The strike-through price is a design choice, not a fact
Every discount percentage is calculated against a reference price the store itself picks. On Steam that's the publisher's MSRP. On third-party stores it might be the MSRP, the store's own "regular" price, or a price the game briefly had years ago. There is no independent authority verifying that the strike-through number reflects reality. It's a marketing input, chosen to make the sale price feel dramatic — which is why a game can sit at "-40%" for six months straight and still be called a discount.
Why percentage-off is the wrong signal entirely
Imagine two listings for the same game: one at €40 marked "-33% off €60", another at €30 marked "-25% off €40". Your instinct says the first is the better deal — bigger discount, bigger number. But you'd pay €10 less at the second. Percentage-off measures the store's chosen framing, not your actual outlay. The only questions that matter are how much money leaves your account today, and how that number compares to what this game has cost historically.
MSRP inflation: the pre-sale price bump
One of the more brazen patterns is publishers quietly raising the base price of a game a few weeks before a big seasonal sale, then "discounting" it back down to roughly what it used to cost. Consumer protection rules in the EU (the Omnibus Directive) technically require stores to display the lowest price from the previous 30 days as the reference — but enforcement is uneven, and only the biggest storefronts comply consistently. If a game's "was" price magically jumped last month, ignore the badge entirely.
The only number that actually helps: the all-time low
The historical low — the lowest confirmed price a game has ever hit anywhere, ever — is the only reference point that isn't chosen by the store trying to sell it to you. If today's price is at or near the all-time low, it's a genuinely good buy no matter what the badge says. If it's well above, no percentage in the world makes it a real deal. As a rough working rule: within 10% of the historical low is excellent, within 25% is fair, and anything above that is worth waiting on — the sale wheel comes around every few months.
One more trick to watch for: edition creep
"Deluxe", "Gold", "Complete" and "Ultimate" editions are the perfect vehicle for a fake discount. The base game might be at a fair price, but the store leads with the "-50%" deluxe edition — which is still €25 more than you'd pay for the base plus the one DLC you actually wanted. Always check the base edition's own historical price before assuming the bigger bundle is the deal.
How Degoran flags a real deal
Every price on Degoran shows the current live price alongside the historical low we've tracked across EU stores. When today's price is at or near that low, we flag it as a good time to buy — because the number actually says so. Ignore the percentage. Look at the low. That's the whole trick.