Lords of the Fallen(gate) and sales confusion

I don't know if anyone's been following this, but Lords of the Fallen was originally part of this week's sale for 85% off.

It no longer is!!

People bought it on the cheap yesterday, and it caught my eye last year since the Quick Look made it seem pretty ok. So after work, I updated my Xbox and saw a price of $59.99. Sad times. It would've been an impulse purchase, but now I'm in this weird spot of wondering if it'll go back down as some sort of daily thing. Those few hours of being on sale is now messing with my head. The developer is losing a sale of its game, since with minimal marketing it didn't come back to my attention until this ad.

What makes this interesting is some weird communication breakdown between Microsoft and the developer. The game was on sale and people picked it up for $10. Now Microsoft says it's not part of the sale. The developer says it's supposed to be.

Regarding the Xbox Ultimate Game Sale. It was suposed to be in there, it also seems it was for a few hours and then got pulled. No info yet!

Here's a quick article.

So my question is, how in the hell do these console sales work? Steam sales and PS+ freebies, as well. Do the platform holders make these decisions? Do developers agree to be part of these sales? If a game is selling better than expected, can Microsoft just pull the plug and pretend it never happened? If I want to wait til it's back to $10, am I screwing Microsoft or the developer?

Does anybody outside of the industry even know?? I work in finance and these sorts of agreements are fascinating to me, but I've never really understood the relationship between platform holders, the publishers, and the developers when it comes to crazy things like 85% off. I'm wondering if the game makers get cash up front, or if they give something up to get exposure. It's a god damn mystery and I want to know!

I was going to pick this one up when i read it was 85% off.

The Xbox sales have been great so far, I've bought Sunset Overdrive and Dragon Age for like $30 within a month or two after release. Maybe i'll get Alien: Isolation 60% off seems alright for that.

It will probably go back on sale due to PR fallout if nothing else. Good game.

Is it supposed to go on sale on PSN too? PSN is also having a sale with most of the same games.

For Steam sales, the publishers can choose if their games are part of sale events or not and they also set what the discounts will be.

I'm in the industry and I don't know. I can ask around tomorrow though. I'm pretty curious.

And on a side note, I totally went through the same thing you did. I was on the fence, then I watched the Quick Look and was sold. When I got home it was sitting at the normal price. I was concerned that the developer didn't want the game on sale and they lost a bunch of money for the few hours it was, but now that I hear they want it on sale, I feel bad for them. I also heard on Neogaf that somebody got in touch with Microsoft and that it was going to be part of the weekend deals, but there's a bunch of dissenting opinions on that, so.

I remember seeing the list of games on sale, and this game specifically, and thinking "maybe I should grab it now." So this is bad news. Hopefully enough people point it out and Microsoft puts it back up.

On Steam publishers can just put their game on sale for any price at any time. This is why Steam currently has 265 sales going on right now. If you are interested in knowing about the relationship between indie developers and Steam the developer of "Cook, Serve, Delicious!" wrote a detailed blog post about it on Gamasutra.

I believe there will be another batch of sales for the weekend. Maybe Lords of the Fallen was supposed to be part of the weekend sales and accidentally got put up earlier than it was supposed to.

@colossalghost: Cool, I'll give that a read.

It's probably a mistake on Microsoft's part so you should wait.

That being said the game is worth 60$. Just sayin'; people should buy it either way.

@cornbredx: I don't doubt it. It's been in my Amazon cart since release but I got distracted by the holiday rush. So when I was reminded today I almost pulled the trigger.

But alas, not waiting til the sale runs its course would be foolish at this point. It may be a weekend thing and Microsoft might be pissed that the developer said something. Probably not, but this sort of miscommunication is confusing to everybody involved.

If you like the souls games it is definitely worth buy this at 85% off. Just don't expect it to do anything other than temporarily tide you over until bloodbourne comes out. It is a solid game, isn't even that buggy (outside performance issues), but it is the Bud Light of Souls like games.

@cornbredx said:

I've had my eye on it for awhile, but I've heard really mixed things. I'm expecting a more, erm, "Heavy Metal" version of a Souls game, but apparently the story is garbage? Why do you think I should buy this game?

@karkarov: You're certainly right but I do think it fulfills the same sort of exploration vibe that makes the Souls games so excellent which is all too rare.

Oh don't get me wrong I liked it, I also paid way more than 85% off for it. But the gameplay is not as solid, the story is pretty throw away and predictable, and the world building isn't there. Like I said though it is a great way to tide yourself over waiting for bloodbourne if you haven't played it yet. It isn't a bad game by any stretch of the imagination it just isn't "great" either.

I was gonna pick it up as well for that low price. I checked the store a few times and never saw it below $60. I wouldn't pay $60 for it especially with being a bit fatigued by Souls games... but for 8 or so bucks or whatever it was that's a better deal than I'd pick it up for.

I hope it goes back on sale.

Is Halo: Master Chief Collection on sale this weekend? Or was that leaked picture inaccurate.

I was lucky enough to catch the sale when they put it all up by mistake on Monday. I got this and a few others. I already played it on PS4, but for $9 I'll play it again on xb1.

I'll confirm that it was. I saw it discounted when I bought Sniper Elite III and remember thinking, "oh yeah, that's the Xbox Souls game". I swear I saw the MCC on there as well (FWIW, it was on sale during the holidays and probably will be again because the MP sadly continues to be on fire). I'm guessing both Lords of the Fallen and the MCC were/are probably meant to be part of a future scheduled sale and someone simply screwed up and listed them too early. Deck13 and Xbox Support both seem to hint at this being the case on twitter as well, so keep an eye out for the next few days.

@csl316: @kedi2: Well, the weekend deals are announced and Lords of the Fallen didn't make the list. No idea what happened there. On one hand, I'm disappointed because I was kind of looking forward to playing something new, but on the other hand I can't help but wonder if I would have actually played a significant amount of it. I mean, I have a habit of buying new games just to buy them. I play them for a few hours and never look back. It's a pretty weird habit that leads to me playing lots and lots of games, but not seeing as many endings as I'd wish. Anyway, maybe the sale will resurface at a later date.

http://majornelson.com/2015/02/20/ultimate-game-sale-2015-weekend-bonus-offers/

@hatking: I'm really curious if anyone mentions what happpened. Really strange.

Ah well, it's $40 on Amazon so I might just pick it up, anyway.

On PS4.

@csl316: I'd wait on it. From what I hear the developer or publisher was saying something along the lines of, "we weren't supposed to be part of the Ultimate Games Sale 2015." Which is really specific language that implies they probably were supposed to be on sale, just not part of that promotion. They probably want their own space on the dashboard when they are on sale, not sharing it with thirty-some other games. But, that's just my guess. Maybe next week?

@hatking: You're not wrong, or maybe Sony will troll and get in touch with those guys.

The sales culture strikes again. It's not often I'll wait for a sale, but the precedent is there now. Waited this long, might as well wait some more.

@csl316: Totally, especially since it's such a huge drop in price. Heck, when I saw the deal advertised on Sunday, I thought it was a mistake.