 25 dollars....this is a significant amount cheaper then the launch price.

You can get skyrim alone for under 10.....

I'm sorry if I don't think 25 dollars isn't gouging people....

This is a business afterall, if they make some money on the side for doing this 64 bit version more power to them.
 
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Stingray said:
TL;DR version: the price hike made it clear that this new version isn't "free", it's just being paid for by someone other than you (if you already own base game + all DLC).
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Not sure this needs to be re-stated. Seems perfectly clear from the Bethesda PR.
 
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ChienAboyeur said:
Ah, those days. When gamers used to stick to their gamers'interests and did not feel the urge of putting the devs/studio shoes on to assess any deal made to them, just as it turned out to be today. Those were the days.
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Those decades were fun to be a part of. Every new hardware release offered something visually better than before along with better gameplay and better UIs. We didn't really use the word 'genre' as games were quite varied. We had nice thick manuals back then… though this would be a minus to most modern gamers. I could go on but I won't bore everyone.

Probably seeing things somewhat through the rose tinted glasses of nostalgia. And if internet forums existed in those days we'd probably discover the gaming community still had its fair share of asshats. But we didn't and my memories are better off for it.
 
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Vitirr said:
I'm not a great fan of elder scrolls games but I was on the fence with it precisely to take advantage of the future enhanced version. But I've decided now that I won't buy it as I don't think this is the way a company should treat their customers.
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Being on the fence, doesn't make you a customer.
The problem here is not the company, but yourself. You simply waited too long, thinking that the price can only fall. The remaster however adds features (64bit modding) which now raised the price again.

ChienAboyeur said:
And Bethesda expectations is that this free to everyone that owned the complete product is paid by customers who complete their products to get the so called free update.
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Stingray said:
TL;DR version: the price hike made it clear that this new version isn't "free", it's just being paid for by someone other than you (if you already own base game + all DLC).
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The remastered edition will come with all the DLCs included. You guys don't expect that those who bought just the basegame but not the DLCs, should get them for free now too, right?
BTW, lowest price on the Legendary edition was $7,5. Those still on the fence back then, dare now to cry shenanigans? Get real - they never even intended to buy the game at all.

And no, the cost of the remaster will easily being payed just from the XBone / PS4 buyers.
 
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