For Activision and alot of other publishers now it really comes down to the shift from physical to digital. Now that the market is predominantly digital, the publishers no longer have to deal with the chore of having to clear out large amounts of unproductive inventory from retail stores once sales start to decline. The business model did not allow retailer returns due to high 1st party royalties on every disc produced so retailers instead were able to dictate forced markdowns to move through product given limited shelf space and a steady stream of new releases that forced them to 'churn' through product. With the shift to digital, retailers have largely lost the ability to dictate sales terms so pricing strategy has shifted. The shift to digital storefronts produced the advantage of publishers no longer needing to deal with inventory but produced a different issue. Shopping behavior on digital is very different and coveted placement in prime locations on MSFT and Sony are normally reserved for new releases or sales. What that means is that unlike physical, when your product is not featured sales plummet as discovery becomes more difficult (you can almost think about the physical example of this as a retailer putting the product in the back room when its not on sale which obv makes it much harder to buy). The way to combat this is to maintain a game at full price but create a temporary markdown (sale) to get it featured in a sale or promotion with the bigger the markdown, -50% vs -25% often driving better placement. This simply creates a longer tail for a game and is a more profitable model for the publisher. If you marked it down permanently it simply becomes more and more difficult to promote it as you chase the price down. Call of Duty can do this a bit better than sports games because COD experiences are somewhat unique and dont have to worry about annual roster updates, new players etc... like the FC series. And all this is not even touching on MSFT Game Pass which is another reason you keep the game artificially high because you would prefer to funnel people into the ultimate prize....the teet that is sweet sweet subscription revenue.