The answer is yes, they’re high- high on subscription service bullshit. These games that used to regularly sell for a few dollars now have their prices permanently inflated to make owning them outright seem unattractive next to the “incredible value” of subbing to EA Play for a month or two.
If you’ve fallen for this nonsense, you’re a mook, goober and a palooka
The solution was simply to buy the Humble Origin Bundle in 2013 for $4.93 and get all three
Dismembering journalists ain’t cheap
Wait, is that during a sale? Because I checked and it looks like those games were most recently on sale for 4€, 4€, and (most mystifyingly) 8€.
That said, you are absolutely right that the prices have been inflated. That 4€ figure is the lowest Dead Space 3 has ever been, but the other two have been significantly cheaper (1,99€ and 2,19€, respectively). Between 2013 and 2018, Dead Space (2008) had a standard price of 10€ and regularly went for 2,50€ @75% off (and a few times 2,19€ @78% off). But on July 31, 2018, the standard price got bumped to 15€ and then again on February 5, 2020 to 20€. So they doubled the price in 1.5 years! Similarly, Dead Space 2 sat at 10€ from May 1, 2014 to July 30, 2020 with the same sale pattern (regularly 2,50€ @75% off) AND the same price bumps at the same time.
One last takeaway: standard prices don’t really drop to nearly the same degree. With Dead Space (2008) and Dead Space 2, they had multiple price drops in the first few years after release. I can’t see enough history on SteamDB to see the drops for the former, but the latter dropped from 30€ in 2013 to 20€ in 2014 to its lowest standard price of 10€ in 2015. Unfortunately, the listing for Dead Space 3 is well after its release, so any drops aren’t captured. But let’s take a look at another EA franchise: Need for Speed. Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit released in late 2010 for…well, I don’t know exactly how much, but presumably 50-60€, so when it settled at 15€ in May 2014 it had reduced in price by 70-75% in the space of 3.5 years. Need for Speed Heat released at 70€ in 2020, and…it’s still 70€, five years later. Granted, it regularly goes on sale for 7€, but if its standard price had similarly dropped by 70% it would regularly go for 5,25€ @75% off instead of 7€ @90%. Beyond the price difference (both standard and sale) they’re obviously playing on the psychology of 90% seeming like an incredible deal.
Wait, is that during a sale? Because I checked and it looks like those games were most recently on sale for 4€, 4€, and (most mystifyingly) 8€.
Dang, you might be right about there not being a sale. I swear there was a Halloween/Autumn sale or something just recently and I assumed it was still going on since I just bought a horror-adjacent game on sale for 2€ (regular price 39,99€)
The pricing fuckery happening with the first two Dead Space games sticks in my craw specifically because while I have not yet bought them for myself I have bought them as gifts for friends at those prices. I played Dead Space 1 and 2 a ton on the Xbox 360 and I just didn’t feel the itch to replay them until a year or two ago when the prices had suddenly jumped up a lot. Dead Space 1 being 8€ during Christmas sales annoys me to no end. It’s not that much money but for like 10 years I kept seeing it on sale for 2€ and I passed on it every time assuming it’d just go further down in price by the time I’d want to revisit it.
DS 1 & 2 is missing the console-exclusive DLC too, which is annoying.
How do they run on RPCS3 these days?
No idea. My PC doesn’t seem to like emulation that much. At least with Dead Space 1 the DLC’s just some minor weapon bullshit, but Dead Space 2 has a whole backstory chapter DLC that’s kinda’ important to the game.
There were a couple of other multiplatform games in that generation that also only released story DLC on consoles, like that one Prince of Persia game
I dont own any of these games. But I am in indeed what some would describe as a mook, goober a goon or a henchperson.
