How we turn price history into an opinionated Buy / Wait / Skip verdict.
Published: 2026-04-15 · Last reviewed: · Author: GameThereAny editorial
The public Buy Signal is the reproducible part of GameThereAny. We compare the best live price against the canonical all-time low (ATL) and classify the deal with one transparent rule set.
STRONG BUY
Current price is within 3% of the canonical ATL and the deal is genuinely on sale. This is the cleanest buy-now territory.
current_price ≤ ATL × 1.03 AND is_on_saleWAIT
The game is discounted, but the current price still sits meaningfully above ATL. The deal is real, but history says patience can still pay off.
current_price > ATL × 1.03 AND has_discountSKIP
There is no meaningful discount versus ATL or the current price is basically normal retail. Nothing in the data argues for urgency.
no meaningful discount vs ATLWhy a 3% buffer? It absorbs tiny feed, FX, and rounding differences without changing the buying decision.
Every tracked game gets a single composite score from 0 to 100, built from three weighted signals. Higher is a better moment to buy. The verdict on each game page is derived directly from this score.
score = priceProximity × 0.40
+ saleRarity × 0.30
+ discountDepth × 0.30
→ composite 0–100How close today's best price is to the canonical all-time low (ATL). A deal landing at or near ATL scores the highest — because you're paying close to what this game has ever cost on any tracked store.
How uncommon sales are for this title. A game that rarely goes on sale scores higher when a discount appears — the deal itself is the news. A perpetually discounted title scores lower because the current offer isn't exceptional.
How steep the cut is against the recent reference price. Deeper discounts score higher. This prevents a -5% sticker from being read as a genuine deal just because the other two signals happen to align.
STRONG BUY
Current price is within 3% of the canonical ATL. This is as cheap as the game has ever been. Buy now unless you genuinely don't want it.
GOOD BUY
Current price is within 10% of the canonical ATL. Not the absolute floor, but a solid offer — waiting for another 1–2 dollars risks missing the window.
WAIT
A major Steam sale (Summer, Autumn, Winter, Spring) is within 30 days. History says you'll likely see a better or equal price very soon. Hold off.
SKIP
The title is never-on-sale or barely ever discounted, and user reviews are mixed or worse. Neither price nor quality argues for a buy at this moment.
The canonical all-time low is computed as min(CheapShark.cheapestPriceEver, ITAD chart min) — we take the lower of the two historical floors to avoid under-reporting. Live deal prices come from CheapShark across 30+ PC stores. Long-run price history and historical lows come from IsThereAnyDeal (ITAD). Game metadata — titles, cover art, genres, ratings — comes from RAWG. Prices and verdicts refresh every 30 minutes.
This is opinionated by design: we commit to a single verdict instead of handing you another undifferentiated price table. The methodology only covers retail PC game prices denominated in USD — no console deals, no subscription services, no regional currency normalization. All price data is sourced from third-party APIs and may briefly lag live store pages. The verdict is a decision aid, not financial advice — you know your backlog better than we do.
The short answers behind the Buy Signal, the refresh cycle, and the data sources we rely on.
The Buy Signal is GameThereAny's named verdict metric for live PC game deals. It tells you whether the current best price deserves a STRONG BUY, WAIT, or SKIP based on ATL proximity and whether the deal is actually discounted.
Live deal prices and Buy Signal verdicts refresh every 30 minutes. Some upstream APIs cache briefly on their side, so store pages can move a little faster than our feed during flash changes.
Historical lows and long-run price history come from IsThereAnyDeal (ITAD). We combine that with live CheapShark pricing and RAWG game metadata to build the page-level verdicts.
Because an exact ATL match is too brittle in real feeds. A 3% window captures tiny currency, timing, and rounding differences while still being strict enough that "STRONG BUY" means the deal is effectively at the floor.
No. WAIT means today's discount is real but not rare enough yet. If you want to play immediately, you may still buy. The signal is only saying the historical odds of a better price are still alive.
GameThereAny links out to stores with trackable links. Some links may be affiliate links, which means we may earn a commission if you click or buy, at no extra cost to you. Rankings and Buy Signal verdicts are based on price data, not commission rate.