Hitman 3’s 50% Discount on Epic Game Store Was Removed
Hitman 3 fans were recently up in arms after devs decided to sell the game at full price on Steam after a year of waiting. When the Steam Lunar New Year Sale launched, the game was at full price of $60.
Fans were not too happy about this since they did have to wait a full year for the game to come to Steam after its exclusivity to the Epic Games Store. They expressed their displeasure with the situation with a lot of negative user reviews.
The situation escalated when the price did go down by 50% on the Epic Games Store. After almost an hour after the Lunar New Year Sale on Epic, devs completely took down the Hitman 3 discount. Now, the game is available for purchase on both Steam and Epic at full price once again. No sale price for the game on either of the two major digital store fronts.
IO Interactive has not commented on the situation just yet. However, Hitman 3 fans were quick to speculate that Steam’s pricing policies are hugely responsible. The game launched on Steam on January 20th. According to their rules, they do not allow discounts within 30 days of the game’s release.
“Generally, you cannot submit a discount within 30 days of release or 30 days from when the launch discount ends,” Steam’s rules read. “However, you can submit a launch discount to take effect when your game first releases and if your product releases within 7 days of a major sale event.”
This is just one half of the issue. The other half arises from Valve’s reported policies on price parity. Overgrowth dev David Rosen said last year that Valve has an unwritten rule against offering games cheaper on other digital store fronts.
“They would Overgrowth from Steam if I allowed it to be sold at a lower price anywhere, even from my own website without Steam keys and without Steam’s DRM,” Rosen said.
Do you support Steam’s pricing rules? Let us know in the comments below.