And too right they should be. I never had any intention of getting the game but man pulling a stunt like this would piss me off if I paid full price.

That seems a little soon, but i guess this is just their way of getting back at them. Overt style seems to go a long fucking way to confusing people between games that aren't really similar at all.

Seems to have come down to £30 on console in the UK as well (down from £40, unless it always was £30, but I feel like it was £40). Very surprising, although maybe they hope people will get both if they see this on sale in the stores when they get Overwatch?

The "early adopter tax" is a known issue with any luxury item purchase. It sucks, but I don't really think people should feel bad for others over it. If it's a thing that bothers someone, they have the option of waiting. Or I mean, between Amazon Prime, GCU, Green Man Gaming, and other sale opportunities, there were places that had the game about as cheap. Best Buy had a deal on Battleborn for $48 with a $10 reward certificate for GCU members, i.e. pretty much the same $40 price point others can get it at now.

@ripelivejam: I don't know if it's so much getting back at them and more trying to sell more copies of a game that probably didn't sell that well. Most people who are interested in Overwatch have probably already preordered or have such little interest in Battleborn that even this won't entice them to pick it up. The best this will do for Gearbox/2K is confuse a grandparent who wants to buy little Billy a new game for his birthday.

@jesus_phish: I think Battleborn is dead in the water anyway. Check out these numbers, and they're going to be accurate to within 10% or so.

@mike: Those numbers don't surprise me. I don't think I've seen a game launch DOA in such a long time and for pretty much every outlet lay into it for being under cooked and full of bad ideas.

I remember seeing 2K say that the numbers are what they wanted it to be which makes me think that it either sold very well on consoles or they expected very little of it.

I get why they might feel that way but otoh the game is not worth much without a player base. If I were playing the game anything they could do to improve and maintain the player base I'd view as a necessary evil. Their numbers are super bad .

They really gotta consider going f2p like league of legends did to save the game before it dies out completely.

This, along with the TV advertising, seems poised to put this game up against Overwatch mano e mano in a way that seems way too ballsy. But, I guess that they've already dug their grave (read: release date) and figure these moves are necessary to make the most of what they've got.

I kind of feel like their incessant need to compete directly with Overwatch has gotten them nothing but flak.

@azulot: Was it really their doing, though? They could have done better (maybe) on the advertising front, and/or picked a better launch window at any rate.

Is this part of that PS4 deal they had/have going on? If so that also includes the Season Pass + some other things, not just the game. Pretty crazy.

Release date adopters should be pissed that they bought the game regardless of a price drop.

Yeesh. Poor game never had a chance. I mean, it did, it just didn't seem very good.

I think Evolve did about as poorly as quickly. Though that had the added benefit of a DLC fiasco if I remember correctly.

I feel like trying to compete with Overwatch is a terrible idea and they should be trying to find their own niche instead of trying to compete with a game with a lot more hype that is essentially a different style of game anyways.

Bad video games get discounted pretty fast. Solution: don't buy bad video games.

@mike said:

@jesus_phish: I think Battleborn is dead in the water anyway. Check out these numbers, and they're going to be accurate to within 10% or so.

Steamspy lists around 120k owners on PC. This game bombed pretty hard

Why? Battleborn's totally alright, or at least the multiplayer is. I bought it full price and I have gotten my money's worth - and after all of the time I had first invested in the beta before it I felt obligated to buy it anyway.

@pyrodactyl: The SteamSpy numbers are in the very image you just quoted...

Prices inevitably go down. Quicker if the game is not selling as well as expected, probably in the hope of galvanizing the undecided into taking the plunge.

How many posts were there around launch saying, "Meh. I might pick it up if it goes on sale"?

I'm sure if it had been reduced in price in the Steam Summer Sale nobody would bat an eyelid

@wacomole:

Games do tend to drop, especially on the steam store. The issue here is that the game has only been out for a little over a week, and the price has already dropped down to $40 which kinda makes for a shitty deal for those who picked the game up at launch.

Woof. I'm the first to defend this sort of thing, but wasn't that less than a week before a drop? On top of that, it feels kind of grimy and reactive more than, "hey, here's a good deal for our fans". Got to say, I totally understand the disappointment. Maybe some sort of goodwill gesture toward the early adopters would be nice? I don't know the game well, so I don't know what that'd even be. Probably not a great move to make your biggest fans feel like they were fleeced.

