Topic: Ever buy a game and then it drops massively in price?

So, I was just browsing and looking on the website of a store I buy a lot of my Nintendo games from.

They have Code Name S.T.E.A.M discounted to just €10. I paid full retail price for it in the same store at €39.99 or slightly more. The biggest kick in the teeth is that I haven't even gotten around to playing it! I bought it upon release because games from Intelligent Systems usually become hard to find and/or more expensive. The opposite happened here.

So I wonder, has the same ever happened to you?

@arronishere: Yeah, it dropped by a tenner after a couple of months back and I didn't mind at all but a 75% drop is a lot! I guess it's just proof that this particular title isn't selling well

When WarioWare: D.I.Y. was first released, there was absolutely no fanfare. The few stores that sold it were selling it at the maximum retail price (AU$69.95), which I was most definitely not going to pay. An electronic store had it for $59, which I thought was good enough seeing as it wasn't available any cheaper and it was quite scarce.

A few mere weeks later, I spotted it at the same electronic store in the clearance section for only $20. A just-released game for $20. I grabbed a copy for my little brother, who also loves WarioWare. I was tempted to buy the second (and last) remaining copy as well for the extra save data (and I would have too if I hadn't already paid $59 for my first copy) but I resisted. I had since spotted it fairly cheaply at some places after that, which was a disheartening reflection of just how poorly the game was selling.

I play most games right away when I get them day one or near release. If I know I want to play a game, but I don't have the time for it at that time, I track its price and buy it whenever it hits a good price. Very few games never drop in price, so it's always worth the wait if you're not going to play it immediately anyway.

Yeah my worst example of this was that I was suckered into buying Evolve of all things at launch for £50. Admittedly I do like it, but I shouldn't have spent that much on it, especially as it (predictably) bombed in sales and I think it only took a couple of months for it to go on sale on the PS Store for £20 with the first(!) Season Pass. Yeah and all the DLC they thought it was OK to flaunt was not cool either and made it worse. Yeah so that's one of very few times I've bought an AAA game at launch, very unlikely to do so again, especially with 2K.

2 very prominent times:

• Halo 5 (was either £50 or £55 for standard edition, I got the steelbook version at launch and then all the editions dropped by around half price within a month or so)
• Bayonetta 2 (Was £40 for standard edition, I got the dual pack at launch and the standard edition dropped to around £15 within a few months)

It will be interesting to see how things change regarding Bayonetta 2 because there's a new factor (2 months old really) and that's Smash. There's already reports of stock shortages in the US because of the Smash DLC.

Not really had any massive drops but I've 2 that dropped the day after. Codename steam Dopped from £15 to £5 and Bayonetta 2 from £35 to £20

Not usually cause I don't buy games on the release date. I have a backlog so huge that when a game that some out that I want I can wait a bit to see if the price drops quickly. Also it gives me time to check out some reviews.

Atlus games

Not done this since the original Bayonetta on Xbox 360. Paid £40 to get it on release and within two weeks it was £17. Now I hardly ever buy games at release unless they're cheap. £25 is the most I'll pay for a console game and £20 the most for a handheld. Despite people saying Nintendo games don't drop in price, in markets where retailers can set them to a price they'll actually sell at, they do drop in price, and pretty quickly at that.

I buy most games day one and afterwards, I really don't look at the prices because I already got the game and am against the "What could have been if I had done something different?" mentality so I've never bitten myself in my behind because I could have had the game for like 10€ less than I bought it at. The only thing where I kinda see that is with Steam but even then it doesn't bother me too much. It's only at games that aren't really important but wanna check out eventually that I wait for a Steam Sale.

In the case of Codename Steam, yeah that figures. Bought the game at launch myself for like 45€. It's not a particular beloved game so such a price drop makes sense.

The only instance that comes to mind with me was on the Wii U actually. While I don't get the time to play all my games, I decided a while back I wanted to collect all the best Wii U games, even if it took me 10 years to get through them.

