Great move, of course. But I wish they'd gone for the $4.99 price point like Bioshock did a while back. That was insane. Or they could make it $4.99 from now until the free play weekend expires, and then $12 for the rest of the month. Maybe throw in the $20 Unreal Deal too (for all Unreal games).
I'll have to dig for the link, but I saw comments from Gabe Newell recently where he talked about the insane volume that they get when they discount games, and it seemed very disproportional to the discounts.
Edit:
Found it. It's a VERY interesting read if you haven't seen it already.
FTA:
Discounting games does not only increase unit sales--it increases actual revenues. During the 16-day sale window over the holidays, third-parties were given a choice as to how severely they would discount their games. Those that discounted their games by 10 percent saw a 35% uptick in sales--that's dollars, not units. A 25 percent discount meant a 245 percent increase in sales. Dropping the price by 50 percent meant a sales increase of 320 percent. And a 75 percent decrease in the price point generated a 1,470 percent increase in sales.
So a 75% price cut generated a
1,470% increase in sales by dollar value? Some very simple math will tell you that's an increase in units sold of just under
6,000%, or 60 times the current rate. I'm tellin ya Epic; sell the thing for $4.99. At least for the free weekend.