Seems like someone at Gearbox panicked.

@hatking: Battleborn has been out for three weeks. Hard to believe.

If a game does super poorly it will get a big price hit quickly, though there's plenty of games which do okay that get a month to two month period before their first price hit so getting a 3 week one isn't that much of an aberration.

The game bombed, HARD.

Price drops are not strange when that happens.

@ripelivejam: I feel you. Like you mentioned, they possibly could have tried for a better launch window. And honestly, the price drop on the eve of Overwatch just kind of feels in bad taste to me. I believe the summer sale is coming up shortly, not entirely sure why they couldn't have held out just a tad longer. Of course, I'm sure there's reasoning behind it, it's just for me personally, the way this game has been marketed has kind of just rubbed me the wrong way.

Agreed, I bought Titanfull at full price shortly after renting it because I really enjoyed it (I even bought the season pass) but less than a month later the player base fell off and not only was the game reduced to half price but all the maps became free since Respawn didnt want to split the already thin userbase. And that was a good decision that made the game better.

Then again i'm the guy who got sour when TF2 went F2P because it transformed the game into something I didnt like and wasnt the game I payed money for.

It's too bad this game keeps taking flak for poor marketing decisions. I haven't been able to enjoy mobas for years but this one keeps me hooked. It's a lot of fun, once you get used to all the colors. I finally get to use all my FPS aiming skills in a moba setting. Hopefully the lower price will attract more players at least.

Edit: Oh and I'm not pissed about the price and I haven't heard about anyone else being either. The game needs more players.

I still can't keep straight which game is which.

F2P by winter? F2P by winter.

I think the price drop comes a little too late. It might not be the same game as Overwatch, but the general populous believes they are similar enough to compete agaisnt eachother and if you are fighting Overwatch by just equaling prize you are going to eat the dust. Not only that this may is filled with released, great releases even!

I don't see this selling much more. Selling to the Moba crowd was also a big mistake, seeing as you are not going to beat bigger, better games that are free.
This game needed to be free to play, I might of given it a wirl and maybe liked it enough to put some time in. Straight up having to put down money straight up removes any interest when compared to the competition. (Total war: Warhammer, Doom, Overwatch, hell even the Witcher DLC. And if you take consoles into consideration that picture becomes even worse with uncharted,...)

You can get into Paragon (a much better game, and an actual MOBA) for $20. There's no reason for Battleborn to exist at any price above that.

The Great Moba-Shooter Cold War of 2016 has been entertaining, if not a little childish, to say the least. Oh, yourgame is coming out? Here's an open beta across PC and console. Oh, yourgame is coming out? Boom, price drop. This cat and mouse game they're playing is funny, and I'd like it to keep going, but I don't think Battleborn has got much fight left in it.

The game has been out for 20 days. People are saying it's DOA. Destiny was the same way. Look how all of that changed when Taken King happened. Welcome to the world of "games as services." Battleborn was designed with that in mind. Let it be a platform for a year and then come back to reevaluate it.

People are going to do this same thing with Overwatch about a month from now. The difference is that one is Blizzard, and we know they support their games post-launch. Hell, people are going to literally make this complaint all the time. Battleborn is far from dead. The console number seem to be good. With PC, let's be honest: Steam Summer Sale is right around the corner, and people aren't going to be spending a shitload of money right now when they can buy it later for cheaper with more goodies attached.

Give it a year, then let's come back and have this discussion again.

Now, as for the price drop, it's fucked up...but it's the game industry. We know this shit is going to happen. Nonetheless, a $20 price drop almost three weeks after a game's release is not very common, and I would hope that Gearbox will at least address ...actually, no. I don't want any more of Pitchford's bullshit excuses. We know the reason for the price drop, and it IS bullshit. Unfortunately, the only response anyone who complains will get is "tough titty" while Gearbox counts the cash coming in from confused parents at Gamestop who don't know what the hell they are buying.

@jakob187: i can see that and things may change, but if i recall correctly many, many more people initially bought into destiny ($325 million in first week if this is to be believed) and enjoyed it in its initial state. there's definitely people who like battleborn and fair enough, but the numbers seem significantly smaller.