So a while back I looked at DKC:TF and W101 and they were both only available for upwards of £30, and particularly W101 looked like it was going to become a cult classic only available used at ridiculous prices, so I figured I couldn't afford to hold off any longer and went looking for deals.

I found a particular deal on Rakuten that meant I could get the two games together for about £56, so I went for it, knowing I was saving myself money in the long run...

Not too long after W101 became available at Shopto out somewhere for about £15, and a day or so ago I'm sure I saw DKC:TF going for about £21 somewhere.

I haven't taken W101 out of its seal yet, and have only played two stages of DKC:TF, so I've been kicking myself to the tune of £20.

Wii U game prices are a lottery. I'm getting a bit better at judging things with third party games, and like to think I made up for things a while back when I bought a 'like new' copy of SM3DW at a comparatively bargain price.

I know what you mean. I've made some good deals on Wii U games so far, but you can never be certain that prices will stick or change as you predict. I waited for a price drop on Amazing Spider Man 2 for months and when it finally dropped from €40 to €30 I bought it instantly just to notice a couple of days later that the game just continued to drop in price and I would have saved another€15 if I waited.

I've had it happen a time or two.

By and large, I'll purchase Nintendo games at launch because they never drop much in price in NA unless they're flops like Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. or Sticker Star. If anything, they're more likely to go up in price, like OoT3D, Pikmin 3, and a few others. Moreover, I don't need to worry about Nintendo releasing a buggy mess of a game.

I love XSEED's company ethic and will usually buy most of their games at full price to support them.

I'm a total cheapskate about big third-party AAA releases, though, which is why I didn't buy games like MGS V, The Witcher 3, Uncharted Collection, etc. last year. They usually need to fall into the $10 - $20 range before I'll even consider buying them. As for indie games, I'm only likely to buy them once they enter a humble bundle unless they have a ton of positive attention, in which case I'll usually snag them once they drop into the $5 - $9 (did that with Undertale recently, which turned out to be an excellent purchase) range.

A family member bought me Fallout 4 as a present, so I'm actually able to play that, but it's not that great so far. At least it runs very well on my PC.

Lots of interesting responses from you all

It seems many of us have experienced the same kind of thing. It is hard to judge things with Nintendo games, especially when there is the chance of a game becoming difficult to find. I live in Ireland and buying games used can be almost as expensive as new in some cases (or even MORE expensive, it's disgusting) so sometimes I just can't pass up on certain releases at launch. I'm glad I picked up the Bayonetta 1 & 2 pack for €40 as I frequently see Bayonetta 2 USED for €45!

I've mostly seen this with third-party titles when it comes to Wii U and 3DS, particularly Ubisoft. Even on eShop most games from them are down 50-75% in price within a year (the only exception is Watch_Dogs for whatever reason). PS4 and Xbox One games have a lot of discounts if the game is a year old or so, but new games are still a bit more rare.

Amiibo discounts are probably the most rare out of all of them though.

I dont buy a lot of games that are open for price drop these days (wii/3ds virtual console) but I do remember miss several very good sales on 3ds eshop games.

This happened to me a few times. So now if I buy anything in the eShop I only choose from the Price Drops section. Well, if I just want a new random game. If there was anything interested for my 3ds like a Metroid game, I would just buy that instantly. But I'm seriously not interested in games now unless they are in the Price Drops section.

Only 2 that I can recall that were a day or 3 apart.
1st being Just Dance 4 in the month when it just came out. Downloaded it for full price only for stores like target and best buy to have it on a weekly sale for $35 a day later. That's when I learn certain games from companies like Ubisoft and Activision will always have a sale on their new games even if it only been a month and a half since release.

2nd Is Animal Crossing: amiibo Festival. Brought it for almost $50 at Target then Amazon start dropping the price until it was less than $35. That didn't sting as much since I brought the lower priced one at Amazon then returned that to Target to get my money back before the return period end.