So what do these Steam sales figures mean then?

http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/693342/Live-Blog-DICE-2009-Keynote---Gabe-Newell-Valve-Software.html

Big Gabe shared some info at DICE about some Steam sales. When Left 4 Dead was on sale over a weekend, its sales increased by 3000%. A third party game saw a sales increase of 36,000% during a weekend sale. And this:

I admit to knowing nothing about economic matters, but might this suggest that if games weren't quite so ridiculously expensive companies might sell more of them?

Maybe there's some psychological marketing trickery whereby people just see '75% off' rather than the dollar figure and buy because it's a nice deal. Maybe that holiday sale was a special occasion, advertised widely, and people had time off and money to spend. But surely those figures are something to think about. A price tag of $90-110 must be a big barrier to buying new games for a lot of people. Mustn't it?

Vindication for the people who believed that L4D was massively overpriced.

They won't say what the third party game was? I'm guessing STALKER, only cheap as chips third party game I can remember.

This is something I have tested extensively with my marketing clients and all my findings have pointed to %age off being a much bigger incentive for customers than the dollar value reduction.

I would assume this sort of marketing has been used in other retail sectors before, so it's probably not a new thing.
Though as a cheap-ass gamer myself, I'm going to admit that the glowing green 50% off signage unlocked something in my brain (an my wallet) and I had no hesitations clicking buy. However, there was a slight moments pause when I saw the actual dollar amount of money I would have to pay. I'm not saying it was a bad price, it's just that seeing that cold hard price did make me hesitate, if only for a second.

Even though it's rubbish. Spending $5 on an alledgedly $100 game that I otherwise would not have purchased is not "saving" $95, it's spending $5.

It's not a saving unless you're spending less money than you otherwise would have.

Having STALKER for $5 might have helped the figures, I'm sure that sold craploads...people just want a bargain

Bioshock also got down to $5, I'm sure that helped too.

Definitely a barrier for me. I'll happily spend hundreds of dollars on games over a few cheaper titles ($50 or less) but if I buy one at $100 I'll only buy the one and it'll be longer before my next purchase.

Some games I don't mind paying $100 for though. Usually they're multiplayer titles that I get loads of play time from, if not then usually they're RPGs. Either way, they're always games that I get both quality and quantity from, not flavor-of-the-month, franchise or one-weekend games.

They would probably be even bigger figures if their credit card system didn't just die at random times.

/me is disgruntled at not being able to get Bioshock for $5

That's true. I'm a sucker for sales and stuff. I'll often see something I'm vaguely interested in that is reduced and think of buying it.

Though I had been wanting to get L4D for quite a while.

I saw the indie pack this weekend with a big 75% off! label on it, I didn't even look at the price until I was punching in my pay details at the checkout.

*Husband shows off 7' widescreen TV*
"Hey look, I saved hundreds!"
*Wife holds up car keys*
"I saved thousands"

now where's that Holden ad when you need it :|

The fact that it's a limited time only will also affect it. If the prices were constantly that low, then sales might tick over a bit faster, but they would never approach those kinds of figures because people aren't being "forced" to purchase before the time runs out.