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Tragedy struck Epic Games Store users this week as the Hitman 3 sale went live for the Lunar Sale. The game was 50% off, but that unfortunately only lasted an hour total. At the same time, Hitman 3 was finally hitting Steam, right around the time of the Lunar New Year Sale.
What disappointed fans on Steam was that the game was not on sale as players would have hoped. Instead, Hitman 3, after a year of EGS exclusivity, was sold at the full retail price of $60. While no official statement has been made, there are some thoughts on why exactly this went down.
Hitman 3 fans did not get the sale they hoped for
Hitman 3 was on sale for the Epic Games Store for roughly an hour before it mysteriously was raised to its original price. Many fans did not get to pick up the game for the reduced price that they were hoping for.
In addition, the game was not put on sale on Steam and quickly changed back to the retail price on the Epic Store. Although at the moment IO Interactive has not spoken on the situation, there are some potential reasons for this situation to have come up.
According to Steam documentation, developers cannot submit a discount within 30 days of a game’s release, but that would only explain why Steam’s launch does not have the sale price that Epic had. With this in mind, IO Interactive could not have put the game on sale in the Lunar New Year Event.
The Epic Games Store situation is a bit trickier, but there’s some information from past game developer troubles that could explain it. David Rosen of Wolfire Games filed an antitrust lawsuit against Valve that was ultimately dismissed last year. In a blog post made by Rosen, he explained the situation for the cost of their games.
"When new videogame stores were opening that charged much lower commissions than Valve, I decided that I would provide my game Overgrowth at a lower price to take advantage of the lower commission rates. But when I asked Valve about this plan, they replied that they would remove 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."
If this is true, it would certainly explain why Epic Games Store suddenly reverted the price back to retail. If Valve does not allow games to be cheaper elsewhere, that would explain the problem Epic Games Store users are having. However, the game's Deluxe Edition for Epic Games Store is still available for sale at 50% off on Humble Bundle, even if the regular game isn’t.
As of this writing, IO Interactive has not made a statement on why the Hitman 3 sale was reverted, so it is all speculation at this point.
