Those Fanatical ones are... not great. I've ordered from them a fair amount, and those bundles tend to be bottom of the barrel.
Plus, maybe it's just my credit card companies, but I've gotten all sorts of crap from them, like calls and temporary locks, from them thinking Fanatical are shady.
and humble sells "black creator" bundles or whatever that shit was recently, they're both bottom of the barrel depending what you look at, and at least fanatical lets me actually choose which game I want to buy instead all of them if I want the actually good ones, if humble even has a bundle I'd be willing to buy (because you don't have to buy them. there are plenty of ways to discover games these days without having to gamble on bundles and then just buy the good games directly).
and it didn't keep you from complaining how shit humblebundle was four months ago:
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/your-2022-steam-winter-sale-haul.142239/#post-14050383
by that argument fanatical at least sells video game bundles if you compare them to humble after they had their big holiday event.
I know I got a fair few games that hadn't yet dropped to $20 on Xbox 360 for like $5 during Steam sales way back when. Consoles eventually caught on, but for a fair while, Steam deals were second to none. You know, the Wii Shop Channel never ran a single sale for anything during its entire lifespan, and Nintendo never caught any flak for that, because sales on digital storefronts just weren't much of a thing back then. If there were ever any sales, they tended to be like, 10-20% off. The whole notion of digital fire sales came from Steam, and that's one reason they gained so much ground.
and just like the time you were complaining about judgment you're again comparing two different markets with different dynamics and tech (everybody knows nintendo is late and dumb when it comes to digital). consoles don't have to reduce prices because they control it and they know people will buy it. what you gonna do, NOT buy nintendo games on a nintendo console? or buy them somewhere else?
that's like complaining how much steam sucks because call of duty never goes below 50% when I can pick up a new copy at gamestop for 5 bucks.
also those steam fire sales were ass because doing a FLASH SALE during a HOLIDAY SALE was always peak retarded. what could possibly go wrong reducing the price of a game further for 24h right after people bought it on the regular sale?! and how did it affect sales when they were NOT 90% off (which they still are these days)?
the point still stands that there is almost always a sale going on somewhere, if not, an unofficial keys will probably still be cheaper. people too lazy or ignorant to take a look around and use all the options available isn't the fault of steam, humble or whatever.
since it fits the thread:
No shit, wasn't saying they did. Devs and publishers are going to have to learn the lessons, valve will keep printing money though will take a hit too. All the same Valve is partially responsible for how pricing decisions are made with the cut they take on every sale, though it's not direct and most people probably don't even think about it. I'm sure there was always a cut being taken by previous competition, the cost get your product on physical shelves, etc.
I don't even know what you're talking about anymore, retail was always less profitable due to all the hands involved, and you know, manufacturing a physical product.
none of that has anything to do with the cut. unless you try to run your own store for 100% (and good luck excluding a large part of possible customers, just ask EA or timmy tencent how it's working out) not only applies it to everyone everywhere, it goes into the basic calculation how feasible a product is and potential profits.
the only thing they'll "learn" is either be smart enough to adapt or double down and try to milk games harder.
store.steampowered.com
