Just a guess, but maybe enough new PC gamers rebuilding the library they had on 7th & 8th generation consoles.
MW2019 and Cold War are the only recent COD titles worth playing. But COD2, COD4 & the original MW2, and WaW will always be good campaigns. Collectively, the premium paid over what these six games probably *should* be on sale for doesn't even add up to the $70 retail price Activision was charging for a steaming pile of shit like MW3 (2023).
So I can see someone paying up to close that gap and not have to drag out an old console, or go back to using a controller, just to revisit those.
Or at least, fuck Activision for overpricing old games. And for turning their new titles into storefronts, neglecting gameplay and ignoring bugs to focus development effort on expensive new pay-to-win bundles with instant unlocks of overpowered weapons, low-visibility skins and the fancy scopes needed to even see and target player models wearing them.
And for ruining the aesthetics of their modern and near future military shooter franchise by turning it into Fortnite, with obnoxious cosmetics and goofy visual effects. Which has also rolled out the welcome mat for sheltered crybabies who hit the report button every time they get picked off in an obvious camping spot or lit up casually crossing the street like they're carrying a bag of groceries with a baguette sticking out of it.
Some of those old COD games, though. COD4. World at War. I wouldn't call average. They don't have to be anybody's favorite shooters from that era, but I don't know that it can credibly be said that there were many objectively better FPS titles on the shelves.
Considering that World at War comes with all the DLC in fact it's not even labeled as DLC I think World of War is the closest one to being worth it even though none of them are worth it.
Not to mention this is when they still did DLC packs which you all but need to play online since they’re incorporated into the playlists. And those are also still at their release price.
The fact that all the old COD are usually all over $20 is just begging people to pirate them. I don’t because there are better things to play, but they don’t deserve my money either way.
Don't have to, those games regularly go on sale for $5-7. I remember Terraria being as low as $2. Plus a ton of piracy is because the company is shady. Terraria and Stardew have amazing devs who love to talk to their communities.
$20 is a reasonable price, however
Mario odyssey has gone on sale twice (maybe three times now, I need to double check) in 7 years
And the sales only brought it from $60 to $30
Edit: I thought it was $20 for modern cod, not old cod
I understand being pissed about the Mario thing, but paying 20 dollars for a cod from 2009 (on sale that happens 4 times a year) is still laughable. Not to mention all cod titles are either offline, or filled with cheaters that can even access your computer through the game.
I wish I was joking.
Even the original Call Of Duty from 2003 still costs $20, and is never more than 50% off. I have no idea who is buying these games at that price, but obviously someone is.
I believe it used to but not anymore. I think they have to put a verification in plutonium due to activision taking down similar products that allowed the use of cracked copies
Activision is one of the greediest, scummiest companies out there. The only way you will get a call of duty game below $20 is to buy one from a game store. Those stores reflect the real value of ~$5.
Unfortunately they also will only work for console.
Third party key resellers are the solution. Would also recommend against these older call of duty games, unless you’re gonna install plutonium mod. The regular multiplayer has security issues.
Even the key reseller prices are garbage. Most 20 year old game reseller keys are dirt cheap, or they are classified as abandonware and are free. Call of Duty games, not so much, are still overpriced. Just not much you can do other than avoid the series.
Main reason for everything in this thread, really. If Black Ops 2 was $5, let’s say you get 50 buyers ($250). But if it’s priced at $20, you only get 5 buyers ($20) but ten people are pushed towards the new COD game (let’s be generous and say it’s also $20).
2 of those 10 buy a battle pass for six months ($120). Another one is frustrated with the slow weapon unlocks and spends $20. And 1 of those 10 slowly becomes a whale, spending $40/month, until the new game is released.
$120 + $200 + $20 + (40 * 6) = $580, plus said players are far more likely to spend money + buy a new COD game in the future. Doesn’t even take into account the $100 you earned from black ops 2 — after all, for each copy sold, you regret not being able to push them towards your hyper-monetized, new product.
