I think in whole bills. When i got $150 to spend on groceries, every item that goes into the cart gets added to a running total in my mind. I can do this with whole bills, but not cents. I could brain train it, or I could get a calc watch or carry a pad and pen. But I'm not that into it. I pick up an item, apply tax to the cost then round up. Then add it to the running total. Is easy. Saves me from going over-budget, while allowing me to decide at the end, how much I might have for bonuses like beer and pretzels.

does it? i've long ago started to think of the GOG price points as $6 and $10.

i've noticed that Steam prices seem to be rounded up more frequently. some games that used to be 4.99 during a sale are now 5.00. i don't mind paying 0.01 more. at least it's an honest price.

That is, of course, a nice way to do it. There's an added bonus that you'll almost always pay a few cents less than your rounded estimate. On the Internet, on the other hand, this no longer applies, since we have everything neatly summed up for us...

Some people are better with numbers, some aren't. Most brains are hardwired to round to the first number they see, and since western civilization reads from left to right, we see 5 and a bit more, not a bit less than 6.
As most things, you can train yourself to round to the higher number, or have a natural affinity to do so. Or maybe you just look at numbers and see them exactly as they are.

Like most things, for the seller, this is a case of damned you do, damned if you don't. If you round to 6, people will tent to see you at the top of the price pool, with the other sellers at "only" 5.99.
If you don't, you get threads like these.

Actually, I'd say not including taxes in the price displayed in the store is a lot worse business practice than the .99 prices. But that might be just me not being used to it.

You're probably right - I utterly fail at making estimates but deal well with precise data.

Maybe they should lower the prices to $5.98 and $9.87 or something (to make people notice) ? I sure as hell don't support the idea of everyone paying one more penny per every item just because some people can't be bothered to think ;P.

This can be a huge pain in the ass, since (in our country) not all are required to give you the final tally at every opportunity. Let's say I want to order a printer. I call a minor firm that deals with this, and they give me a price estimate. IThen I look at some more suppliers and/or stores and finaly I choose their model. Guess what? When I get the bill information (not required to pay, just the info), all of a sudden the price is 20% higher. Surprise surprise, now they added tax to the mix. Not once are they required to tell me this until I actually get an official document that informs me of the final price. Bastards.

Indeed. I think it's actually required by law around here to state the final price up front, but that doesn't stop some companies from printing the price with VAT in much smaller numbers than the one without tax. But what I was mainly referring to was not including the tax anywhere at all, even in a bloody supermarket, which is the common practice in California and probably other states of the USA as well. For my small European mind, that's just crazy.

i work in marketing and it is a great trick.

however, i thought this site was "above this."

thsi site clearly says its "by gamers, for gamers." which is awesome! so why the (albeit minor) deception? never took this site for greedy or for making major profits (more power to them if they do).

not really me bitching, as this site has some great prices.... just seems a little... off and unecessary.

That's right; in the US, it is customary to add "sales tax" to the price after the sale has been added up. There is no Federal general sales tax, and five states have no general sales tax. The reason sales tax is not included in the price is obscure, but best expressed by Ronald Reagan when he was governor of California, "taxes should hurt": you should always be mindful that the tax is present and that you are paying it.

I don't know about you all, but I have become so used to seeing *.99 in prices, that integers now look weird. Almost unprofessional even.

They are omitted by pretentious restaurants. Sometimes these establishments spell out the price in words, as

Supreme of Old Hen ... Thirty-Five

Also, businesses sometimes use the trailing cents as a code. For example, a price ending in ".99" may indicate an item sold at full price, and ".97" may indicate a loss-leader item. This makes it easy to "eyeball" how well full-priced and discounted items are actually selling.

Ah! Then I must assume that you assume the GOG accountants and management sat around with their expense reports and calculators and computed a retail price of exactly 4.99 – NOT 4.86 or 5.04, but exactly 4.99. Otherwise, they had to have rounded the retail to the nearest 99 cents. And, if they chose to round it, what was their rationale? Eh?

That, for me, is the topic, not the absolute retail amount. My credit card company doesn’t care if it processes 4.99 or 5.00. I don’t care either, but I do believe that the sales tactics employed by a company are important (witness, for example, the predatory marketing practices regularly used by US TV ads).

No, I assume they asked EnigmaticT what he learned in marketing school and that was the first thing he told them.