Cyberpunk 2077: three years of price history and what it taught me

Cyberpunk 2077 is a game whose price history is a textbook case in how the market values risk, demand, and time. I have a spreadsheet with the price for every month from December 2020 to today, collected from our comparator and manual tracking. The shape of that curve is strange and instructive.

If you bought the game at launch for 60 dollars, you lost not just money but also patience with the bugs. If you bought a year later for 25, you got something almost finished for less than half. If you bought in 2024 with Phantom Liberty for 40 dollars total, you got the best AAA experience on the market right now. All those purchases were rational in their moment. The lesson is in why.

Phase one: launch chaos (December 2020 to April 2021)

Steam price: 60 USD. Eneba price: 50 USD (sellers packed keys with cosmetic bundles). Kinguin price: 45 USD (mostly Turkish and Argentine keys). G2A price: 40 USD, but 40 percent of offers ended in refund tickets.

What was happening: the game shipped in scandalous condition, Sony pulled it from PlayStation Store, CDPR was refunding money. Despite that, demand was huge because players wanted to judge for themselves. Stores couldn't keep up with supply, distributor prices rose, secondary market sellers fought for keys. This period was exceptionally bad for buying, because the game was simply broken and the price didn't reflect the risk.

Lesson: AAA launch price is often the price of hype, not the price of product. December releases shouldn't be bought in December. The tradition of broken launches didn't start in 2020, but Cyberpunk showed it reaches the top shelf too.

Phase two: the bottom (May 2021 to September 2022)

This is where the thing that always fascinates me about AAA pricing starts. The game was being discounted ruthlessly, even as it objectively got better with every patch.

May 2021, first major CDPR Steam promo: 35 USD. About 40 percent below launch, despite patches 1.2 and 1.3 dramatically improving the experience. Third-party stores chased that price down, KKinguin had offers at 25.

November 2021, first big Steam Autumn Sale: 20 USD. Fifty percent two months after the next patch. First time keys below 25 USD from trusted vendors.

March 2022, Spring Sale: 17 USD. This was the moment the game started looking normal, though it still didn't have the PS5/XSX next-gen patches. Most reviewers came back to the topic with measured enthusiasm.

September 2022, just before the Edgerunners anime launched: 15 USD on EEneba. This was the window where everyone who postponed could grab the game for low money.

Lesson: the best AAA prices land in year 1.5 to 2 after release, when the game is technically fixed but the market hasn't pumped prices back up for new DLC. For Cyberpunk that was March to September 2022.

Phase three: renaissance (October 2022 to September 2023)

Everything flipped here. Edgerunners launched, the game started selling like hot cakes on digital shelves. From 20 USD in August it climbed back to 30 in November. Classic example of demand steering price non-linearly, in jumps.

CDPR was deliberately preparing the market for Phantom Liberty (September 2023). Already in July subtle price hikes began, "promos" stopped going below 24. Sellers on GG2A and GGamivo held prices, because they knew players would buy ahead of the DLC release.

Just before Phantom Liberty launch, the base game ran 28 USD, Phantom Liberty itself 30. Bundled together from CDPR: 47 USD (saving of 11). Third-party stores got the bundle two months later.

Lesson: avoid buying AAA right before a big DLC drop. The price is heated. Best offers usually land 2 to 3 months after the DLC release, when the noise dies down and sellers compete for players who haven't bought yet.

Phase four: stabilization (January 2024 to today)

After a year with Phantom Liberty the price settled at an interesting level. Base game: 19 to 24 USD in third-party stores, 35 on Steam. Bundle with DLC: 28 to 35 third-party, 47 on Steam.

Interesting detail: the gap between Steam and third-party stores is the widest here of all phases. Reason: the publisher wants to maintain the game's "value", third-party stores fight for customers. Consequence: players buying through the comparator save 30 to 40 percent consistently, those buying on Steam don't.

What this means for your wallet

If you play 5 games a year, Cyberpunk is the typical case. For every big AAA game you can apply the same pattern:

Never buy at launch, unless you're absolutely sure you can't wait a month. In most cases you'll save 15 USD by waiting 6 months, and 30 by waiting a year. That's the time when you have other games to play in your library anyway.

Wait for patches. Every AAA of the past three years needed several patches to be "finished". This isn't an exception, it's the standard. Cyberpunk's case was extreme, but Starfield, Dragon's Dogma 2, Suicide Squad, all needed a month or two after launch to be enjoyable.

Hunt the windows between DLC. 2 to 3 months after a big DLC is most often the cheapest. Stores look for customers who haven't decided yet, the publisher is tired of DLC promos and lets the base game drop.

Check price history through the comparator. Ours shows what happened to the price in recent months. If you see the game was 10 USD cheaper 6 months ago, you have two options: wait another 6 months for the cycle, or buy now because the price won't drop further. The decision is yours, but you have the data.

Cyberpunk for 60 USD in December 2020 and Cyberpunk for 22 USD in February 2024 are the same game but two different transactions. The first is paying to be early, the second is paying a fair price for a finished product. The choice is yours, but know what you're buying.

A final note on Cyberpunk specifically

The pattern I described is reproducible for almost every AAA from the last decade. What makes Cyberpunk slightly unique is the scale of the launch failure. Most broken launches recover into "fine, kind of forgettable" territory. Cyberpunk recovered into "actually one of the best RPGs of the decade".

That has implications for buying timing. A game that's just "fine" never reaches a price floor that surprises you, because demand fades over time and the floor reflects market expectations. A game that becomes a classic in retrospect, like Cyberpunk did, sees the floor rise again. Buyers who waited too long after 2022 ended up paying more than buyers who bought during the recovery window.

If you read a year-old game review and the takeaway is "fixed and recommended", that's your buy signal regardless of the calendar. Steam Sale or no Steam Sale.