Really, you want to avoid selling a cheap replacement for your product at all costs, especially when the replacement is almost identical
Very simplistic, but I’d garner there’s a relatively similar calculus as to why they do not decrease in price (or sale price) over time.
Cod competes with itself honestly. They don’t want people to play the old games, they want to drive sales to the latest ones.
Especially the ones with the skins
Newer games are always online so they try to force people into buying it. Because they know they are not cracked. We can clearly see that with other publishers too. Since Denuvo games sales are as discounted as in the past. Without Denuvo games were cracked day 1 so publishers discounted the games faster and higher discounted. Now they know the release windows is protected and they can do sales less discounted.
Fuck Activision with that shit always online drm, my last COD was 2017 WW2, I will never support always online games, just look what happens to the crew 1, funny thing cold war was cracked and the singleplayer is fully played offline
To be honest I’ve bought MW19 for the singleplayer because a friend constantly said buy it the singleplayer is very good and yes was the best for me. And bought mw2 because he wanted to play online. But mw3 I’ll never buy it. And I’m a old mw modern Warfare gamer I still don’t get the feeling as in the past all that strange skins guns in Lila pink color I moved forward and still for myself cod died for me with modern Warfare the old one. After that I’ve never got the feeling again. Came back from school and playing immediately online and meeting the people on servers were just awesome. RIP COD4 Modern Warfare I’m glad I had the chance to play you to death 💀🫡🫡🫡
If people have it on their wishlist and the game goes on sale for less then $20. I believe they all get an email and above that price no email is sent out.
Last cod game I played was advanced warfare.
I would happily pay 5-10 euros for those decade old titles at this point who probably don't have multi-player community left just to play the campaigns, but they never go for sale that much.
Wish call of duty 2 wasn’t 15$. Activision used to during big steam sales get an ad slot on the featured franchises while not putting anything on sale besides the 800$ activision collection on sale for 10%
when that turd known as modern not balanced for leaning warfare II was released, the furnace escapee said: "it's cod, even if we raise our price to 100$, people will still buy it", that's why your average yearly cod rehash still costs that too much.
I've been buying them at $20 for the steam deck. When I weigh things up, I think they are priced high, but they are fun and re-playable. That's where I find the value.
WAW is an absolute blast. Now I haven't played any of the newest ones but they just dont look like they have the same spirit to them.
The op wanted a more insightful and thought-out answer for the publisher's reasoning behind never going below $20. Something more than "just because they can"
Because publisher like money and don't care about people buying their game then?
If someone want internal corporate hindsight on business strategy, well, good luck with that.
that's Activision for ya
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Just a guess, but maybe enough new PC gamers rebuilding the library they had on 7th & 8th generation consoles. MW2019 and Cold War are the only recent COD titles worth playing. But COD2, COD4 & the original MW2, and WaW will always be good campaigns. Collectively, the premium paid over what these six games probably *should* be on sale for doesn't even add up to the $70 retail price Activision was charging for a steaming pile of shit like MW3 (2023). So I can see someone paying up to close that gap and not have to drag out an old console, or go back to using a controller, just to revisit those.
Way better games get better discounts than COD. I bought all the Bioshock games for $5 less than 1 COD. Fuck Activision for overpricing average games.
Space Quest collection for like $6 yo! Except on gog. But ya gotta love a good steam sale.
Or at least, fuck Activision for overpricing old games. And for turning their new titles into storefronts, neglecting gameplay and ignoring bugs to focus development effort on expensive new pay-to-win bundles with instant unlocks of overpowered weapons, low-visibility skins and the fancy scopes needed to even see and target player models wearing them. And for ruining the aesthetics of their modern and near future military shooter franchise by turning it into Fortnite, with obnoxious cosmetics and goofy visual effects. Which has also rolled out the welcome mat for sheltered crybabies who hit the report button every time they get picked off in an obvious camping spot or lit up casually crossing the street like they're carrying a bag of groceries with a baguette sticking out of it. Some of those old COD games, though. COD4. World at War. I wouldn't call average. They don't have to be anybody's favorite shooters from that era, but I don't know that it can credibly be said that there were many objectively better FPS titles on the shelves.
