It definitely bites them in the ass. It's a lot like the $.99 craze on iphone apps. Now everyone is used to that price point and anything above will get fewer sales.
I'd guess a good percent of steam users now avoid games until they are at least 50% off in steam sales unless they must have the title. I know that outside of a few must have PC games like New Vegas I basically wait for sales. You see stuff like Kane & Lynch 2 which was $40+ a few months ago and is now $5. I mean console games drop pretty hard these days as well, but it seems to go like this:
Console game:
day 1= $50-60
month 2-3 = $35-40
month 6-12 = $30
month 12-24 = $15
3 years in = $10 or less
PC game:
day 1 = $40-60
month 2 = $25-30
month 6-12 = $15-30
month 12-24 = $5
So if you're willing to wait a year, PC games bottom out, whereas with console games it takes a few years and they're still rarely $5-7.50.
What does this all mean? I'm not really sure. But I think you're creating a class of drop 1 waiters & drop 2 waiters on PC whereas on console there's really only drop 1 waiters & years later bargain bin hunters. For instance I bought Metro 2033 for like $20 six months after release; was waiting for a drop. But there were a lot of people who didn't bite last big sale at $20-25 and are now picking it up for $10. I didn't buy Mafia II today because $37 was drop 1 and not worth it to me, so I'll wait for drop 2 in another 6 months when it hits $15 or less. Some will wait for drop 3 in a year when it's $7.50.
Otoh, I bought Dead Rising 2 day 1 because it was $40. I buy indie stuff like Super Meat Boy day 1 because it's $10. I think if companies price their games right they can still get a lot of day 1 buyers and just use the sales to bring in extra revenue down the line.
Something like Kane & Lynch 2 should've been about $30 day 1. Mafia 2 $40 day 1. Lost Planet 2 $20 day 1 because it was coming late off bad word of mouth. PC games should be priced individually based on genre, review quality, and if they are late ports, word of mouth.
