The Steam Summer Sale has everything—except 2022's biggest game

pcgamer.com:

I made out like a bandit in the Steam and GOG summer sales, but amid all the deals there was a curious absence: Elden Ring, 2022's biggest release, has held steady at a full $60 price point(opens in new tab) since launching February 25.

I find Elden Ring's lack of participation in the big sale interesting in the context of PC Gamer's own research into game prices, the price decreases of previous FromSoftware games, and the timing on discounts for some of 2021 and 2022's other major releases. In our 2017 investigation(opens in new tab) into the rate at which games are discounted on Steam, we found that full-price, triple-A games took an average of around 60 days to see a 25% off sale, while it has been 125 days since the release of Elden Ring at the time of writing. 

FromSoftware's previous two Soulsborne games, Sekiro(opens in new tab) and Dark Souls 3(opens in new tab), released around a month later in the year than Elden Ring but still received 20% and 25% discounts in their respective Summer Sales.

Taking a look at more recent releases, last year's fantastic immersive sim, Deathloop(opens in new tab), had a 34% off sale a little over a month after release, and while Resident Evil Village(opens in new tab) took five months to see its first sale with a 25% price cut, it likely still beat Elden Ring to the punch—it would be strange for Elden Ring's publisher, Bandai Namco, to skip the main Summer Sale then put the game on a discount later in the season.

It's worth noting that, while all those games are successful, Elden Ring's been a phenomenon, and has, week to week, remained one of the top five best selling games on Steam from release through just two weeks ago when it fell to #7. It was finally dislodged from the top