@jakob187: This doesn't seem like Destiny at all, but I dunno the numbers Destiny pulled around release. It certainly didn't seem like it was lacking in people playing, enjoying, and for better or for worse: talking about it.

@ripelivejam: @theht: Numbers be damned IMO. Destiny sold a shitload, and people still shit all over it. Hell, IN THESE FORUMS, people were calling it a dead game that wasn't going anywhere.

I just don't understand the point of calling a game DOA three weeks after release when it is launched as a "games as service" platform with an initial price tag for entry. The price tag for entry is the part that actually matters the most, as it means that the people who ARE playing it aren't going to be a massive amount of trolls and shit like you'll find in all the F2P games like League and Smite. They HAVE to pay to play it, so they are invested. It's also not a cheap price tag for entry. $40 is still a chunk of change. It's a smart move on their part, and going F2P would just harm the game more than help it.

As long as they can cultivate it into a more defined game, it will have an audience.

@mike said:

@jesus_phish: I think Battleborn is dead in the water anyway. Check out these numbers, and they're going to be accurate to within 10% or so.

Yikes.

I would think people would be happy as it would hopefully bring in more people to keep the game from dying. They arent screwing over early adopters when the game isn't selling all that well and the buzz around it is pretty bad.

@jakob187: Fair enough, but it's worth considering that the amount of people who do buy in would affect the degree to which Gearbox is able to actually cultivate and maintain the game as a service. To that end, it's not off to an encouraging start. Anything can happen, yes, but at some point business interests will need to be checked.

Over the last few years, three weeks has become a pretty average amount of time before the first $40 sales on a $60 game.

It should have been f2p from the start. Everything about this game.. unlocking heroes, gear, loadout slots etc, it would make for a great f2p title. I think the game is pretty good actually, it's grown on me and with continued support and remodeled to f2p I think it could be pretty succesful.

I feel like they should at least give some free exclusive skins or something to early adopters but in a way the price drop is kind of a favor to the people who bought in early and still wanna play since there didn't seem to be a lot of people getting into the game with all the negative buzz there was around it.

I think you underestimate how well vanilla destiny and the year 1 DLC did. Maybe it was trendy to shit on Destiny during that time but millions of people bought and played the game actively. Battleborn was very much dead on arrival with abysmal PC sales (120k). I don't have any reason to believe console sales were much higher.

Unless they turn Battleborn into a F2P game it will suffer the same fate as evolve.

I think everyone who played that game and cares about it is worried enough about the size of the playerbase to understand. I think Overwatch's pricing model is extremely smart for the PC, you need to keep the barrier to entry to multiplayer only games as low as possible if you want to keep players coming in. Going F2P would probably be the best way to do this, but as a person who hates that model I"m very happy with having a cheaper alternative that is missing some aesthetic goodies.

May have been a smart idea for Battleborn to adopt a similar tactic, but it's a bit too late for that now. Suppose there is techincally a campaign mode for the game, but it is pretty clear that the main draw and focus is the MP.

I'm still seeing it as $60 on Steam--is the price drop just for consoles?

I also read their weekend update, which announces a new character coming to the game soon as part of "five FREE characters post-launch." Their emphasis, not mine.

I'm not buying a MOBA(-lite) at any price where I have to both unlock characters and eventually pay for them. I have bought many a League character in my life, but as that product is free, it's just me paying back into a game I've enjoyed.

Yeah, I think that both the people who bought Battleborn are really upset.

I disagree. One could even make the argument that Gearbox is making the game better and last longer for the early adopters by bringing more people in. Yes it can suck when you pay full price for a game & then it gets discounted shortly after, but that's always been a part of buying video games (and not just on day one/early). But it sucks even more when a MP game has a weak playerbase; when a company refuses to discount a MP game until after it's too late, so that both the early adopters & the people who buy it late end up with empty servers; when a company isn't making enough money from a game to continue supporting it in general. If nothing else it can be fun smashing new players who are just starting the game, after you've had your "head start" >:)

I'd actually like to see them go all out and drop it down to $20 three weeks from now, and go F2P three weeks after that!

@likeametaphor: the sale seems to be only on the 2K online store