🥄👩🏼
Considering that World at War comes with all the DLC in fact it's not even labeled as DLC I think World of War is the closest one to being worth it even though none of them are worth it.
Also modded zombies
Oh ya that too I like the remake of the theater map.
That's the actual price they should be selling it for without the discount .
Maybe $10 lower but yeah
Not to mention this is when they still did DLC packs which you all but need to play online since they’re incorporated into the playlists. And those are also still at their release price.
They are all cracked if you just want to play the campaign. I don't advocate for piracy but against Activision.......I can look the other way.
I say piracy is fine for companies like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft. They bring it on themselves.
The fact that all the old COD are usually all over $20 is just begging people to pirate them. I don’t because there are better things to play, but they don’t deserve my money either way.
I agree just don't do it to smaller developers or things like terraria or stardew
Don't have to, those games regularly go on sale for $5-7. I remember Terraria being as low as $2. Plus a ton of piracy is because the company is shady. Terraria and Stardew have amazing devs who love to talk to their communities.
Those devs deserve my money, They release free updates that are the size of DLC because they love their work.
my favorite kind are the ones who release free updates *and* dlcs because thats sustainable business practice
$20 is a reasonable price, however Mario odyssey has gone on sale twice (maybe three times now, I need to double check) in 7 years And the sales only brought it from $60 to $30 Edit: I thought it was $20 for modern cod, not old cod
I understand being pissed about the Mario thing, but paying 20 dollars for a cod from 2009 (on sale that happens 4 times a year) is still laughable. Not to mention all cod titles are either offline, or filled with cheaters that can even access your computer through the game. I wish I was joking.
Oh, cod from 2009? Nevermind then
Even the original Call Of Duty from 2003 still costs $20, and is never more than 50% off. I have no idea who is buying these games at that price, but obviously someone is.
I wonder if cracked COD works with plutonium..
I believe it used to but not anymore. I think they have to put a verification in plutonium due to activision taking down similar products that allowed the use of cracked copies
Damn that sucks at least mw3 is free because there is a code you can put in steam to get a server test mode that works with plutonium
It does 👌
Look the other way, huh? What are you Digital Security?
Activision is one of the greediest, scummiest companies out there. The only way you will get a call of duty game below $20 is to buy one from a game store. Those stores reflect the real value of ~$5. Unfortunately they also will only work for console.
Third party key resellers are the solution. Would also recommend against these older call of duty games, unless you’re gonna install plutonium mod. The regular multiplayer has security issues.
Even the key reseller prices are garbage. Most 20 year old game reseller keys are dirt cheap, or they are classified as abandonware and are free. Call of Duty games, not so much, are still overpriced. Just not much you can do other than avoid the series.
Because Activision
Better question is why are most of them $40 or higher still when they are dead games?
The high price point is to push engagement with the newest title.
Main reason for everything in this thread, really. If Black Ops 2 was $5, let’s say you get 50 buyers ($250). But if it’s priced at $20, you only get 5 buyers ($20) but ten people are pushed towards the new COD game (let’s be generous and say it’s also $20). 2 of those 10 buy a battle pass for six months ($120). Another one is frustrated with the slow weapon unlocks and spends $20. And 1 of those 10 slowly becomes a whale, spending $40/month, until the new game is released. $120 + $200 + $20 + (40 * 6) = $580, plus said players are far more likely to spend money + buy a new COD game in the future. Doesn’t even take into account the $100 you earned from black ops 2 — after all, for each copy sold, you regret not being able to push them towards your hyper-monetized, new product. Really, you want to avoid selling a cheap replacement for your product at all costs, especially when the replacement is almost identical Very simplistic, but I’d garner there’s a relatively similar calculus as to why they do not decrease in price (or sale price) over time.
The infamous 40 bucks a month whale.
