During the duration of Steam's Sports Fest, NBA 2K23 can be purchased at a price that is guaranteed to be at its all-time low. Even though the fact that we got the version from the previous generation hasn't helped the game's overall rating among Steam users, I was still a little surprised to see it on sale for $9.59 as part of Steam Sports Fest. Even though many people believe that NBA 2K23 does not represent a high point for the basketball series, the fact that we were given the version for the previous generation certainly did not help the situation. This represents a discount of 84% and comes well after the product's initial release but well before a year has passed since it was first made available.

It would appear that this is something that should be expected from the 2K NBA series. According to the price history data that was retrieved from SteamDB, an 84% price cut was implemented on Steam for both NBA 2K22 and NBA 2K21 just eight months after their initial releases. The video games are always made available for purchase in September, which means that the best sales occur in May. This code can be broken without the assistance of Alan Turing: During the NBA playoffs, 2K reduces the price of its most recent NBA video game release. (The fact that the NBA season was delayed during the year in question most likely had something to do with the fact that it took a little longer for NBA 2K20 to receive its 84% discount.)

Nothing like this has ever been included in any of 2K's other sports games or franchises. Considering that WWE 2K23 was only released in March, I wouldn't anticipate a significant discount (it is currently discounted by 25%), but the year-old WWE 2K22 has never been discounted by more than 75%, and it took 10 months before that happened. PGA Tour 2K23, a golf simulation game that was released seven months ago, is currently discounted a respectable 67% during this Steam sale, but that ain't 84%.

We have found over many years that PC gamers can significantly reduce the amount of money they spend on new games by delaying their purchases for even a short period. This is something that can be done year after year. According to a report that we put out in 2017, big-budget video games were, on average, discounted by fifty per cent within seven months of their initial release date. Considering that the publishers of annual sports games want to sell as many copies of their games as they can before releasing a new version each year, these games are particularly great places to look for deals and discounts. That does not explain why 2K's basketball series gets the deepest mid-year cut out of them, but now the two of us know a fun fact. If you buy these games, this could be a useful fact if you would rather spend $10 on them than $60. (Why don't you just act as though they're going to be released in May?)

EA's Madden 23, which is currently on sale during Steam Sports Fest for a 70% discount, isn't too far behind NBA 2K23. After nine months, the game is now available for purchase at the discounted price of $18. In addition to that, FIFA 23 is currently discounted by 70%. It's possible that the EA that previously expressed their disapproval of Steam's fire sales was not the same as the EA that we're talking about here.

There is currently no discount available for NBA 2K23 on the Xbox One, PS4, or PS5 platforms; however, the price of the Xbox Series X/S version has been reduced by 80%, bringing it down to $14. If you've done the math and it still doesn't make sense to you, first of all, let me congratulate you on your lightning-quick math instincts. Perhaps you should join Mensa or some other organization that recognizes such abilities. Second of all, that is most likely because the starting price for the consoles of the current generation is now $70 rather than $60. When 2K begins releasing current-generation versions of the NBA 2K series for the PC platform, we should probably anticipate a similar kind of price increase for those installments of the series.