How we turn price history into an opinionated Buy / Wait / Skip verdict.
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.