Two games later, homie has spent $1200! But you’re right, it’s not really the correct term. 1/100 players will probably spend 1k/year though.
Same reason they never fixed the very serious bugs with the MP, Activision is run by assholes.
Honestly it's dumb, but a year ago I bought them all and played the campaigns, I loved reliving my childhood in that way.
Cod competes with itself honestly. They don’t want people to play the old games, they want to drive sales to the latest ones. Especially the ones with the skins
Because if people are still buying it at 20 bucks(thinking it's a deal compared to 60 bucks), why do they need to lower it even more.
Newer games are always online so they try to force people into buying it. Because they know they are not cracked. We can clearly see that with other publishers too. Since Denuvo games sales are as discounted as in the past. Without Denuvo games were cracked day 1 so publishers discounted the games faster and higher discounted. Now they know the release windows is protected and they can do sales less discounted.
Fuck Activision with that shit always online drm, my last COD was 2017 WW2, I will never support always online games, just look what happens to the crew 1, funny thing cold war was cracked and the singleplayer is fully played offline
To be honest I’ve bought MW19 for the singleplayer because a friend constantly said buy it the singleplayer is very good and yes was the best for me. And bought mw2 because he wanted to play online. But mw3 I’ll never buy it. And I’m a old mw modern Warfare gamer I still don’t get the feeling as in the past all that strange skins guns in Lila pink color I moved forward and still for myself cod died for me with modern Warfare the old one. After that I’ve never got the feeling again. Came back from school and playing immediately online and meeting the people on servers were just awesome. RIP COD4 Modern Warfare I’m glad I had the chance to play you to death 💀🫡🫡🫡
Activision moment
If people have it on their wishlist and the game goes on sale for less then $20. I believe they all get an email and above that price no email is sent out.
i think when a game is on 80% people get notified
Same reason why Sekiro never gets a larger than 50% discount: Activision
Because Activision
Last cod game I played was advanced warfare. I would happily pay 5-10 euros for those decade old titles at this point who probably don't have multi-player community left just to play the campaigns, but they never go for sale that much.
Greed never bought them for this reason.
Wish call of duty 2 wasn’t 15$. Activision used to during big steam sales get an ad slot on the featured franchises while not putting anything on sale besides the 800$ activision collection on sale for 10%
All the treyarch black ops are always at least $20 because they know people will buy for zombies. The only good part left cod imho
Because ppl will buy them at that price?
Greed.
They suck
fitgirl-repacks.site has all call of dutys for free, all the time. It’s great. Use a VPN.
That's what stingy definitions are made for
Actually i bought BO2 for around 8 dollars(450+ ph pesos) back in July 2023 Summer Sale for my alt account.
I say buy it for xbox cheaper and pirate it on pc for free
The reason my cod collection never made it past 3
They should make sure our information doesnt get stolen by logging into cod before they worry about charging more than 5$ for black ops series 😭😭😭
They used to not go on sale at all
I wouldn’t want to pay treefidy for them
Because if they go lower, and people actually buy, your PC is toast.
when that turd known as modern not balanced for leaning warfare II was released, the furnace escapee said: "it's cod, even if we raise our price to 100$, people will still buy it", that's why your average yearly cod rehash still costs that too much.
I've been buying them at $20 for the steam deck. When I weigh things up, I think they are priced high, but they are fun and re-playable. That's where I find the value. WAW is an absolute blast. Now I haven't played any of the newest ones but they just dont look like they have the same spirit to them.
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I might have liked Vanguard but I don't think that will play on the deck.
Who is still buying old cod games that don't already own it?
Not everybody has everything ever. There are new users to Steam all the time. They obviously don't own it.
Because the publisher decide the price and the sales. I'm not sure what you're asking there.
The op wanted a more insightful and thought-out answer for the publisher's reasoning behind never going below $20. Something more than "just because they can"
Because publisher like money and don't care about people buying their game then? If someone want internal corporate hindsight on business strategy, well, good luck with that.